The Flavor Point Diet

By David L. Katz, MD, MPH with Catherine S. Katz, PhD
Published by Rodale
January 2006;$24.95US/$33.95CAN; 1-59486-162-5

Use Your Brain, Lose Your Belly

Think of your most addictive foods, the ones that make you lose control -- they're usually a jumble of sweet, salty, and savory flavors. Eaten alone, none of those flavors will make you fat. But when you combine them (such as pairing a savory cheeseburger with salty fries and a sweet soda), you'll usually eat too much -- even until you're painfully full -- no matter how strong your willpower.

From breakfast cereal to fast food, today's culinary landscape is crowded with an artificial surplus of conflicting flavors that overstimulate our brains' appetite-controlling cells. Learn how to optimize the flavors in your food, and you'll reach the Flavor Point -- the moment of fullness and satisfaction -- sooner, so the pounds come off faster . . . and stay off forever. You'll love every bite of The Flavor Point Diet because:  

It works. According to clinical research from Yale University, you can lose 9 to 16 pounds in 6 weeks and automatically continue to lose weight until you reach your goal.  

It includes delicious, healthful foods. People in a test group not only lost weight, they also lowered their blood cholesterol, blood sugar, and blood pressure, and shrank up to 7 inches off their waistlines!  

It's convenient. Many dinners take 15 minutes or less to prepare, and breakfasts and lunches, just 5 minutes to prepare.  

It gets results for the entire family. Each recipe was tested and approved by children ranging in age from 5 to 15.

With a guide to Flavor Point-approved brands, more than 100 fast and scrumptious recipes, a 6-week meal plan, and hundreds of tips, you'll stay "on point" effortlessly, lose weight easily, and reshape your body -- for good.

Reviews
"Dr. David Katz is America's 'Go-to Guy' when it comes to a sensible, sane, and science-based approach to personal health, and he's also fun to read."
--Mike Huckabee, governor of Arkansas and author of Quit Digging Your Grave with a Knife and Fork

"Dr. Katz has committed his career to helping Americans control their waistlines and improve their health by better nutrition. In this book he shares his enormous experience and insights. Readers can learn ways to add good years to their lives while feeling better now."
--Walter Willett, MD, chairman of the department of nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health and author of Eat, Drink, and Be Happy

"David Katz is so smart and passionate -- you can trust him to separate fact from fads and fantasy in the important search for more energy and health. Here's an insight that really helps -- with the added incentives of flavor and fun."
--Diane Sawyer, ABC News

"The Flavor Point Diet will send your taste buds buzzing and your waistline shrinking!"
--Jorge Cruise, author of The 3-Hour Diet

"Dr. David Katz is one of the most renowned experts in diet, nutrition, and weight loss. He combines the credibility of a research scientist with the charisma and wisdom of an extraordinary educator."
--Dean Ornish, MD, author of Eat More, Weigh Less and Dr. Dean Ornish's Program for Reversing Heart Disease

"David Katz has a unique gift. He translates scientific knowledge about nutrition and weight loss into practical advice and day-by-day menus that help us reprogram how to shop, eat, and live. And he does it using good humor and real-life stories of success. A must-read for all, but particularly those frustrated by 'breakthrough' and 'fad' diets."
--Michael Parkinson, MD, MPH, president-elect of the American College of Preventive Medicine

"The Flavor Point Diet provides a sensible weight-management program that is good for the whole family."
--James O. Hill, PhD, professor of pediatrics at the University of Colorado and author of The Step Diet Book

"Dr. Katz is a consistent source of excellent advice about good nutrition and lasting weight control."
--George Blackburn, MD, PhD, S. Daniel Abraham chair in nutrition medicine at Harvard Medical School and director of the Center for the Study of Nutrition Medicine

"Dr. David Katz, pioneering nutritionist and noted author, has now developed an innovative approach to weight control, The Flavor Point Diet. Employing a scientifically based, clinically proven method, this promising diet can succeed where others have failed. Reasoning that superfluous tastes added to prepared foods by industry act to stimulate hunger with consequent weight gain, Dr. Katz optimizes flavor themes in a positive direction. He shows how nutritional balance, appetite regulation, and lasting weight control can be achieved in a comfortable and practical way, a method that can be applied successfully for the entire family. Once again, Dr. David Katz is at the forefront of reliable and sensible nutrition advice."
--John F. Setaro, MD, associate professor of medicine and director of the Yale Cardiovascular Disease Prevention Center

"Dr. Katz is a thoughtful, well grounded, and widely respected expert in weight management and healthy eating. His presentation of a new weapon to combat our individual and collective rapidly increasing girth deserves very close attention."
--Jonathan Fielding, MD, MPH, MA, MBA, professor of health services and pediatrics in the department of health services at the UCLA School of Public Health

"Written by one of the most knowledgeable nutrition experts I know, this books uses the science on the biology and psychology of flavors to offer up one good idea after another for optimal eating."
--Kelly D. Brownell, PhD, chair and professor of psychology, professor of epidemiology and public health, and director of the Rudd Center for Food Policy & Obesity at Yale University

"The Flavor Point Diet is a science-based real-life (and real simple) program written with the consumer in mind. It makes sense that our sensory overload extends from video and television screens to the table, but when people perceive weight loss as work, it's difficult to achieve. Dr. Katz respects the temptations that surround us, but he shows you how to 'get your house in order' and get on the weight-loss track.

"Allow yourself to be guided by the caring Dr. Katz. The Flavor Point Diet is nutritionally balanced, full of ideas for easy meals and snacks, with great recipes plus information about shopping, reading food labels, dining out in restaurants, plus good advice for making healthy choices wherever you go. This is a fun program to follow . . . you can achieve your weight goal without dieting or deprivation."
--Susan Burke, MS, RD, LD/N, CDE, vice president of nutrition services at eDiets.com

"There's nothing more confusing than walking down the aisle of a grocery store. With Dr. Katz at your side, you'll always make the right choices. The Flavor Point Diet is a terrific achievement, blending science, insight, and the kind of real-world guidance we all need. I recommend it highly."
--David Zinczenko, editor-in-chief, Men's Health magazine

"Dr. Katz is an unfailing source of first-rate, scientifically based advice about good nutrition and the steps that need to be taken for achieving a healthy weight. This book contains a road map for all of us -- no matter our age."
--Francine Kaufman, MD, president of the American Diabetes Association

Excerpt
The following is an excerpt from the book The Flavor Point Diet: The Delicious,

Why We Overeat

The most important, prevalent, and powerful reason we eat and overeat is sensory delight: We do it because we see, smell, and taste food. You, along with every other human, have a sensory relay system that connects your mouth to your brain, your brain to your stomach, and your stomach back to your brain. Ultimately, your brain is in charge of your eating behavior. It controls what you eat and what you like to eat. As soon as you taste food, the sensory information registers in the hypothalamus in the brain, which, depending on the flavor of the food, sends out signals to eat more or eat less. Because of this sensory relay system, the appetite center in your hypothalamus can become aroused -- and in some cases overly aroused -- by how a food tastes.

To learn how to work with your appetite center, you must first understand it. It's time for you and your brain to become better acquainted.

As soon as you bite into any food, sensory stimulation of nerve endings on the tongue leads to the release of a number of chemicals, including opioids, into the bloodstream. You release more opioids -- the body's natural versions of drugs like morphine -- when you consume foods high in sugar and fat, creating a powerful, neurochemical drive to overeat those foods. These opioids and other chemicals enter the bloodstream and carry their messages to the hypothalamus, which sends out yet another set of chemicals to regulate appetite. The more flavors your taste buds register, the more stimulated the hypothalamus becomes, releasing the hunger-promoting hormone neuropeptide Y. When you taste a lot of flavors at once, the brain releases a lot of neuropeptide Y.

Meanwhile, in response to the smell and taste of food, your stomach produces the hormone ghrelin, which also stimulates appetite. It continues to produce this hormone until you eat enough food to literally fill your stomach and stretch the stomach wall. Farther down the line, in your intestines, levels of several hormones rise to varying degrees -- depending on the nature of your meal -- either inducing more hunger or turning off hunger.

To understand how your food choices can influence this complex chain of events, let's take a closer look at how this all works by comparing the neurochemical response to two foods you might eat for breakfast: a sausage, egg, and cheese English muffin sandwich and a bowl of oatmeal.

In the mouth: The mix of sugar, fat, and salt in the egg sandwich triggers the release of more opioids than the oatmeal does. These opioids create a powerful, neurochemical drive to eat more sandwich.

In the brain: The sandwich's sausage, cheese, and muffin offer many varied tastes, causing neuropeptide Y -- and hunger -- to surge. The simple flavors of the oatmeal result in the release of much less neuropeptide Y.

In the stomach: The sandwich delivers a lot of calories in a small package. It doesn't stimulate the stomach's stretch receptors nearly as quickly as the oatmeal, allowing ghrelin levels to remain high long after you've overeaten. You must eat many more egg sandwich calories than oatmeal calories before the stomach wall registers fullness.

In the intestines: The highly processed sandwich bread less effectively suppresses hunger-producing hormones than does the oatmeal, again leaving you feeling hungry despite the abundance of calories.

In the bloodstream: The stomach and intestines quickly convert the simple starch and sugar in the white bread into glucose, or blood sugar. The glucose seeps through the intestinal wall and into the bloodstream, sending blood sugar levels up. In response, the pancreas overproduces insulin, which moves glucose from the blood into muscles and other tissues. The insulin quickly drives down blood sugar, leading to more hunger.

On the other hand, the fiber in the oatmeal dissolves in water inside the intestines, where it creates a barrier through which nutrients must pass to get into the bloodstream, thus slowing the entrance of glucose into the blood. The result is a slower, lower rise in blood sugar; a slower release of insulin; no rapid surge and dip in blood sugar levels; and lasting fullness.

As you can see, what you eat has a powerful ability to influence how much you must eat to feel full and satisfied. You can't think yourself thin, as some books in the past have claimed. But by organizing the flavors in your foods, you can manipulate this complex series of chemicals and subdue the appetite center in your brain sooner, before you've overeaten.

Author
David L. Katz, MD, MPH, FACPM, FACP, is associate professor of public health, director of the Yale Prevention Research Center, and associate director of nutrition science at the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity at Yale University. Medical contributor for ABC News, Dr. Katz writes a monthly nutrition column for O: The Oprah Magazine and a health and nutrition column for the New York Times Syndicate. Twice honored by the Consumers' Research Council of America as one of America's top physicians in preventive medicine, Dr. Katz is one of the nation's foremost authorities on nutrition, weight control, health promotion, and the prevention of chronic disease. He lives with his wife, collaborator Catherine S. Katz, PhD, and their five children in Connecticut.

For more information, please visit www.flavorpointdiet.com.

Reprinted from: The Flavor Point Diet: The Delicious, Breakthrough Plan to Turn Off Your Hunger and Lose the Weight for Good by David L. Katz, MD, MPH and with Catherine S. Katz, PhD © 2005 David L. Katz. Permission granted by Rodale, Inc., Emmaus, PA 18098. Available wherever books are sold or directly from the publisher by calling (800) 848-4735 or visit their website at www.rodalestore.com.