Losing weight can be a challenging process with a bunch of ups and downs.
What if there was an easier way to lose weight and all you had to do was change your eating style?
For example, have you ever heard of the phrase, "eat like a toddler"?
You may have noticed how picky parents can be when it comes to nutrition for their children, as they want the best for their child. A toddler is also on a strict eating schedule, where it always seems like they are crying for food. This is because when a baby is born, their organs (like the stomach) are still growing.
What are the five tips on how eating like a toddler may aid in weight loss?
- Never skip breakfast
- Eat every three hours
- Eat the food you would feed your toddler
- Don't eat or drink anything a toddler can't
- Adapt a toddler behavior
Eddie Fatakhov, MD, joins Dr. Mike to explain why eating like a baby can help you lose weight and keep the weight off.
Transcription:
RadioMD Presents:Healthy Talk | Original Air Date: May 14, 2015
Host: Michael Smith, MD
Anti-aging and disease prevention radio is right here on Radio MD. Here's author, blogger, lecturer and national medical media personality, Dr. Michael Smith, MD with Healthy Talk.
DR MIKE: So, what do I mean, eating like a baby can help with weight loss? My guest is Dr. Eddie Fatakhov. He was first, I think, a personal trainer, a nutritionist and he spent a lot of time helping clients with weight issues, healthier lifestyles. He even authored a program or book called Doctor's Clinic 30-Minute Program. And now he's a physician. I think he's in his residency, if I'm not mistaken. He's a member of the American Society of Geriatric Physicians. He plans to dedicate his focus on weight loss management to help his patients not only lose weight but to keep it off.
Dr. Fatakhov, welcome to Healthy Talk.
DR FATAKHOV: Thank you so much for inviting me, Dr. Mike.
DR MIKE: So, how did you know, being a young physician, how did you know you wanted to focus on weight issues?
DR FATAKHOV: Well, ever since a young age, I was overweight myself as a preteen and teen. Actually, I moved from Russia to New York. So, you never have to take your shirt off because it's cold. So, when I moved down to the south down here in Atlanta, George, and, you know, just going to the pool and being around everybody I just kind of became self-conscious and it wasn't until I broke my arm and went into rehab that I started going to the gym, working out and playing sports, I became an advocate about it and I became self-confident about myself. And a big part of my life as a personal trainer, as nutritionist as a dietician major, now, as a physician and an obesity specialist, so that's something I'm passionate about.
DR MIKE: Yes That's awesome. And I was familiar with your story a little bit because my producer Sheldon Baker sent me your bio. I like it when practitioners, doctors, trainers, whatever, have kind of like that personal connection to the specialty that they are going in. That adds a lot of passion and motivation to it. So, great job there. What do we mean or what do you mean eating like a baby helps weight loss? Maybe we need just to start there. What does that mean to eat like a baby?
DR FATAKHOV: So, basically, it's the pattern or behaviors that's like a baby. People come in to my weight loss clinic and all of them, and you've probably heard this. You've probably done this with some of your patients. They come and they say...I'm like, "What do you eat?" I ask two questions to everybody before I get [inaudible 02:35] "How many meals do you eat? Do you eat six meals times a day and do you eat breakfast?" More than 90% say "no".
And so, I pose a question to them. So I say, "You're pretty much eating like a sumo wrestler." And then they're baffled. "Oh, my god." And then I say, "Sumo wrestlers eat one or two meals a day. They skip breakfast, they fast when they work out.
They binge eat at night, they go to sleep. They go out to drink beer and alcohol like most Americans do. Go out to restaurants and when they thought about that and so they're eating to gain weight and you're coming here eating like a sumo wrestler expecting to lose weight. And that's why I make the conditions. She said, "Well, I'm a sumo wrestler, doctor. What do I need to eat? How should I eat like? And I said, "You need to eat like a toddler?" And that's where the concept kind of...why I started on the concept.
DR MIKE: So, explain then what is the eating pattern of a toddler?
DR FATAKHOV: Okay, so a toddler has a natural rhythm. They're born with it. The first day, their stomach size is small, size of a grape, size of a walnut by the second day. By the tenth day it goes to large grapefruit and then adult stomach is about the size of a big softball. So, they can't eat big portions. They eat small portions. So, what I tell my patients is, toddlers never skip breakfast. And they've done studies in 2010 in that people who don't eat breakfast tend to be overweight and obese versus their counterparts. So, I said, "Toddlers never skip breakfast like the 36 million Americans do." There was a recent Huffington Post article on that. So, it's the pattern of a toddler. They eat six meals a day. They've done studies on blood sugar control and metabolism and we lose more if we eat more frequently, so, you know...
DR MIKE: Yes. So, I would--just backing up to that so, going back to that concept of the small stomach. So, they have a small stomach, they can only eat so much anyway. They can only get so many calories in there before it extends and they feel full, requiring them to have another meal, maybe two or three hours later. So, what we're trying to do is re-train the adult stomach to kind of act that way and we do that by these smaller meals. That's basically the theory, right?
DR FATAKHOV: Exactly. So, eat the small meals and it stabilizes the blood sugar which prevents a lot of insulin release; prevents fat [inaudible 04:40] promotes fat burning by re-programming the metabolism.
DR MIKE: Now, that's an interesting concept because I even did some of my own research, Dr. Fatakhov, on the link between insulin sensitivity issues and weight gain. We know that when people are insulin insensitive, I'm not going to call it insulin resistant because that's Type 2 Diabetes but we can - it's kind of a spectrum of levels of insulin sensitivity The worse that gets, the harder it becomes to manage sugar, the harder the cell has a time in burning sugar versus storing it as fat. And what you're saying, if we go back to eating like a toddler that alone also helps in insulin sensitivity. Correct?
DR FATAKHOV: Correct. And if we look at what toddlers eat, they actually have a pretty good ratio of fats and carbohydrates. They eat a well-balanced meal and so another reason is they eat healthy. There's no mother I know that won't cook good, organic food, natural food, spend hours cooking for their toddler.
So, mothers and family members make sure the child gets the best nutritious food and the healthiest food so that they can have proper food. We don't do that as Americans and the last time I checked, toddlers don't go to Burger King and eat. They don't go out and get drunk as their adult counterparts. So, just having the behaviors of a toddler promotes a healthy lifestyle.
DR MIKE: So, working. I've been in corporate America now, Dr. Fatakhov, for maybe twelve years and I see that very pattern. I have colleagues that I know they rush in, they've had their Starbucks coffee or latte or - there's usually some sort of whipped cream on top of it. So, they got their sugar load, their caffeine load. They work pretty much through lunch, maybe at lunch they have a small something, whatever. They're starving by the time they go home. They go to a restaurant, they pig out, they have three or four drinks and then they go home and go to bed. That's a pretty typical day for a lot of my colleagues and that is completely the opposite of a kid, right?
DR FATAKHOV: Exactly. That's more of a pattern of a sumo wrestler. And they probably aware and they've done studies where if you go out to eat with your colleagues, 40% more fat you consume. 30% more calories consume because we are socializing and don't think about it. Plus, at the restaurant, you don't know how many calories there are preparing the food versus at home when you're mother or father and you're preparing the food for this individual. You know exactly what you're putting into his body.
DR MIKE: So, how do we do this then? How do we help somebody? Help an adult break this pattern that I just described which we both know is very - and my listeners know it – it's a very common scenario of that type of pattern of eating, gorging yourself, usually in the evening. How do we break that? We can't just tell patients and friends and family, "Well, don't do that. You got to eat six meals a day." Do you have like a step-up program that you put people on? What is the best way to get someone to break that pattern?
DR FATAKHOV: Yes, with my patients it's hard because they're 60 years old, some of them are 70, and they've been eating like that for twenty, thirty years so hard to convince them eat six meals all of a sudden. So, I say, let's just say you eat breakfast or you might eat dinner and what I try to do is I'd incorporate snacks in there. That's what I do. People can snack on something that's healthy.
Let's fill in one snack. Let's do 4 meals for this week and I'll keep them at 4 meals because anything is better than the one or two meals because you don't want to have your biggest meal ...70% of your meal every day should be throughout the day and maybe 20-30% at night. But it's the opposite. You're having 70% of all you're calories at night. When you come home from work, when you're relaxing in front of the TV and 30% is throughout the day. Now, we have to change it up a lot. [inaudible 08:19] a good pattern. You know?
DR MIKE: Yes. What I like about your system here,
Dr. Fatakhov, is I think sometimes in the weight loss industry we ask the wrong question. So often people will ask, "How do I lose weight? What's the best diet for me to go on to drop the pound, shed the weight, etc. etc.?" When really maybe the better question is why we're gaining the weight in the first place? Right?
DR FATAKHOV: Exactly.
DR MIKE: And we know that there are physiological reasons for that. We just talked about insulin sensitivity. There is hormone issues. There's a lot of reasons there but what you've identified is an eating pattern that might be driving that weight gain. So, maybe the first thing we do is we got to correct that underlining problem and then when they do try, maybe they want to eat more protein, less carbs, whatever. That's fine. That might have a better chance of working. Correct?
DR FATAKHOV: Correct. You actually hit the nail on the head. [inaudible 9:12]
DR MIKE: I'll tell you what, Dr. Fatakhov, let's hold that thought. We'll come back to that. We, also in the next segment will get into losing weight without feeling hungry.
I'm here with Dr. Eddie Fatakhov and we'll continue our discussion in a moment.
This is Healthy Talk on Radio MD. I'm Dr. Mike. Stay well.
Eddie Fatakhov, M.D., M.B.A., has spent years as a personal trainer and nutritionist, helping his clients with weight issues and providing them with tools for a healthier lifestyle. He is also author of the Doctors' Clinic 30 Program.