Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 10, Number 11, 1 November 1993 — ʻAi pono, e ola [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

ʻAi pono, e ola

Eat right and live well

by Dr. Terry Shintani

Eat more and weigh less?

What if you could eat more and still weigh less? Sound too good to be true? 0f course it does. But nutritionists are finding this ean be true. If you're like most people who struggle to control their weight, you must be tired of people telling you that you need to eat less, especially if you're already striving for that. Now you ean inform these critics that perhaps a better way to lose weight is to eat more. Surprising though it may seem, eating more actually ean help you lose weight, if you know what foods to eat. Still skeptical? Consider this: compared to 10 or 20 years ago, we eat 10 percent fewer calories, but obesity actually increased over the same time. Chinese people eat nearly 30 percent more

than Americans but weigh about 20 percent less, after adjusting for height(l). In fact, a stunning report out of Harvard University, published in May 1988 in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition(2) states that in 8 out of 10 studies worldwide of eating habits and weight, people who ate more actually weighed less and only a part of that difference was due to exercise. An average man or an average active woman requires about 2,500 calories per day in order to maintain their weight, according to the RDA estimates. You would need to eat 9.1 pounds of poi every day just to mainīain your weight (assuming, of course, that poi was all you ate). If you didn't eat that mueh poi day after day, you would lose weight, right?

Thus, most people ean eat as mueh poi as they want and still lose weight. There are hundreds of delicious foods that will allow you to eat more and still lose weight while getting the proper nutrition. Any combination of these high bulk foods will help you to lose weight, so long as you know whieh foods they are.

Now, what if you can't get poi or don't even like poi? Try brown rice instead. Or try potatoes (use A-1 steak sauce instead of butter or sour cream), broccoli or peaches. If you ate all you wanted of these foods, it would still be very difficult for you to keep from losing weight. And at the same time you'd be eating more food than ever before in your life.

Good news: almost all truly traditional Hawaiian foods fall into the category of foods that help you to do this. This is why the Wai'anae Diet Program worked so well. A listing of other foods (and tasty recipes) that do the same thing ean be found in my "Eat More, Weigh Less Diet" book, published in April this year. To obtain a copy send a eheek for $15.95 to the Wai'anae Diet Program, 86-260 Farrington Highway, Wai'anae, Hawai'i 96892. All proceeds go to support the Wai'anae Diet Program (see ad eoupon in this issue). Here's a recipe from the book for an easy sauce that makes high bulk vegetables taste great: 3 Tbsp. low-sodium soy sauce 2 Tbsp. Dijon mustard

2 Tbsp. lemon juice 1 clove garlic, cmshed Mix together and use as a dip for steamed vegetables such as broceoli, cauliflower, carrots, zucchini and kale. Dr. Terry Shintani, physician and nutritionist, is director of preventive medicine at the Wai'anae Coast Comprehensive Health Center. The center is the largest provider of primary healih care to native Hawaiians in the state.

Citations: 1 Whittemore AS, et a. JNCI, 1990;82;1 1:915-26 2 Romieu, I, et al, Am. J Clin. Nutr. 1988;47:406-12.