Susan M. Kleiner - The Good Mood Diet: Feel Great While You Lose Weight

Copyright 2007 by Susan M. Kleiner, PhD, and Bob Condor

All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

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First eBook Edition: January 2007

This book is intended as a reference volume only, not as a medical manual. The information provided is designed to help you make informed decisions about your health. It is not intended as a substitute for any treatment that may have been prescribed by your doctor. If you suspect that you have a medical problem, we urge you to seek competent medical help.

ISBN: 978-0-446-55662-0

To Jeff, Danielle, and Ilana,
with joy in my heart.

SMK

For Mary, Lana, and Arthur.
Then, now, always.

BC

I ts a funny thing for an author to say on the first page of her book, but I want you to stop reading for a moment after I ask this question: How are you feeling right now? Yes, I mean it. Stop. Think about the question.

How are you feeling?

Take a moment. Give yourself a body scan. And a mood check. How did you feel when you woke up this morning? What about yesterday? Do you ever know how you feel?

If youre like most people, you probably dont pay much attention to how you feel. A busy, demanding life has a way of doing that to even the most well-intentioned person. Tired... you go to work anyway. In pain... work through it. Hungry... grab something, even if it is junk or doesnt taste all that great. Sad... eat comfort foods, maybe talk to your doctor about a prescription antidepressant. Happy... fleeting, but we enjoy those moods when we can.

Well, there is one Big Fat Exception, like a movie that keeps playing over and over in our heads. We know exactly when we feel fat, which can be most of the time. What do we do when we feel fat? Go on a diet. It typically doesnt matter how bad it makes you feel, as long as you lose weight. Right?

Wrong. This book is all about explaining my answer. I will show you how to feel great while you lose weight. I will show you how your meals and snacks can put you in a good mood every time.

The reason the Good Mood Diet works is because you will feel better on the diet. You will feel great. Your mood will lift, your energy will soar off the charts, and you wont feel hungry or cranky because you are missing out on foods you love.

The truth is, you wont even believe you are on a diet. Many of my clients find they have to get adjusted to eating more food, not less.

I will tell you about success stories and personal breakthroughs to make the Good Mood Diet come alive and show how it fits into real life. I have worked directly with hundreds of people during my career as a nutritionist. They have come from all walks of life, ranging from a Super Bowl quarterback, to busy professionals and parents, to my own mother. Lets start with Jennifer Lail.

When I met Jennifer, she was upfront about feeling down and highly self-critical about herself something lots of us might be less than willing to admit. She says she shook off a lifetime of self-doubt after just days on the Good Mood Diet.

Im thirty-five and always have been pretty healthy and active, says Jennifer, a Seattle woman who is involved in the sustainable housing industry. But most of my life Ive been plagued by body image hang-ups. Now I never think about them. My self-criticism and negativity just flipped to the positive.

Jennifer was among a group of Seattle Post-Intelligencer newspaper readers who agreed to engage in the highly public act of going on my Good Mood Diet. She lost 10 pounds and one clothing size in twelve weeks, reaching her initial goal. Five additional Post-Intelligencer readers lost 63 pounds total in the first three months, more than halfway to their personal long-term goals.

Better yet for Jennifer, she stopped having to combat a consistent depression. Her depressive symptoms vanished with the Good Mood plan. Completely disappeared.

In one week.

I used to get on my commuter ferry at night absolutely starved and grumpy, says Jennifer, who admits having tried many diets but never sticking to any one until she tried the Good Mood plan. Now I am happy to wait for dinner.

Jennifer reaped almost instant benefits from the Good Mood plan. She saw rays of hope after just one day with a different food pattern and with sounder rest. In less than one week she no longer felt depressed. After one month, she lost 6 pounds and she does not anticipate gaining those extra pounds back. Why? Because she says she can lose weight and feel normal with the Good Mood Diet.

To prove the point: Jennifer lost 25 pounds during her first year of Good Mood eating and living.

I love good food, and the amazing thing about this plan is that I honestly never feel hungry in a way that cant be satisfied with a Good Mood snack or meal, says Jennifer. It is second nature now to grab for something that supports health rather than something that detracts from it.

Jennifer pauses and smiles. Plus, she adds, I can still have a glass of wine with friends.

Jennifers experience is a familiar pattern to me. I have lost count of how many times a client or newspaper reader has called or emailed to remark how great they feel or how much more energy I have for work or my family.

I will be keeping it real throughout this book with ways to fit this diet into your life and not the other way around. For example, the fourteen days of Good Mood Menus in Chapter 3 all come with Real Life notes that cover such issues as the best time to have a smoothie, eating lunch out, or fitting pizza into the plan.

And, yes, that includes chocolate.

Lets talk real life. When I talked about the Good Mood Diet to a group of about 350 people in Cleveland, there was some concern about my recommendation to eat five fish meals each week, preferably a cold-water fish such as salmon or tuna. People were concerned about finding fresh fish, at least in some seasons, plus the cost. Well talk more about why salmon and tuna are such stellar mood and brain foods, but heres my real-life answer to those questioners in Cleveland: Five fish meals a week is your goal and I have plenty of ideas about how to add canned tuna and salmon to your meals without high expense but if you eat, say, only two or three, thats still two or three times a week you have boosted your mood with omega-3 fats.

Or maybe you have catfish or walleye instead of wild salmon or low-mercury tuna (much more about this in Chapter 1); thats still a healthy measure more of omega-3 fats than you would get from a hamburger or pork roast. But, hey, real life wins out sometimes, hamburgers and pork roast can be part of the Good Mood Diet too. Pork, especially, is bursting with B vitamins that control stress, and the neurotransmitter choline that helps fuel the brain.

This revolutionary Good Mood regime is developed from my twenty-five years of professional experience as a nutritionist. I have worked with professional sports teams, advised top-flight business executives and, oh, about a thousand mothers with young kids and their husbands looking to stave off middle age.