Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Live Today

Talk with Author of 'Change One' Diet Plan

Aired January 29, 2003 - 11:47   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: Starting a diet can be daunting and discouraging prospect for some, but a new plan that's being talked about now recommends taking one day, even one meal at a time. It's called Change One, the breakthrough 12-week eating plan.
And joining us from our Chicago bureau to talk about it is author John Hastings.

Good to see you, John. How are you?

JOHN HASTINGS, AUTHOR, "CHANGE ONE": Good morning. I'm doing well.

HARRIS: Got to tell you first off this morning, our medical news correspondent Elizabeth Cohen look at this and said, big duh, you eat less, you lose weight. What's the big surprise here?

HASTINGS: Well, that's actually it. I mean, Americans have just been eating more and more, and I think what we were really responding to and our goal with this plan is that you know, everybody's talking about magic foods. people are talking about eat nothing but meat, eat nothing but vegetables, and the reality is, when you look at the research and the data, Americans are just eating more and more. So we've focused this on portion size.

The dig difference for this plan really is that we've changed the approach. We like to think of it as lose weight one meal at a time, one week at a time. Our goal with the plan really is you just start with breakfast, and the rest of the day you don't have to do anything.

HARRIS: What do you mean? You start with breakfast. I assume you're talking about just cutting down on your portion sizes, right?

HASTINGS: Exactly, yes, you cut down on the sizes. You start eating breakfast if you weren't eating it before, and our goal is really to work with dieters so that they can find foods that they enjoy and that they love. So they can experiment. They get a whole week. And if they eat something, and hey, it didn't fill them up, they're off the diet for the rest of the day; they can make it up later. So by the end of that week, then they've nailed breakfast down, and it's a small simple change, easy focus, and then they move, they keep up with the breakfast, and then move on to lunch the second week.

HARRIS: Let's talk about -- first of all, I've got to ask you about the portion sizes. Because in the book, I want to show this to the camera here. You can see what I have here in my hand -- I've got a golf ball, I've got a baseball and a little squeegee ball here.

And you're saying that we're supposed to use balls like this to determine what size portions we should be eating. Give us an example what you mean. What should I be eating that's golf ball size.

HASTINGS: Golf ball really is, unfortunately, is ice cream. We should be eating a lot less of that.

HARRIS: Come on.

HASTINGS: But the idea with using these balls is that everybody had these other markers. We have a deck of cards for three or four ounces of red meat, for example. We have a checkbook that is for six ounces of fish or chicken, like chicken breast, and like the tennis ball is for say a roll or a potato. A baseball is for -- and the idea with those is these are objects everybody can keep in their mind. They know roughly what size -- everybody has a reference point for that.

So when you're out say at a restaurant or say you get fast food, you can keep this in mind. You know roughly what you're allowed. You don't have to tally points or count calories.

HARRIS: So what am I eating that's the size of a baseball here.

HASTINGS: Baseball is like your breakfast cereal, for example. Mind you, this is for a dieter, of course, so this is when you're cutting calories. So that's what you start with, and then later on, as you start to approach your goal, of course, you would eat more.

HARRIS: Right, because most of us would be eating the ice cream that's at least a baseball size.

HASTINGS: That's where we are right now, exactly, but the surprising thing on a diet like this is we ran this program at "Readers Digest." Of course this is a "Readers Digest" program, sponsored by "Readers Digest," and we also ran it with folks in Iowa and California, and what people found is they could eat that small amount of food and still be full. They weren't hungry.

HARRIS: So you're saying that this basically does make it easy to deal with the willpower problem, that eating a scoop of ice cream this big is going to satisfy a person enough, and if they convince themselves somehow, some way that is enough for them, and then they can go ahead to the rest of the diet?

HASTINGS: Yes, that's the idea. The goal really is so we move on to lunch the second week, and you work on it, you saw the problems, you look at your life, you find solutions that work for you, and then we move on to snacks, and that's in the third week, and finally, in the fourth week, dinner. It is a 12-week plan, and then we go on to address various lifestyle aspects like stress and how that affects eating and then dining out.

But the goal really is that people will start to recognize those portion sizes. And often what we're looking for with something like ice cream is really a couple of bites or a few more than that is all we really need, that idea of sitting in front of the freezer and downing that pint of Ben & Jerry's, for example, you know, that's more than we need, and then you're eating for different reasons. Those are emotional reasons, and that's another thing we really address in the book. We spend a lot of time trying to probe dieters and get them to look at hunger versus, say, other reasons for eating.

HASTINGS: All right, well, we'll see how many folks you convince.

John Hastings, thank you. The diet is Change One, lose weight, 12 weeks, and one meal at a time. And I got tell you, this golf ball, I think I've taken medications bigger than this, John. We'll see how it works out. John Hastings, thanks so much.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com







Aired January 29, 2003 - 11:47   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: Starting a diet can be daunting and discouraging prospect for some, but a new plan that's being talked about now recommends taking one day, even one meal at a time. It's called Change One, the breakthrough 12-week eating plan.
And joining us from our Chicago bureau to talk about it is author John Hastings.

Good to see you, John. How are you?

JOHN HASTINGS, AUTHOR, "CHANGE ONE": Good morning. I'm doing well.

HARRIS: Got to tell you first off this morning, our medical news correspondent Elizabeth Cohen look at this and said, big duh, you eat less, you lose weight. What's the big surprise here?

HASTINGS: Well, that's actually it. I mean, Americans have just been eating more and more, and I think what we were really responding to and our goal with this plan is that you know, everybody's talking about magic foods. people are talking about eat nothing but meat, eat nothing but vegetables, and the reality is, when you look at the research and the data, Americans are just eating more and more. So we've focused this on portion size.

The dig difference for this plan really is that we've changed the approach. We like to think of it as lose weight one meal at a time, one week at a time. Our goal with the plan really is you just start with breakfast, and the rest of the day you don't have to do anything.

HARRIS: What do you mean? You start with breakfast. I assume you're talking about just cutting down on your portion sizes, right?

HASTINGS: Exactly, yes, you cut down on the sizes. You start eating breakfast if you weren't eating it before, and our goal is really to work with dieters so that they can find foods that they enjoy and that they love. So they can experiment. They get a whole week. And if they eat something, and hey, it didn't fill them up, they're off the diet for the rest of the day; they can make it up later. So by the end of that week, then they've nailed breakfast down, and it's a small simple change, easy focus, and then they move, they keep up with the breakfast, and then move on to lunch the second week.

HARRIS: Let's talk about -- first of all, I've got to ask you about the portion sizes. Because in the book, I want to show this to the camera here. You can see what I have here in my hand -- I've got a golf ball, I've got a baseball and a little squeegee ball here.

And you're saying that we're supposed to use balls like this to determine what size portions we should be eating. Give us an example what you mean. What should I be eating that's golf ball size.

HASTINGS: Golf ball really is, unfortunately, is ice cream. We should be eating a lot less of that.

HARRIS: Come on.

HASTINGS: But the idea with using these balls is that everybody had these other markers. We have a deck of cards for three or four ounces of red meat, for example. We have a checkbook that is for six ounces of fish or chicken, like chicken breast, and like the tennis ball is for say a roll or a potato. A baseball is for -- and the idea with those is these are objects everybody can keep in their mind. They know roughly what size -- everybody has a reference point for that.

So when you're out say at a restaurant or say you get fast food, you can keep this in mind. You know roughly what you're allowed. You don't have to tally points or count calories.

HARRIS: So what am I eating that's the size of a baseball here.

HASTINGS: Baseball is like your breakfast cereal, for example. Mind you, this is for a dieter, of course, so this is when you're cutting calories. So that's what you start with, and then later on, as you start to approach your goal, of course, you would eat more.

HARRIS: Right, because most of us would be eating the ice cream that's at least a baseball size.

HASTINGS: That's where we are right now, exactly, but the surprising thing on a diet like this is we ran this program at "Readers Digest." Of course this is a "Readers Digest" program, sponsored by "Readers Digest," and we also ran it with folks in Iowa and California, and what people found is they could eat that small amount of food and still be full. They weren't hungry.

HARRIS: So you're saying that this basically does make it easy to deal with the willpower problem, that eating a scoop of ice cream this big is going to satisfy a person enough, and if they convince themselves somehow, some way that is enough for them, and then they can go ahead to the rest of the diet?

HASTINGS: Yes, that's the idea. The goal really is so we move on to lunch the second week, and you work on it, you saw the problems, you look at your life, you find solutions that work for you, and then we move on to snacks, and that's in the third week, and finally, in the fourth week, dinner. It is a 12-week plan, and then we go on to address various lifestyle aspects like stress and how that affects eating and then dining out.

But the goal really is that people will start to recognize those portion sizes. And often what we're looking for with something like ice cream is really a couple of bites or a few more than that is all we really need, that idea of sitting in front of the freezer and downing that pint of Ben & Jerry's, for example, you know, that's more than we need, and then you're eating for different reasons. Those are emotional reasons, and that's another thing we really address in the book. We spend a lot of time trying to probe dieters and get them to look at hunger versus, say, other reasons for eating.

HASTINGS: All right, well, we'll see how many folks you convince.

John Hastings, thank you. The diet is Change One, lose weight, 12 weeks, and one meal at a time. And I got tell you, this golf ball, I think I've taken medications bigger than this, John. We'll see how it works out. John Hastings, thanks so much.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com