Three and a half years ago, I made one of the best decisions of my life. As my New Year's resolution, I gave up dieting, stopped worrying about my weight, and learned to eat mindfully. Now I eat whenever I'm hungry, and I've lost 10 pounds.
Prije tri i pol godine donijela sam jednu od najboljih odluka u svom životu. Moja novogodišnja odluka bila je prestati ići na dijete, prestati se brinuti o težini i naučiti jesti pažljivo. Sada jedem kad god sam gladna i smršavila sam 5kg.
This was me at age 13, when I started my first diet. I look at that picture now, and I think, you did not need a diet, you needed a fashion consult. (Laughter) But I thought I needed to lose weight, and when I gained it back, of course I blamed myself. And for the next three decades, I was on and off various diets. No matter what I tried, the weight I'd lost always came back. I'm sure many of you know the feeling.
Ovo sam ja sa 13 godina kad sam počela svoju prvu dijetu. Sada kad gledam tu sliku, pomislim nisi ti trebala dijetu ti si trebala modnog savjetnika. (Smijeh) Ali bila sam uvjerena da trebam smršaviti a kad sam kilograme vratila, naravno, krivila sam sebe. I tijekom sljedeća 3 desetljeća bila sam na raznim dijetama. Bez obzira što sam sve činila, kilogrami bi se uvijek vraćali. Sigurna sam da je mnogima od vas poznat taj osjećaj.
As a neuroscientist, I wondered, why is this so hard? Obviously, how much you weigh depends on how much you eat and how much energy you burn. What most people don't realize is that hunger and energy use are controlled by the brain, mostly without your awareness. Your brain does a lot of its work behind the scenes, and that is a good thing, because your conscious mind -- how do we put this politely? -- it's easily distracted. It's good that you don't have to remember to breathe when you get caught up in a movie. You don't forget how to walk because you're thinking about what to have for dinner.
Kao neuroznanstvenica, pitala sam se zašto je to tako teško? Očito vaša težina ovisi o tome koliko jedete i koliko energije potrošite. Ono što većina ljudi ne razumije jest da glad i potrošnju energije kontrolira mozak i to uglavnom da vi toga niste ni svjesni. Vaš mozak radi mnogo toga 'iza kulisa' i to je dobra stvar jer svjesni dio vašeg mozga -- kako to lijepo reći? -- se lako smete. Dobro je da ne moramo misliti na disanje kad nas ponese neki film. Nećemo zaboraviti kako hodati jer mislimo što ćemo imati za večeru.
Your brain also has its own sense of what you should weigh, no matter what you consciously believe. This is called your set point, but that's a misleading term, because it's actually a range of about 10 or 15 pounds. You can use lifestyle choices to move your weight up and down within that range, but it's much, much harder to stay outside of it. The hypothalamus, the part of the brain that regulates body weight, there are more than a dozen chemical signals in the brain that tell your body to gain weight, more than another dozen that tell your body to lose it, and the system works like a thermostat, responding to signals from the body by adjusting hunger, activity and metabolism, to keep your weight stable as conditions change. That's what a thermostat does, right? It keeps the temperature in your house the same as the weather changes outside. Now you can try to change the temperature in your house by opening a window in the winter, but that's not going to change the setting on the thermostat, which will respond by kicking on the furnace to warm the place back up. Your brain works exactly the same way, responding to weight loss by using powerful tools to push your body back to what it considers normal. If you lose a lot of weight, your brain reacts as if you were starving, and whether you started out fat or thin, your brain's response is exactly the same. We would love to think that your brain could tell whether you need to lose weight or not, but it can't. If you do lose a lot of weight, you become hungry, and your muscles burn less energy. Dr. Rudy Leibel of Columbia University has found that people who have lost 10 percent of their body weight burn 250 to 400 calories less because their metabolism is suppressed. That's a lot of food. This means that a successful dieter must eat this much less forever than someone of the same weight who has always been thin.
Također vaš mozak ima svoju predodžbu o tome koliko biste trebali težiti bez obzira na to u što vi svjesno vjerujete. To je vaša polazna točka ali to je naziv koji zavarava jer je to zapravo raspon od otprilike 5 do 7 kg. Svojim stilom života možete mijenjati svoju težinu krećući se gore-dolje unutar tog raspona, ali je mnogo, mnogo teže ostati izvan njega. Hipotalamus, dio mozga, koji regulira tjelesnu težinu, postoji više od desetine kemijskih signala u mozgu koji govore vašem tijelu da poveća težinu, i više od desetine signala koji govore vašem tijelu da smanji težinu i cijeli taj sustav radi kao termostat reagirajući na signale tijela prilagođavajući glad, aktivnost i metabolizam kako bi težina ostala stabilna dok se drugi uvjeti mijenjaju. To termostat radi, zar ne? Održava temperaturu u vašoj kući stalnom dok se vremenski uvjeti vani mijenjaju. Možete pokušati promijeniti temperaturu u vašoj kući otvarajući prozor tijekom zime ali to neće promijeniti postavke na termostatu koji će odgovoriti tako da pojača peć kako bi ponovno ugrijao kuću. Vaš mozak radi na potpuno isti način odgovarajući na gubitak težine koristeći se moćnim sredstvima da vrati vaše tijelo u ono što smatra normalnim. Ako izgubite mnogo kilograma, vaš mozak reagira kao da gladujete i bilo da ste bili debeli ili mršavi kad ste počeli vaš mozak uvijek reagira potpuno isto. Htjeli bismo misliti da naš mozak može odrediti trebamo li smršaviti ili ne, ali on to ne može. Ako mnogo smršavite, postanete gladni, a vaši mišići sagorijevaju manje energije. Dr. Rudy Leibel sa sveučilišta Columbia je otkrio da ljudi koji izgube 10 posto svoje tjelesne težine sagorijevaju 250 do 400 kalorija manje jer njihov metabolizam uspori. To je mnogo hrane. To znači da netko tko uspješno drži dijetu mora zauvijek jesti ovu količinu hrane manje negoli netko iste težine tko je oduvijek bio mršav.
From an evolutionary perspective, your body's resistance to weight loss makes sense. When food was scarce, our ancestors' survival depended on conserving energy, and regaining the weight when food was available would have protected them against the next shortage. Over the course of human history, starvation has been a much bigger problem than overeating. This may explain a very sad fact: Set points can go up, but they rarely go down. Now, if your mother ever mentioned that life is not fair, this is the kind of thing she was talking about. (Laughter) Successful dieting doesn't lower your set point. Even after you've kept the weight off for as long as seven years, your brain keeps trying to make you gain it back. If that weight loss had been due to a long famine, that would be a sensible response. In our modern world of drive-thru burgers, it's not working out so well for many of us. That difference between our ancestral past and our abundant present is the reason that Dr. Yoni Freedhoff of the University of Ottawa would like to take some of his patients back to a time when food was less available, and it's also the reason that changing the food environment is really going to be the most effective solution to obesity.
S evolucijskog gledišta otpor vašeg tijela na gubitak težine ima smisla. Kad je hrane bilo malo, opstanak naših predaka je ovisio o čuvanju energije i vraćanje kilograma kad je hrana dostupna je štitilo ljude od sljedeće nestašice hrane. Tijekom ljudske povijesti gladovanje je bilo mnogo veći problem od prejedanja. I ovo može pojasniti vrlo tužnu činjenicu. Polazne točke mogu ići gore, ali vrlo rijetko idu dolje. Ako vam je majka ikad spomenula da život nije pošten upravo je o ovome pričala. (Smijeh) Uspješno držanje dijete ne spušta vašu polaznu točku. Čak i ako ste održavali težinu punih sedam godina vaš mozak vas pokušava natjerati da vratite izgubljene kilograme. Ukoliko bi taj gubitak težine bio izazvan dugom gladi, to bi bila razumna reakcija. U suvremenom svijetu burgera' za van' to baš i ne odgovara mnogima od nas. Ta razlika između prošlosti naših predaka i naše obilate sadašnjosti je razlog zašto bi dr. Yoni Freedhoff sa sveučilišta u Ottawi želio odvesti mnoge svoje pacijente natrag u vrijeme kad je hrana bila manje dostupna, i to je ujedno i razlog zašto će mijenjanje hrane u našoj okolini zaista biti najučinkovitije rješenje za pretilost.
Sadly, a temporary weight gain can become permanent. If you stay at a high weight for too long, probably a matter of years for most of us, your brain may decide that that's the new normal.
Nažalost, privremeno povećanje težine može postati trajno. Ako predugo zadržite povećanu težinu, a tu se vjerojatno radi o nekoliko godina za većinu od nas, vaš mozak može odlučiti da je to novo stanje normalno za njega.
Psychologists classify eaters into two groups, those who rely on their hunger and those who try to control their eating through willpower, like most dieters. Let's call them intuitive eaters and controlled eaters. The interesting thing is that intuitive eaters are less likely to be overweight, and they spend less time thinking about food. Controlled eaters are more vulnerable to overeating in response to advertising, super-sizing, and the all-you-can-eat buffet. And a small indulgence, like eating one scoop of ice cream, is more likely to lead to a food binge in controlled eaters. Children are especially vulnerable to this cycle of dieting and then binging. Several long-term studies have shown that girls who diet in their early teenage years are three times more likely to become overweight five years later, even if they started at a normal weight, and all of these studies found that the same factors that predicted weight gain also predicted the development of eating disorders. The other factor, by the way, those of you who are parents, was being teased by family members about their weight. So don't do that. (Laughter)
Psiholozi dijele ljude koji jedu u dvije skupine, one koji se oslanjaju na osjećaj gladi i one koji pokušavaju kontrolirati svoje jedenje snagom volje, što radi većina ljudi koji drže dijete. Nazovimo ih ljudi koji jedu intuitivno i oni koji jedu kontrolirano. Zanimljivo je to što ljudi koji jedu intuitivno imaju manje šansi da budu prekomjerno teški a provode manje vremena razmišljajući o hrani. Ljudi koji jedu kontrolirano su ranjiviji po pitanju prejedenja kao odgovor na reklame, mega-veličine i 'kolikogod možete pojesti' tip restorana. I malo prepuštanje užicima kao što je kugla sladoleda će vrlo vjerojatno dovesti do prejedanja kod ljudi koji kontrolirano jedu hranu. Djeca su posebno sklona ovakvom krugu dijeta i prejedanja. Nekoliko dugoročnih studija je pokazalo da djevojčice koje drže dijete u ranom tinejdžerskom dobu imaju tri puta veće šanse da budu prekomjerno teške pet godina kasnije čak i ako su bile normalne težine kad su počele s dijetom i sve su ove studije otkrile da su isti faktori koji su predvidjeli povećanje težine također predvidjeli i razvoj poremećaja u prehrani. Drugi faktor, usput, vi koji ste roditelji, jest zadirkivanje od strane članova obitelji zbog težine. Stoga nemojte to raditi. (Smijeh)
I left almost all my graphs at home, but I couldn't resist throwing in just this one, because I'm a geek, and that's how I roll. (Laughter) This is a study that looked at the risk of death over a 14-year period based on four healthy habits: eating enough fruits and vegetables, exercise three times a week, not smoking, and drinking in moderation. Let's start by looking at the normal weight people in the study. The height of the bars is the risk of death, and those zero, one, two, three, four numbers on the horizontal axis are the number of those healthy habits that a given person had. And as you'd expect, the healthier the lifestyle, the less likely people were to die during the study. Now let's look at what happens in overweight people. The ones that had no healthy habits had a higher risk of death. Adding just one healthy habit pulls overweight people back into the normal range. For obese people with no healthy habits, the risk is very high, seven times higher than the healthiest groups in the study. But a healthy lifestyle helps obese people too. In fact, if you look only at the group with all four healthy habits, you can see that weight makes very little difference. You can take control of your health by taking control of your lifestyle, even If you can't lose weight and keep it off.
Ostavila sam gotovo sve grafikone kod kuće ali nisam mogla odoljeti a da ne ubacim ovaj zato što sam štreber i tako ja radim stvari. (Smijeh) Ovo je studija koja je istraživala rizik od smrti tijekom razdoblja od 14 godina na osnovu 4 zdrave navike: jesti dovoljno voća i povrća, vježbati tri puta tjedno, ne pušiti i umjereno piti. Pogledajmo prvo ljude normalne težine iz studije. Visina stupaca predstavlja rizik od smrti a brojevi 0, 1, 2, 3, 4 na horizontalnoj osi su brojevi zdravih navika koje pojedina osoba ima. I kao što biste i očekivali, što je životni stil bio zdraviji, to je bila manja vjerojatnost da će ljudi umrijeti tijekom studije. Sad pogledajmo što se događa kod ljudi prekomjerene težine. Kod onih koji nisu imali niti jednu zdravu naviku rizik od smrti je bio veći. Dodavanje samo jedne zdrave navike vodi ljude prekomjerne težine u normalni raspon. Kod pretilih ljudi bez zdravih navika rizik je vrlo visok, čak sedam puta viši negoli kod najzdravije grupe iz studije. Ali zdrav životni stil pomaže također i pretilim ljudima. Ustvari, ako pogledate samo grupu koja ima sve 4 zdrave navike vidjet ćete da težina ne čini veliku razliku. Možete preuzeti kontrolu nad svojim zdravljem peruzimajući kontrolu nad svojim stilom života čak i ako ne uspijete smanjiti težinu i to održavati.
Diets don't have very much reliability. Five years after a diet, most people have regained the weight. Forty percent of them have gained even more. If you think about this, the typical outcome of dieting is that you're more likely to gain weight in the long run than to lose it.
Dijete nisu baš pouzdane. Pet godina nakon dijete većina ljudi je već vratila kilograme. 40 posto njih vrati čak i više. Ako malo razmislite o ovome uobičajan rezultat dijete je da ćete prije dobiti kilograme na duge staze negoli ih izgubiti.
If I've convinced you that dieting might be a problem, the next question is, what do you do about it? And my answer, in a word, is mindfulness. I'm not saying you need to learn to meditate or take up yoga. I'm talking about mindful eating: learning to understand your body's signals so that you eat when you're hungry and stop when you're full, because a lot of weight gain boils down to eating when you're not hungry. How do you do it? Give yourself permission to eat as much as you want, and then work on figuring out what makes your body feel good. Sit down to regular meals without distractions. Think about how your body feels when you start to eat and when you stop, and let your hunger decide when you should be done. It took about a year for me to learn this, but it's really been worth it. I am so much more relaxed around food than I have ever been in my life. I often don't think about it. I forget we have chocolate in the house. It's like aliens have taken over my brain. It's just completely different. I should say that this approach to eating probably won't make you lose weight unless you often eat when you're not hungry, but doctors don't know of any approach that makes significant weight loss in a lot of people, and that is why a lot of people are now focusing on preventing weight gain instead of promoting weight loss. Let's face it: If diets worked, we'd all be thin already. (Laughter) Why do we keep doing the same thing and expecting different results? Diets may seem harmless, but they actually do a lot of collateral damage. At worst, they ruin lives: Weight obsession leads to eating disorders, especially in young kids. In the U.S., we have 80 percent of 10-year-old girls say they've been on a diet. Our daughters have learned to measure their worth by the wrong scale. Even at its best, dieting is a waste of time and energy. It takes willpower which you could be using to help your kids with their homework or to finish that important work project, and because willpower is limited, any strategy that relies on its consistent application is pretty much guaranteed to eventually fail you when your attention moves on to something else.
Ako sam vas uvjerila da bi dijete mogle biti problem, postavlja se sljedeće pitanje, i što sada poduzeti? I moj odgovor, jednom rječju, je svjesnost. Ne kažem da morate naučiti meditirati ili krenuti na jogu. Govorim o svjesnom jedenju: učenju da razumijete signale svog tijela kako biste jeli kad ste gladni i prestali kad ste siti jer se dobivanje kilograma često svodi na jedenje kad niste gladni. Kako to napraviti? Dozvolite si da jedete koliko želite i onda se posvetite otkrivanju što godi vašem tijelu. Jedite redovite obroke bez ikakvih ometanja. Razmislite o tome kako se osjeća vaše tijelo kad počnete jesti i kad završite i dopustite da glad odluči kad biste trebali prestati. Trebalo mi je oko godinu dana da naučim ovo ali je zaista vrijedilo. Sad sam toliko opuštenija kraj hrane kao što to nikad nisam bila u životu. Često ni ne mislim o tome. Zaboravim da imamo čokolade u kući. Kao da su mi izvanzemaljci preuzeli kontrolu nad mozgom. To je potpuno drugačije. Moram reći da vam ovakav pristup prehrani neće pomoći da smršavite osim ako ne jedete često kad niste gladni ali doktori ne znaju ni za jedan pristup koji dovodi do značajnijeg gubitka težine kod velikog broja ljudi i to je razlog zašto se mnogo ljudi danas fokusira na sprječavanje debljanja umjesto promicanja mršavljenja. Pogledajmo istini u oči: Da dijete dijeluju, svi bi mi već bili mršavi. (Smijeh) Zašto stalno radimo iste stvari a očekujemo drugačije rezultate? Dijete možda djeluju bezopasno ali zapravo čine mnogo kolateralne štete. U najgorem slučaju, uništavaju živote: Opsjednutost težinom vodi ka poremećajima u prehrani pogotovo kod mlađe djece. U SAD-u 80 posto desetogodišnjakinja kaže da je bilo na dijeti. Naše kćeri su naučile mjeriti svoju vrijednost pogrešnim mjerilom. U najboljem slučaju držanje dijete je gubitak vremena i energije. Za to je potrebna snaga volje koju biste mogli koristiti da pomognete svojoj djeci s domaćim radom ili da završite važan poslovni projekt i upravo zato što je snaga volje ograničena, bilo koja strategija koja se temelji na njenoj stalnoj primjeni će vas najvjerojatnije iznevjeriti kad se vaša pažnja preusmjeri na nešto drugo.
Let me leave you with one last thought. What if we told all those dieting girls that it's okay to eat when they're hungry? What if we taught them to work with their appetite instead of fearing it? I think most of them would be happier and healthier, and as adults, many of them would probably be thinner. I wish someone had told me that back when I was 13.
I za kraj vas ostavljam s ovom misli. Što kad bismo rekli svim tim djevojčicama koje drže dijetu da je u redu jesti kad si gladan? Što kad bismo ih naučili da rade u skladu sa svojim apetitom umjesto da ga se boje? Mislim da bi većina bila sretnija i zdravija i kao odrasle osobe mnoge bi vjerojatno bili mršavije. Voljela bih da mi je netko to rekao kad sam imala 13.
Thanks.
Hvala.
(Applause)
(Pljesak)