What is a meal replacement?

• Meal replacements are packaged foods, usually a bar or a beverage, that provides 200 to 300 calories per serving, and are fortified with more then 20 vitamin and minerals to at least 25% of the recommended amount.
• There are frozen and shelf stable dinners that can be used to replace meals, but these are technically not meal replacements, since they are usually not fortified with additional vitamins and minerals
• Meal replacements are not dietary supplements. Check the label on the product. If it is labeled a dietary supplement, it is not intended for the sole item of a meal or diet.

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Portion distortion has overtaken America. Soft drinks that were 8 fluid ounces a serving are no 20 fluid ounces   a serving, an increase of 160 calories. A bagel used to be about 160 calories or two servings. Now it's close to 5 servings, or 400 calories. But people still consider it one serving since it is one bagel. Many items that appear to be one serving since they're in a single package, or container are actually two ore more servings when one reads the food label. Restaurant foods are more difficult to estimate and few resturants readily provide nutrition information.

Keep in  mind that a 'portion" and a "serving" are not the same.  A "portion" is the amount you decide to eat. A "serving" is a standardized amount of food. We do know that people will eat more, no matter how hungry, or how full they are, if the food is on the plate. The double whammy here is that our plates have gotten bigger over the years so we are putting more food on them.

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The National Weight Control Registry (NWCR), founded in 1993 by Drs. Hames Hill and Rena Wing, is a database of people who have successfully lost more then 30 pounds and kept it off for at least one year. These successful "losers" are followed annually with questionnaires to determine weight maintenance strategies.

The NWCR tells us that there are close to 4,000 participants. A close look at them finds...

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By most standards of measure, I was an average size child. By the time I was in fifth grade, I began putting on a few extra pounds. A few extra pounds very easily multiplied into 100 extra pounds and then effortlessly ballooned into 200 extra pounds. I went from fifth grade to high school in what seemed like minutes instead of years. I became known as “The Happy Fat Guy” at five foot eight inches tall, tipping the scales at 380 pounds. And so began my journey to what ultimately brought me to where I am today.

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