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.
Pre tri ipo godine napravila sam jednu od najboljih odluka u životu. Za Novu godinu odlučila sam da odustanem od dijete, prestanem da brinem o svojoj težini i naučim da jedem pažljivo. Sada jedem kad god sam gladna i smršala sam 5 kg.
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 kada sam počela svoju prvu dijetu. Sada kad pogledam tu sliku pomislim: "Nije ti trebala dijeta, trebao ti je stilista". (Smeh) Ali mislila sam da treba da smršam i kada sam kilograme vratila, naravno, krivila sam sebe. I tokom sledeće tri decenije, bila sam na raznim dijetama. Bez obzira šta sam pokušala, kilogrami koje bih izgubila, uvek su se vraćali. Sigurna sam da je mnogima od vas poznat taj osećaj.
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 neurolog, zapitala sam se, zašto je to tako teško? Očigledno, vaša kilaža zavisi od toga koliko jedete i koliko energije trošite. Ono što većina ljudi ne shvata je da su glad i potrošnja energije pod kontrolom mozga, uglavnom bez vaše svesti. Vaš mozak radi mnogo stvari u pozadini, što je dobra stvar, jer vaša svest - kako ovo da kažem na lep način? Lako se omete. Dobro je što ne morate da pamtite da dišete kada se zagledate u film. Ne zaboravite da hodate jer razmišljate šta da jedete 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.
Vaš mozak takođe ima svoj osećaj o tome koliko biste trebali da budete teški, bez obzira na to u šta vi svesno verujete. Ovo se naziva vašom "tačkom podešavanja" ali to je varljiv naziv jer se u stvari radi o opsegu od otprilike 5-7 kilograma. Možete izabrati različite stilove života da menjate svoju težinu u okviru tog opsega ali je mnogo, mnogo teže ostati izvan njega. Hipotalamus, deo mozga koji reguliše vašu telesnu težinu, postoje desetine hemijskih signala u mozgu koji govore vašem telu da poveća težinu, više od desetine koji govore vašem telu da je smanji i sistem radi kao termostat, reagujući na signale iz tela prilagođavajući glad, aktivnosti i metabolizam, da održi vašu težinu stabilnom, kako se uslovi menjaju. To je ono što termostat radi, zar ne? Održava istu temperaturu u vašoj kući kako se vremenske prilike napolju menjaju. Možete pokušati da promenite temperaturu u vašoj kući otvaranjem prozora tokom zime, ali to neće promeniti podešavanje na termostatu koji će odgovoriti pojačavanjem peći da ponovo zagreje mesto. Vaš mozak radi na potpuno isti način, odgovarajući na gubitak težine koristeći moćne alate da vrati vaše telo na ono što smatra normalnim. Ako izgubite mnogo kilograma, vaš mozak reaguje kao da gladujete, i bilo da ste počeli debeli ili mršavi, vaš mozak će reagovati na isti način. Voleli bismo da mislimo da vaš mozak može da kaže da li treba ili ne treba da smršate, ali ne može. Ukoliko izgubite mnogo kilograma, postajete gladni, i vaši mišići sagorevaju manje energije. Dr Rudi Lajbel sa Univerziteta Kolumbija je pronašao da ljudi koji su izgubili 10 procenata svoje telesne mase sagorevaju 250 do 400 kalorija manje jer je njihov metabolizam usporen. To je mnogo hrane. Ovo znači da osoba koja uspešno drži dijetu zauvek mora jesti ovoliko manje od nekoga iste težine ko je oduvek 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.
Iz perspektive evolucije, otpor vašeg tela gubitku kilograma ima smisla. Kada je hrana bila oskudna, opstanak naših predaka zavisio je od čuvanja energije, i vraćanje kilaže kada je hrana bila dostupna zaštitilo bi ih od sledeće nestašice. Tokom ljudske istorije, gladovanje je bilo mnogo veći problem od prejedanja. Ovo može da objasni veoma tužnu činjenicu: "tačka podešavanja" može se povećati, ali retko se može smanjiti. Ako vam je majka ikad spomenula da život nije fer, o ovakvim stvarima je pričala. (Smeh) Uspešno držanje dijete ne smanjuje vašu "tačku podešavanja". Čak i ako ste uspeli da održite težinu celih sedam godina, vaš mozak nastavlja da pokušava da je povrati. Ukoliko bi taj gubitak kilaže bio izazvan dugom gladi ovo bi bio razuman odgovor. U našem modernom svetu hamburgerija ovo baš i ne odgovara mnogima od nas. Razlika između naše nasleđene prošlosti i naše obilne sadašnjice je razlog što Dr Joni Fridhof sa Univerziteta u Otavi želi da vrati neke od svojih pacijenata u vreme kada je hrana bila manje dostupna i takođe je razlog što će menjanje okruženja sa hranom zaista biti najefikasnije rešenje protiv gojaznosti.
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 kilaže može postati trajno. Ako ostanete pri povišenoj kilaži predugo, verovatno je to pitanje godina za većinu nas, vaš mozak može odlučiti da je to novo stanje normalno.
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 dele "ljude koji jedu" u dve grupe, one koji se oslanjaju na svoju glad i one koji pokušavaju da kontrolišu svoje jedenje kroz snagu volje, kao većina onih koji drže dijete. Nazovimo ih "intuitivci" i "kontrolisani". Zanimljiva stvar je što intuitivci ređe imaju problema sa kilažom, i provode manje vremena razmišljajući o hrani. "Kontrolisani" su ranjiviji po pitanju prejedanja kao odgovora na reklame, mega-obroka i "koliko god možete da pojedete" švedskih stolova. I samo malo popuštanje, kao što je jedenje jedne kugle sladoleda, ima velike šanse da odvede do preterivanja sa hranom kod "kontrolisanih". Deca su posebno ranjiva na ovaj ciklus dijeta i prejedanja. Nekoliko dugoročnih studija je pokazalo da devojčice koje drže dijete u svom ranom tinejdžerskom dobu imaju tri puta veće šanse da postanu gojazne pet godina kasnije, čak i ako su počele sa normalnom težinom, i sve ove studije su pronašle da isti faktori koji su predvideli povećanje kilaže su takođe predvideli razvoj poremećaja u ishrani. Drugi faktor, uzgred vama koji ste roditelji, je zadirkivanje od strane članova porodice po pitanju težine. Tako da, nemojte to raditi. (Smeh)
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 skoro sve grafikone kod kuće, ali nisam mogla da odolim ubacivanju ovog jednog, jer sam štreber i tako ja to radim. (Smeh) Ovo je studija koja je posmatrala rizik od smrti tokom 14-godišnjeg perioda na osnovu 4 zdrave navike: jedenje dovoljno voća i povrća, vežbanje tri puta nedeljno, nepušenje i umereno pijenje. Pođimo od posmatranja ljudi sa normalnom težinom u okviru studije. Visina stubića je rizik smrti, a ovi 0, 1, 2, 3, 4 brojevi na horizontalnoj x osi su brojevi onih zdravih navika koje data osoba ima. I kao što biste i očekivali, zdraviji stil života, vodio je do manje verovatnoće od umiranja tokom studije. Sada, da pogledamo šta se dešava kod ljudi sa viškom kilograma. Oni koji nemaju zdravih navika imali su veći rizik od smrti. Dodavanje samo jedne navike povlači gojazne ljude u normalni rang. Za gojazne ljude bez zdravih navika, rizik je veoma visok, sedam puta viši od najzdravije grupe u studiji. Ali zdrav način života pomaže gojaznim ljudima, takođe. U stvari, ako pogledate samo grupu sa sve četiri zdrave navike, videćete da težina ne pravi veliku razliku. Možete preuzeti kontrolu nad svojim zdravljem preuzimanjem kontrole nad svojim stilom života, čak i ako ne možete da izgubite kilograme i ne vratite ih.
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 povrati svoju težinu. 40 posto njih vrati čak i više. Ako razmislite o ovome, tipičan ishod dijete je da ćete verovatnije dobiti na kilaži gledano na duže staze, nego što ćete 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 ubedila da držanje dijete može biti problem, sledeće pitanje je, šta da uradite povodom toga? I moj odgovor, u jednoj reči je sabranost. Ne kažem da treba da naučite da meditirate ili da se bavite jogom. Pričam o pažljivom jedenju: učenju da razumete signale svog tela tako da jedete kada ste gladni i prestanete kada ste siti, jer se dosta gojaznosti svodi na jedenje kada niste gladni. Kako to da uradite? Dajte sebi dozvolu da jedete koliko želite, a onda poradite na otkrivanju toga šta prija vašem telu. Posvetite se redovnim obrocima, bez ometanja. Razmislite kako se vaše telo oseća kada počnete da jedete i kada prestanete, i pustite da vaša glad odluči kada je dosta. Meni je trebalo oko godinu dana da ovo naučim, ali je zaista vredelo. Mnogo sam opuštenija po pitanju hrane nego što sam bila ikada pre u životu. Često ne razmišljam o tome. Zaboravim da imamo čokoladu u kući. Kao da su vanzemaljci zaposeli moj mozak. Jednostavno je potpuno drugačije. Treba da kažem da ovaj pristup ishrani verovatno neće dovesti do gubitka kilograma osim ako jedete često kada niste gladni, ali doktori ne znaju ni za jedan pristup koji je značajno doprineo gubitku kilograma kod mnogo ljudi, i to je razlog zašto se mnogo ljudi sada fokusira na sprečavanje gojaznosti umesto na promovisanje mršavljenja. Priznajmo: da dijete funkcionišu, svi bismo do sad bili mršavi. (Smeh) Zašto uporno radimo istu stvar i očekujemo drugačije rezultate? Dijete možda deluju bezopasno, ali one u stvari prouzrokuju mnogo kolateralne štete. U najgorem slučaju, uništavaju živote: opsednutost težinom vodi do poremećaja u ishrani, posebno kod mlađe dece. U SAD, imamo 80 procenata desetogodišnjih devojčica koje kažu da su bile na dijeti. Naše ćerke naučile su da mere svoju vrednost po pogrešnoj skali. Čak i u najboljem slučaju, držanje dijete je gubljenje vremena i energije. Za to je potrebna snaga volje koju biste mogli koristiti da pomognete svojoj deci sa domaćim zadatkom ili da završite taj važan projekat za posao, i zato što je snaga volje ograničena, bilo koja strategija koja se oslanja na njenu konstantnu primenu će vas prilično sigurno izneveriti kada se vaša pažnja preusmeri 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.
Dozvolite da završim jednom poslednjom mišlju. Šta ako bismo rekli svim tim devojčicama koje drže dijete da je u redu jesti kad si gladan? Šta ako bismo im rekli da rade u skladu sa svojim apetitom umesto što ga se plaše? Mislim da bi većina njih bila srećnija i zdravija, i kao odrasle, mnoge od njih bi verovatno bile mršavije. Volela bih da mi je neko to rekao kada sam ja imala 13 godina.
Thanks.
Hvala.
(Applause)
(Aplauz)