[Guest Article] Interview with Dr. Brian Wansink by Michael Volkin

Eat With Your Stomach, Not Your Brain – An Interview with Dr. Brian Wansink

I was fortunate enough to interview Dr. Brian Wansink, lead author to over 100 academic articles and books, including his best-seller Mindless Eating. Dr. Wansink spent a lifetime studying the reason for the decisions people make when they eat.  Whether you are someone who is interested in losing weight, or even a nutrition expert, you will find this interview interesting and eye-opening.

Sergeant Volkin: Your book mindless eating has opened many people’s eyes into what food they put in their mouth. Which of our senses provides the biggest biased on what foods we choose to eat?

Dr. Wansink: Well, all of our senses affect the way we eat but our eyes affect our eating decisions the most.  In one study involving chicken wings, a group of students were invited to an all-you-can-eat Buffalo Wing feast. The students were free to serve themselves from an open buffet of chicken wings and were able to go back for more during the game. There were bowls at each table to hold the wing bones. During the course of the game, waitresses collected the bowls and replaced them with empty bowls - but only at half of the tables. At the other tables, the bowls containing the finished wings were not picked up.  After the game, me and my team weighed the discarded bones from each table. The students who didn't have the leftover bones as a reminder of how much they had already eaten, ate more - an average of seven wings per person; versus five wings per person of the other group. Although a 2 wing difference (at 100 calories each) doesn’t sound like much; that translates to 200 additional calories per day which equals a weight gain of 20 pounds per year.

Sergeant Volkin: One of your findings suggests that nationality plays a role in our food psychology. For example, the French know they are done with their food when they feel full. When asking Chicago residents, your results show they are done when their plate is empty. Do you think this mindset is the reason for the obesity epidemic in America?

Dr. Wansink: There are many reasons for the obesity epidemic but that reason is only a very small part.  In my opinion, the greater contribution to the obesity epidemic in this country is the affordability and availability of food.

Sergeant Volkin: Let’s talk about children. Obviously marketing has got very sophisticated over the years and it is harder than ever to get kids to eat their fruit and vegetables. You did a study and found that by adding fruit to the end of a lunch line, it increases fruit sales 70%. Same with vegetables, you can increase sales 25% just by giving vegetables catchy names. So let’s use the example of a typical mom with a couple of children. This mom is cooking her children dinner, what can she do in her home to get her kids more excited about fruits and vegetables?

Dr. Wansink: It is estimated that 70% of all fruits and vegetables consumed in the home are consumed during dinner. However, only 23% of dinner meals served in the home have a vegetable or fruit option. So always be sure to serve a vegetables or fruit at dinner.  Another tip you can do to increase your child’s consumption of fruit and vegetables it to have a bowl of fruit or a vegetable tray within 2 feet of where your child will walk in the house.  This will give your child easy access to healthy finger food.

Sergeant Volkin: You’ve made the difficult transition of taking your research and applying it practically to school lunch rooms throughout the country. Can you tell me a bit about the initiatives you are undertaking and where my readers can go for more information?

Dr. Wansink: MindlessEating.org is my main website but smarterlunchrooms.org is an initiative I have with schools across the country. In my new book that will be released in April called Slim by Design: Mindless Eating Solutions for Everyday Life, I will introduce groundbreaking solutions for designing our most common spaces like schools, restaurants, grocery stores, home kitchens and more.

Sergeant Volkin: You have found that we all consume more food from big packages, whatever the product is. Is it safe to say you do not have a Costco or BJ’s Wholesale membership card? 

Dr. Wansink: I have actually been a member of a wholesale club for years. Just because you buy in bulk doesn’t mean you need to eat in bulk. Let’s say you buy a big bag of pretzels at one of these warehouse stores. I suggest portioning out the pretzels in baggies.  This method has proven to effectively reduce the amount of food you consume. Now let’s suppose you buy a bag of chips at one of these warehouse stores but the chips are already in individual bags.  My suggestion is to just take a few bags and put them in your pantry, then take the rest and store them in a place where you don’t normally store food (e.g. your garage or basement).  This method reduces the chance of you grabbing more bags than you want for a quick snack.

Sergeant Volkin: In a recent interview with the calorie lab you stated “Most of us don’t overeat because we’re hungry. We overeat because of family and friends, packages and plates, names and numbers, labels and lights, colors and candles, shapes and smells, distractions and distances, cupboards and containers.” For someone who hasn’t read your books or your dozens of articles and studies, what one tip can you give them as a takeaway to this interview that will help them instantly make smarter eating decisions?

Dr. Wansink: My tip is people need to be aware of mindless eating, not mindful eating.  There are many ways people make mistakes eating, from party binging to mindless snacking.  Be conscious of the way you eat then come up with one easy thing you can do to remedy that mistake.  Much of the time the correct action is just being conscious that you are making the mistake.

Sergeant Volkin: Dr. Wansink thank you so much for your time today and congratulations on the success of your books. I am looking forward to the release of Slim by Design: Mindless Eating Solutions for Everyday Life

Dr. Wansink: Thank you for your time and your service Sergeant Volkin

This interview was conducted by Sergeant Michael Volkin, best-selling author of military basic training books and inventor of Strength Stack 52, a unique way to transform bodyweight exercises into fun and competitive workouts.

Some thoughts on (intermittent) fasting, aging, cancer, cleansing, spirituality...

Weird title, right? Well, maybe.

Without sounding New Age, and without making you guys think I am finally losing it, I think they are connected in a certain way. When it comes to this topic, people were mostly relying to the case studies and the word of mouth, but lately science is catching up – and it seems that traditional wisdom was mostly right.

There is a huge discussion on the topic of fasting lately and it is going mainstream more and more. I am soon expecting to see “experts” on this emerging in my area claiming that we were wrong all the time and that breakfast was source of all evil. But I digress.

The first time I’ve heard about (intermittent) fasting done in an organized and scientific way was by Brad Pilon and Martin Berkhan . These two guys were among the first to write about it and utilize it on themselves and their clients. I highly suggest checking their work, along with other links that will follow.

This blog entry was motivated by a BBC Horizon documentary I’ve watched yesterday in the airplane coming back from Belgrade to Stockholm. 

This was the great show and I enjoyed Michael Mosley going through couple of fasting options and choosing the one that suits his lifestyle, along with helping him reduce his body fat and risk factors.

Another interesting video I saw was on TED regarding cancer and how to ‘prevent it’ and ‘cure it’. It deals with reducing capilarization (anti-angiogenesis) of the tissue.  

I connected these two, since the BBC documentary claimed that IGF-1 (insulin like growth factor) was (among most) responsible factor(s) for health issues and aging. And in the BBC documentary they claim that protein was the biggest factor increasing IGF-1. And IGF-1 is also factor in angiogenesis. The thing is that eating a lot of protein and having higher IGF-1 was also a goal of looking good and performing well.

Now, I ask are these two (actually three) goals in direct conflict? I depicted these issues in the Venn diagram:

People tend to equate improvement in health and losing weight (body recomposition). Lyle McDonald has warned against this for years. If you are very obese, losing weight will definitely improve your health not matter how you do it (eating paleo style, or eating at McDonalds with reduced amount). When it comes to below normal ranges  (below 8% in men) in body fat, extreme results need extreme measures and different  training/diet combos have emerged (zig-zag, Lyle Ultimate diet 2.0, LeanGains, etc). But having this extreme body fat will not yield any further health improvements and may actually decrease the health and your social life and relationships (fourth circle anyone?). For sure it will decrease you performance (Martin Berkhan might argue, but having 5% body fat and working out 3x per week for an hour or two in the gym is not my definition of a pro athlete)

Same thing with performance circle. You gain strength for example, you increase bone mass, you improve hormone levels, you improve both health and body composition. But as you race for better performance you might end up screwing both your health and body composition. There is a fine (but blurry line). The professional athletes are the best proof of this.

Pursuing extreme health and longevity, you might end up looking like a zombie and being “frail” (due decrease muscle mass and power due aging).

The point of this discussion is that this Venn diagram defines both context and goals. Solutions to those goals might share common means up to certain point and then they split to extremes and demand extreme approaches.  Depending what you want to achieve you chose different tools and approaches.

One of the best self-experimentations on different (intermittent) fasting protocols was done by John Berardi HERE. He experienced a lot of problems from going fasting once a week to twice a week – his mood was worse, motivation to train was down the drain and performance as well.

Going back to fasting. I think there is something to it. I will share a personal story.   In high school there was one period where my mind was restless, with ruminating thoughts and probably obsessive-compulsive disorder (I was “obsessed” with symmetries of objects). Back then I stumbled on a book on Ayurveda and I tried a fast period they prescribe. Basically you don’t eat for couple of days, only drinking water and/or tea. This is the same protocol Michael Mosley did first in the BBC Documentary.

During that period I was going to school and that caused problems. I almost fainted on the day three and my concentration was… non existant. That’s why I suggest doing this when you are free, probably in nature or temple, or whatever.  

Anyway, after this fast most of the mentioned problems were GONE! I suppose going on ketones (check Lyle’s great book on the topic) makes your brain circuits reset. Sounds New Age, but more and more research is coming out when it comes to fasting and depression and any mental issues.

I think every now and then (maybe every 3-4 month) one should do this to calm himself in the hectic world. Going out somewhere in the nature, being alone or in a calm company, being relaxed and reflecting might be a cure for some.  In the BBC Documentary a doc recommended to Michael to repeat this procedure every now an then as well.

So, maybe all those religious ideas on fasting and cleansing are not so wrong after all. Your body/mind needs a break to repair itself. The question is how to utilize these ideas having Venn diagram above in consideration? How to do it in the modern world, when you have performance goals for example?

Well,  Michael Mosley found a solution that suits him, his goals and context. He continued doing 5:2, where he fasts (actually eat a lot less food) for two days after 5 days of normal eating. Another strategy might be Brad Pilons where you completely fast once a week. John Berardi did this with success. A lot of religious practices suggest this as well.  The only problem I see is how to (should you in the first place?) do it with full time athletes and where to put it in the week structure.

Having said this, I guess doing 5:2 or 6:1 might be interesting idea, with occasional 3-4 days full fast. Again, check the Venn diagram and try to identify your position. 

No worry, I will be back on the monitoring issues very soon.