SALT LAKE CITY (AP) - When Steven Hawks is tempted by ice creambars, M&Ms and toffee-covered almonds at the grocery store, hedoesn't pass them by. He fills up his shopping cart.
It's the no-diet diet, an approach the Brigham Young Universityhealth science assistant professor used to lose 50 pounds and to keepit off for more than five years.
Hawks calls his plan 'intuitive eating' and thinks the rest of thecountry would be better off if people stopped counting calories,started paying attention to hunger pangs and ate whatever theywanted.
As part of intuitive eating, Hawks surrounds himself withunhealthy foods he craves. He says having an overabundance of what istaboo helps him lose his desire to gorge.
There is a catch to this no-diet diet, however: Intuitive eatersonly eat when they are hungry and stop when they are full.
That means not eating a box of chocolates when you are feelingblue or digging into a big plate of nachos just because everyone atthe table is.
The trade-off is the opportunity to eat whatever your heartdesires when you are actually hungry.
'One of the advantages of intuitive eating is you're always eatingthings that are most appealing to you, not out of emotional reasons,not because it's there and tastes good,' he said. 'Whenever you feelthe physical urge to eat something, accept it and eat it. Thecravings tend to subside. I don't have anywhere near the cravings Iwould as a 'restrained eater.' ''
Hawks should know. In 1989, the Utah native had a job at NorthCarolina State University, in Raleigh, and wanted to return to hishome state. But at 210 pounds, he didn't think a fat person could geta job teaching students how to be healthy, so his calorie-countingbegan.
He lost weight and got the job at Utah State University. But thepounds soon came back.
For several years his weight fluctuated, until he eventually gaveup on being a restrained eater and the weight stayed on.
'You definitely lose weight on a diet, but resisting biologicalpressures is ultimately doomed,' Hawks said.
Several years later and still overweight at a new job at BYU,Hawks decided it was time for a lifestyle change.
He stopped feeling guilty about eating salt-and-vinegar potatochips. He also stopped eating when he was not hungry.
Slowly and steadily his weight began to drop. Exercise helped.
His friends and co-workers soon took notice of the slimmer Hawks.'It astonished me, actually,' said his friend, Steven Peck. 'We wereboth very heavy. It was hard not to be struck.'
After watching Hawks lose and keep the weight off for a year and ahalf, Peck tried intuitive eating in January.
'I was pretty skeptical of the idea you could eat anything youwanted until you didn't feel like it. It struck me as odd,' saidPeck, who is an assistant professor at BYU.
But 11 months later, Peck sometimes eats mint chocolate chip icecream for dinner, is 35 pounds lighter and a believer in intuitiveeating.
'There are times when I overeat. I did at Thanksgiving,' Pecksaid. 'That's one thing about Steve's ideas, they're sort offorgiving. On other diets if you slip up, you feel you've blown itand it takes a couple weeks get back into it. ... This sort of hasthis built-in forgiveness factor.'
The one thing all diets have in common is that they restrict food,said Michael Goran, an obesity expert at the University of SouthernCalifornia. Ultimately, that is why they usually fail, he said.
'At some point you want what you can't have,' Goran said. Still,he said intuitive eating makes sense as a concept 'if you know whatyou're doing.'
Intuitive eating alone will not give anyone six-pack abs, Hawkssaid, but it will lead to a healthier lifestyle. He still eats junkfood and keeps a jar of honey in his office, but only indulgesoccasionally.
'My diet is actually quite healthy. ... I'm as likely to eatbroccoli as eat a steak,' he said.
'It's a misconception that all of a sudden a diet is going tobecome all junk food and high fat.'
In a small study published in the American Journal of HealthEducation, Hawks and a team of researchers examined a group of BYUstudents and found those who were intuitive eaters typically weighedless and had a lower risk of cardiovascular disease than otherstudents.
He said the study indicates intuitive eating is a viable approachto long-term weight management and he plans to do a larger study.
Copyright 2003 by Telegraph-Herald, All rights Reserved.
