Do-Over Tip from Dr. Roizen: Love the Foods You Wish You Did

Want some simple ways using diet, exercise, sleep, stress management and sex to revitalize your life now and for the vital years on the horizon? Dr. Roizen has them... in his new book, This Is Your Do-Over, he explains how to reverse your mistakes, optimize your health, and live a life filled with energy and happiness. After all, nobody is too old, too out of shape, or too unhealthy to start their Do-Over today.

Dr. Roizen's Do-Over Tip for the Week: Love the Foods You Wish You Did 

You know that double fudge caramel ice cream you’ll tearfully refuse on Monday and then eat a full pint of on Tuesday? Or that jumbo 20-serving bag of popcorn that you might maybe sometimes accidentally eat in one sitting, but only because you skipped lunch and picked at a tiny teeny yogurt cup for breakfast? This is your opportunity to retire those moments: consider yourself released from the torture of deprivation. (And please make sure you eat both breakfast and lunch!) 

You might be thinking to yourself, this sounds suspicious… we are talking about giving up our most favorite fatal foods, right? But bear with me. 

And seriously, this will only work if you make sure not to starve yourself. Not only does skipping meals strongly promote overeating later on as our bodies crave energy-dense and often non-nutritious foods, but it also causes your body to shut down into starvation mode, clinging for dear life to any fat it’s got. Just say no to starving yourself. It also makes you sad. Don’t do it.

The reason why we’re drawn to fat and sugar -- particularly when we’re starved -- is because they’re a) addictive and b) flavorful. So, part of the trick of making flavorful foods out of snacks less sexy than cronuts is to find great tasting herbs and spices and to have them ready at hand when you need them. You can do it for anything. Cinnamon and nutmeg for sweets. Garlic, rosemary, coriander, and turmeric for chicken, fish, and vegetables. The possibilities are endless.

But, you have to be willing to experiment with new recipes. Have tasting parties and learn which friends have tastes like yours. Satisfying your taste buds in this way helps extinguish the demons that are tempting you. Even salt is a great choice. Except for the mere 0.33 percent of Americans who have salt-sensitive hypertension, there’s nothing to worry about. If your blood pressure is about the ideal (115/75) with or without medications, and stays there when you have some salt, then you’re safe to add a little salt to your foods (people with salt-sensitive high blood pressure have major changes in their blood pressure with salt).

But let’s get back to the task at hand: right now, whip out a piece of paper and write down your top five (or as many as appropriate) food weaknesses. Next to each one of these foods, write down one thing that you can do (or eat) to substitute eating them if you feel a binge coming on. It can be substituting a healthy food like roasted asparagus with rosemary for French fries, or munching sea salted homemade carrots with pure ground peanut butter instead of chips (the peanut butter should have no more ingredients than ground peanuts and salt).

Instead of a food substitution, you can also choose an active behavior such as stretching or walking when you know you probably don’t need to snack. It can be anything. The key here is that you want to come up with contingency plans. Once those plans are in place, it’s much easier to avoid temptation knowing that you have an alternative to frenzied low-blood-sugar-induced dives into the Nutella jar.

Thanks for reading,

Mike Roizen MD, FACP (AKA The Enforcer)