Dr. Anchors' Usual Presentation on the First Visit

Let me be clear about what I can do for you and what you have to do. I can make you less hungry and keep you that way. You have to eat less food, by which I mean you have to eat fewer calories. Calories are all that matter. If both of us do our job, you cannot fail to lose weight.

This is why you need to lose weight: because you are not insane. Obesity is the number one preventable cause of death in the U.S. It kills 300,000 Americans each year, five times the total death toll from AIDS. How does obesity kill people? because all by itself, it causes stroke, heart attack, blood clots, sleep apnea, diabetes, asthma and it increases the top ten cancers other than lung cancer. Maybe you didn't know that before, but now you do. It's all published.

It is not totally your fault you are overweight; it's also the American culture. If you lived in Europe, you would be near your ideal body weight. Nearly everyone, there, is. Why? because they don't snack. There's nothing to snack on: no candy bars, bagged chips, ice cream freezers. Gas stations sell only gas. There's no French word for Ôsnack'. Europeans eat smaller portions and they eat slowly. At lunch they go, in groups, to a cafe and sit around a little table. At Ruby Tuesdays there are single plates as large as the whole table in Paris!

The waiter brings one thing at a time. Each item is pretty, colorful, tasty, spicy, well-made, expensive, but you can look at the food and see it's only going to be four spoonfuls . . . and the waiter is not coming back for 30 minutes. You'll be older when you see him again. So what do you do? You eat slowly. And you don't feel strange because you are doing what everyone else does. You taste and savor each bite, getting your pleasure from the flavor and not the quantity.

And you have a conversation with the people with you. The focus is not on the food anyway; it's on the people. The Europeans argue and debate and joke and laugh and flirt . . . and smoke--that part is not good, don't do that. An hour passes, two hours. They absorb some food while they sit there; the blood sugar rises and kills their hunger. By the time they get up they are no longer hungry, they have good tastes in their mouth, they've had a good conversation, they feel rested. Wouldn't it be nice to have lunch like that in America?

But in America all the food comes quickly; it's cheap and everything is so d-a-r-n B-I-G. All conversation stops, and people just shovel. Americans don't even taste their food. The new Appleby's commercial raves, "Come to Appleby's. You get more food for your money." They don't even say the food is good!

So the challenge is to live in America, but eat like a European. You will save money--truly save money--lose weight and save your life. When you go to restaurants where the portion sizes are too large, get an appetizer instead of an entree. Appetizers are as big as meals used to be! Or share dishes with a friend.

When you make food at home, make just enough, so that everybody gets one reasonable plate, and no more. Not every meal has to be balanced. Not every meal has to have a meat AND a starch AND a whatever. True, meals have to be balanced over a period of weeks, but not at every meal. The French make a meal of just mussels or just beef or just green beans. You do need to eat lots of different things, but not necessarily all at once.

The tendency in this country is to make extra food so that everyone can have all they want. Heaven forbid someone should want more of something and the bowl is empty. That's the worst thing, right? No! If they really need more, they can get it from the refrigerator.

It's a mistake to make extra food because people, especially men, tend to eat everything in front of them. If you make extra food, you will guarantee that your family will be fat. So use smaller pots and pans, make half-packages and don't get crazy trying to "balance" every meal.

Dessert is fruit . . . or nothing.