Conquer Your Weight

Dr. Sarah Stombaugh: This is Dr. Sarah Stombaugh, and you are listening to the Conquer Your Weight Podcast, episode number 33. Announcer: Welcome to the Conquer Your Weight Podcast, where you will learn to understand your mind and body so you can achieve long-term weight loss. Here's your host, obesity medicine physician and life coach, Dr. Sarah Stombaugh. Dr. Sarah Stombaugh: Hi everyone. Thanks for joining me today. This week I am going to share a fun fact about myself, which is that I really don't love lettuce and so I don't choose to eat it all that often. One of my patients and I were talking about this this week and I shared this with her, and our conversation got me thinking I should share this more broadly. And so there it is. I don't love lettuce, and it's not that I hate lettuce, I just don't love it. I like it the average amount, and so I eat it. Sometimes I enjoy a side salad with my dinner a few times per week. I enjoy having an entree salad even as a meal from time to time, but I don't go out of my way to include it as part of my daily food plan. And if I had to choose between either an entree salad with a protein on top or a serving of protein with a roasted vegetable on the side, I would choose the protein and roasted vegetable every single time. And it's February, so it's still pretty chilly outside. And honestly, a huge cold salad just does not appeal to me. I'm cold. I want some soup, and so I will gladly make and eat a hearty vegetable soup instead. And that's my preference. And because of that, one of the things that has never appealed to me about diet culture is an obsession with eating salads. Like the only way to lose weight is to eat a salad. Well, what if you really don't like salads that much? Are you just doomed to be overweight for the rest of your life? Or do you have to force yourself to eat a food that you don't enjoy? Well, that's a bummer. So of course, we're turned off by these different diet plans because who wants to eat foods that we don't love or maybe even eat foods that we hate? So what if it didn't have to be that way? What if every day you could instead eat foods that you love because that is completely possible for you? And I want you to note, this is different than saying just eat whatever you want and lose weight, but you can, and you should fill your day with foods that you love. And please don't get me wrong, if you enjoy eating salads, you can and you should eat salads. There are so many great benefits. Eating lettuce for one lettuce is full of water, which therefore means it's low in calories, so you can eat a large amount of it, and that's great. It helps to fill up our stomach. And that stretching of our stomach is one of the main ways that our body sends us satiety signal. So our stomach stretches, it sends a message to the brain that says, Hey, I'm full. It's time to stop eating. Lettuce also provides fiber, which can be really great to help bulk up our stools, help keep our bowel movements regular, keep us from feeling bloated. And so salads can be really great, but all of those benefits are not worth it if you don't enjoy it. On the other hand, just because lettuce is not my favorite food in the world, doesn't have to mean anything for you. If you love eating salads, please keep eating salads. But if you're like me and you don't love lettuce, here is my permission to you to go explore other options. Because if you wanted to, you could replicate the benefits of lettuce in a number of other ways. You could have a large glass of water with your meals. You could eat other vegetables or whole grains or seeds to get plenty of fiber. Heck, if you wanted to, you could even mix Metamucil or Benefiber, the fiber supplements into a glass of water. My point is, you have to do what works for you. You should choose foods that you enjoy and foods that serve your goals for yourself. And it may take some time brainstorming to figure out what those foods are, and I promise you, there are many. If you're struggling to come up with food choices that you like and that also meet your goals for yourself, let's talk pop on over to my website at www.sarahstombaughmd.com. That's www S-A-R-A-H-S-T-O-M-B-A-U-G-H-M-D dot com, and fill out the form on the contact page to get in touch with me. If you live in Illinois or Virginia, I would love to see you as a patient in my telemedicine based weight loss practice. If you live in another state, I would love to help you get connected with a board certified obesity medicine physician who can help you. Thank you so much for joining me today. I will see you next week. Bye-bye.