So this is a post about this french nutritionist, whose work was not translated in english, or rather is out of print now.
I met him at book signing a friend took me to wehen I was in france in the eighties. I was struck by how involved he was with helping his patients in the small talk he did before the book signing. It struck me at the time too how his view of approaching food and taking food was close to the buddhist way of paying attention to the subject of eating.
So here goes, please skip it if you find it boring, and apologies as it may be a little long.
Notes summarizing the method of Dr. Zermati .
Dr. Zermati thus began his career : after training as an MD, he took a specialization in nutrition in 1989,
putting his patients on the recommended diet of that time :
low calories, three balanced meals per day, do not skip meals, limit fat , comply with menus.
Early in his book, he takes the example, at that time, of a young, slightly overweighted teenager, to whom he simply prescribes
to follow the said low calorie diet, three balanced meals without snacking .
The teenager loses the desired weight, but after a while, obsessed with forbidden food, skips the diet,
gradually gains weight again, and stops coming to see him.
About ten years go by, observing the results on his patients, Dr. Zermati realizes that this diet system does not work on long term.
Most of his patients do well at first, but then after some time elapses, not only do they revert to original overweight
but often too, seem to add more.
He often finds them facing depression, feeling hopelessness.
Zermati, who is a dedicated practitioner, and loves his patients, is quite moved, and concludes that these diets may not work at all
correctly, on long term.
He takes three years, on the side, to instead analyze and carefully study behaviors, habits, genetics of thin people ,
people who have never experienced weight problems.
He comes to a completely revised idea that diets do not work,
and overweight is not , contrary to what one might think, in most cases, due to a genetic fact at all.
He realizes , after extensive research , that the key to normal weight is not the calculation of protein,
carbohydrates, fat, incidence of glycemic index, etc...
but to another very simple mechanism.
He observes, that the people who, as a child innately does, always listen to their hunger and satiety
will all remain thin, whether these persons have parents, grandparents , brothers and sisters
thin or fat.
Similarly , once this conclusion is made, he discovers that if he gets people who have a weight problem,
to make this their goal : to listen to, and respect the signal their bodies sends of satiety,
then, they naturally lose their extra weight, and return to their own natural ideal weight.
Not only that, but they show a taste for life, an energy and pleasure in food that were completely lost
during the process of their path to overweight.
The key, he says, is to get back your own system to regulate hunger and satiety .
The only thing that matters , he says , is the system on which we were depending when we
were a child
1 . On the principle:
"But you have to eat three balanced day for vitamins, protein meals etc. …"
he answers :
“ To ingest all the vitamins, proteins, mineral salts apparently necessary, you would have to eat such a quantity
of food per day that would have more than 4,000 calories, and we all would become elephant like in a few months."
The result of his studies is that , after a week, listening to the desires of food instinct, the body has absolutely ingested
all vitamins, mineral salts, and nutrients necessary for its renewal in the best way, in that given period.
From his point of view, the key point is :
relax, and know that what the body needs,
it will find it .
Unless you live in a specific area where there is famine and no access to food.
And the body will find those in the course of one week.
Hence the extreme importance given to the feeling of " under the tongue " that tells what the body wants.
For example, if the taste you want to get is the one of an orange : an orange has a lot of B6, a vitamin that regulates
the quota of water inside the body, chance is that you need to balance that quota inside your body.
He insists that if the body can not find a huge pleasure in swallowing a morsel more of a certain food,
this means that the ratio of vitamins, mineral salts necessary to the body from that food has been reached from that dish.
If the body had its need of calories, vitamins, mineral salts, of the moment, met, then hunger disappears,
and you just leave the table .
Hunger returns in search of other nutrients, and the need to listen again to what we want to
have " under the tongue " comes back.
So his first principle is, in the case of weight loss, that the patient will get to it through a natural calorie reduction,
but not by a cognitive action (the diet plan) because the cognitive action imposes forbidden foods,
which sooner or later will become obsessive to the person seeking to lose weight.
This calorie reduction will normally be brought through the sensations of hunger, and the object of hunger.
So any overweight person must immediately stop 2 things:
Start to eat without hunger
Continue eating beyond hunger
Once you start to live it differently, the body begins to naturally lose excessive weight
until it reaches the natural weight it should have.
To find the notion of hunger, and the satiety concept , that often has been totally forgotten by abusive diets,
notions of regimes, "forbidden" foods or " mandatory " dishes, Zermati offers then the first exercise below,
and adds two more.
First exercise :
The first exercise is an exercise in attitude to have for people who have lost all listening .
This attitude is simply
the state of mind to have at first, which will become natural as the process goes.
So when you decide to have a meal, here is the exercise :
1 . Am I hungry ?
IF You 're hungry, then sit a the table. Use small forks and spoons,
put them down on the table every three mouthfuls. This is very important.
Enjoy to the max the first bite , do not read , do not watch TV.
If you are sitting at a family dinner, decide that even if you participate in the family talk,
your first awareness, your primary focus will be, primarily, on the joy of tasting what has been put on your plate.
2 . Is that good under my tongue ?
Observe the pleasure of the first mouthful , revel in it.
Then watch the pleasure you have with the second mouthful , and then with the third .
It will be decreasing . Observe, deeply, how fast it is in fact decreasing. The first time you will focus on this,
how fast it decreases will astound you.
When the pleasure disappears, your body is telling you: I got enough of this nutrient, my needs have been met.
If you helped yourself very little of it, and the desire of this dish is still there , go back for seconds ,
but still, watch how fast is the loss of pleasure, and once there, immediately stop eating that dish.
Stop immediately when the pleasure has disappeared.
You must eat slowly and enjoy each bite separately to be able to enjoy and test your pleasure.
3 . Have I eaten enough ?
If hunger is still there , go to another dish that really attracts you .
Do not take yogurt if you have no desire for it,
under the pretense that this should be the next course.
There are NO mandatory and forbidden food.
Feel what the body is telling you , a little cheese , a little pasta, a small vegetable, half a pear, 4 squares of chocolate, etc. …
Do not worry, the answer will seem to rise from your body. LISTEN. This is so important, this is your body telling you what it needs.
You will have the desire to have something under your tongue.
If nothing is appealing, it is a bet that the hunger is gone and ... it will return later for another delicious meal that you will taste
again, with great joy, a meal that you will really want, that your body will really need ...
The listening to hunger is essential.
I met him at book signing a friend took me to wehen I was in france in the eighties. I was struck by how involved he was with helping his patients in the small talk he did before the book signing. It struck me at the time too how his view of approaching food and taking food was close to the buddhist way of paying attention to the subject of eating.
So here goes, please skip it if you find it boring, and apologies as it may be a little long.
Notes summarizing the method of Dr. Zermati .
Dr. Zermati thus began his career : after training as an MD, he took a specialization in nutrition in 1989,
putting his patients on the recommended diet of that time :
low calories, three balanced meals per day, do not skip meals, limit fat , comply with menus.
Early in his book, he takes the example, at that time, of a young, slightly overweighted teenager, to whom he simply prescribes
to follow the said low calorie diet, three balanced meals without snacking .
The teenager loses the desired weight, but after a while, obsessed with forbidden food, skips the diet,
gradually gains weight again, and stops coming to see him.
About ten years go by, observing the results on his patients, Dr. Zermati realizes that this diet system does not work on long term.
Most of his patients do well at first, but then after some time elapses, not only do they revert to original overweight
but often too, seem to add more.
He often finds them facing depression, feeling hopelessness.
Zermati, who is a dedicated practitioner, and loves his patients, is quite moved, and concludes that these diets may not work at all
correctly, on long term.
He takes three years, on the side, to instead analyze and carefully study behaviors, habits, genetics of thin people ,
people who have never experienced weight problems.
He comes to a completely revised idea that diets do not work,
and overweight is not , contrary to what one might think, in most cases, due to a genetic fact at all.
He realizes , after extensive research , that the key to normal weight is not the calculation of protein,
carbohydrates, fat, incidence of glycemic index, etc...
but to another very simple mechanism.
He observes, that the people who, as a child innately does, always listen to their hunger and satiety
will all remain thin, whether these persons have parents, grandparents , brothers and sisters
thin or fat.
Similarly , once this conclusion is made, he discovers that if he gets people who have a weight problem,
to make this their goal : to listen to, and respect the signal their bodies sends of satiety,
then, they naturally lose their extra weight, and return to their own natural ideal weight.
Not only that, but they show a taste for life, an energy and pleasure in food that were completely lost
during the process of their path to overweight.
The key, he says, is to get back your own system to regulate hunger and satiety .
The only thing that matters , he says , is the system on which we were depending when we
were a child
1 . On the principle:
"But you have to eat three balanced day for vitamins, protein meals etc. …"
he answers :
“ To ingest all the vitamins, proteins, mineral salts apparently necessary, you would have to eat such a quantity
of food per day that would have more than 4,000 calories, and we all would become elephant like in a few months."
The result of his studies is that , after a week, listening to the desires of food instinct, the body has absolutely ingested
all vitamins, mineral salts, and nutrients necessary for its renewal in the best way, in that given period.
From his point of view, the key point is :
relax, and know that what the body needs,
it will find it .
Unless you live in a specific area where there is famine and no access to food.
And the body will find those in the course of one week.
Hence the extreme importance given to the feeling of " under the tongue " that tells what the body wants.
For example, if the taste you want to get is the one of an orange : an orange has a lot of B6, a vitamin that regulates
the quota of water inside the body, chance is that you need to balance that quota inside your body.
He insists that if the body can not find a huge pleasure in swallowing a morsel more of a certain food,
this means that the ratio of vitamins, mineral salts necessary to the body from that food has been reached from that dish.
If the body had its need of calories, vitamins, mineral salts, of the moment, met, then hunger disappears,
and you just leave the table .
Hunger returns in search of other nutrients, and the need to listen again to what we want to
have " under the tongue " comes back.
So his first principle is, in the case of weight loss, that the patient will get to it through a natural calorie reduction,
but not by a cognitive action (the diet plan) because the cognitive action imposes forbidden foods,
which sooner or later will become obsessive to the person seeking to lose weight.
This calorie reduction will normally be brought through the sensations of hunger, and the object of hunger.
So any overweight person must immediately stop 2 things:
Start to eat without hunger
Continue eating beyond hunger
Once you start to live it differently, the body begins to naturally lose excessive weight
until it reaches the natural weight it should have.
To find the notion of hunger, and the satiety concept , that often has been totally forgotten by abusive diets,
notions of regimes, "forbidden" foods or " mandatory " dishes, Zermati offers then the first exercise below,
and adds two more.
First exercise :
The first exercise is an exercise in attitude to have for people who have lost all listening .
This attitude is simply
the state of mind to have at first, which will become natural as the process goes.
So when you decide to have a meal, here is the exercise :
1 . Am I hungry ?
IF You 're hungry, then sit a the table. Use small forks and spoons,
put them down on the table every three mouthfuls. This is very important.
Enjoy to the max the first bite , do not read , do not watch TV.
If you are sitting at a family dinner, decide that even if you participate in the family talk,
your first awareness, your primary focus will be, primarily, on the joy of tasting what has been put on your plate.
2 . Is that good under my tongue ?
Observe the pleasure of the first mouthful , revel in it.
Then watch the pleasure you have with the second mouthful , and then with the third .
It will be decreasing . Observe, deeply, how fast it is in fact decreasing. The first time you will focus on this,
how fast it decreases will astound you.
When the pleasure disappears, your body is telling you: I got enough of this nutrient, my needs have been met.
If you helped yourself very little of it, and the desire of this dish is still there , go back for seconds ,
but still, watch how fast is the loss of pleasure, and once there, immediately stop eating that dish.
Stop immediately when the pleasure has disappeared.
You must eat slowly and enjoy each bite separately to be able to enjoy and test your pleasure.
3 . Have I eaten enough ?
If hunger is still there , go to another dish that really attracts you .
Do not take yogurt if you have no desire for it,
under the pretense that this should be the next course.
There are NO mandatory and forbidden food.
Feel what the body is telling you , a little cheese , a little pasta, a small vegetable, half a pear, 4 squares of chocolate, etc. …
Do not worry, the answer will seem to rise from your body. LISTEN. This is so important, this is your body telling you what it needs.
You will have the desire to have something under your tongue.
If nothing is appealing, it is a bet that the hunger is gone and ... it will return later for another delicious meal that you will taste
again, with great joy, a meal that you will really want, that your body will really need ...
The listening to hunger is essential.
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