I thought this diet sounded neat. I read a little about it yesterday on AOL, but now I can't find the link. I want to try this diet.
I think your only suppose to take 70 bites a day, each meal consists of 17 bites but u have to eat very specific things. Anyone try this diet or hear of it? I think its focused on trying to get people to eat smaller portions, since we have grown to enormous proportion sizes in the last 20-30 years. Some people say it may be unhealthy also, which I could agree because I believe they said the calorie intake is about 1,000-1,500 calories, which to some people may not be adequate.

Diets don't work. A person must change their eating habits for life in order to lose weight and keep it off. Just a fact, my dear.

Yes, but when I go on different types of diets ( no longer than a week cuz I'm absolutely in love with food ) hahah I usually like something about that diet and it sticks with me, so in some aspect I do change my eating habits every time I go on a diet, I am getting better and better as time goes by, Im eating smaller portions, Im eating every 3 hours, before I eat a big meal, I have an apple and a glass of water, ect ect... But anyway, I think the "Bite Diet" may work to change eating habits. If a person were to stay on it for a month or so I think that they would decrease their portion size because they can no longer eat as much as they could before. I know I can't since I have been eating smaller portions.. I used to be able to eat 8-9 tacos ( bingeing is what Im good at ) but now I can eat 3-4 but I dont let myself eat that many anymore either.

Also, does anyone believe in making their child eat everything on their plate?

I think its very wrong. I think you should make your child eat a decent amount of stuff, but not make them finish their plate. My dad used to make me eat all my food on my plate before I could leave the table ( this was because his mom made him do the same so it got passed on and he thought it was right ) and now I feel like if I ordered a medium pizza I should eat it all and not waste it. Its horrible. When I have a full plate at a resturaunt I eat and eat and eat untill its all gone and I feel soooo sick afterwards. I think its because my dad made me eat everything on my plate taht I feel I have to eat everything on my plate now. Im slowly getting off of that habit slowly.

If I dont make sense dont mind me... I just got back from the gym and Im a little light headed not enough oxygen to the brain hahaha.

I was brought up to finish everything on my plate too. My parents didn't believe in wasting anything.

Let's face it, Americans are very wasteful people, whether it be food or other things.

I have a couple of suggestions:

Pizza is great leftover. I even eat it cold for breakfast sometimes. So wrap it up and put it in the fridge and have a snack the next day, instead of eating it all in one sitting. That way, you won't feel as if you are wasting it.

As for restaurants, you can get a doggie bag and bring it home and have it later. Or you can order half portions or split a portion with whomever you are eating with.

I'm no expert on eating, but I have learned a lot from my sister and a couple of other relatives. Eating less is a good thing and if this bite diet might help you, then I'm all for it.
As long as overeating is the problem. Some people just don't get enough activity to burn up all the calories they consume.

One thing that helps you eat less also is to have a cup of soup before your meal or with your meal as the first course. You will eat less. Even if it's just a cup of broth, it will help to fill you up faster. I read a survey that said eating soup a couple of times a week will help a person lose weight; not a lot, but a few pounds over the course of a year.

A lot of people add a small salad to lunch and dinner meals and eat that first, before the meal and potatoes.

And don't skip breakfast. LOL

Some people eat grapefruit or another fruit or drink a glass of V-8 juice half an hour before a meal.

I will tell you this, bingeing is not a good thing and you should never eat until you feel ill. That can't be healthy for anyone. And it makes sense that it could stretch out your stomach and enable a person to eat more and more over time. Much like eating less and less over time.

I think the main thing is not to do anything drastic to change your eating habits. Cutting down in small increments is the key. No one gained 10 lbs in one week, so you shouldn't try to lose it that fast either. Doctors recommend you lose an average of 2 lbs per week.

If you are going to eat a food that you really love and can't resist overeating on, then have something first, like you do with the apple and water or even if you have two apples and two glasses of water, whatever works for you and whatever you can live with.

Remember if you want to lose weight, you have to decide that you want to keep it off once you do all that work. So changing your eating habits to something you can live with is very important.

Susie, I an totally relate to the "eat everything on your plate" syndrome. I grew up in a house just like that. I can remember sitting at the table for HOURS and crying. Back then, something like that was not seen as abuse and I know my parents weren't intentionally abusing me, but it's how they grew up as well. They used to tell me about all the starving children in the world and how I should be grateful to have food where other children didn't, etc.

It has affected me to this day!! For many years I too, had a hard time leaving food and I ended up with a weight that yo-yoed for years. I swore I'd never do that to my kids, and I didn't. I don't regret that decision either.

Another "rule" my parents had while I was growing up was that we were only allowed to eat at a designated mealtime. That also took me years into adulthood to recover from. We weren't allowed to snack, or get something out of the fridge when we got home from school. We had to wait. I grew up feeling obsessed with food because I had felt deprived and remember telling myself that I couldn't wait till I grew up so I could eat what I wanted when I wanted. And boy did I!!! By the time I was 30, I weighed 220 lbs. Then as I matured and started analyzing WHY I had the eating abnormalities that I did, I began to work on my mental health.

By the time I was 35, I weighed 108 lbs. Which, actually was TOO thin for my 5'6" frame. I guess once I got on a roll, I couldn't stop.

So, in one way or another I've suffered from eating disorders my entire adult life and I KNOW it is directly related to my upbringing and how food/eating was perceived in my household.

My mother has always been thin...I can never remember a time in my life where she wasn't, but at the same time she was pre-occupied with it and that rubbed off on me. I can remember being in the 7th grade. I weighed 85 lbs and my mom told me I was getting "chubby" and she put me on a low fat diet (rather the doctor did, but at her direction), so weight, or the lack of, has always been a huge factor in my life.

I raised my kids just the opposite. Not hungry? Fine, eat when you are. Want a snack? Go for it. I don't regret that at all. All three of my kids are at normal, healthy weights, and to my knowledge have never dieted.

Over the past 5 years, I've packed on a few pounds, but I have contributed it to my age and the fact that I take anti-depressants, but I am no longer obsessed with what I eat.

But I'm a firm believer in that many eating disorders people suffer in today's society have a direct correlation with how they were raised.

Great tips Mr.PB. Also drinking a glass of water before meals helps tremendously. When I was dieting religiously (when I lost 110 lbs), I ate NOTHING after 6pm with the exception of rice cakes once in while. If I got really hungry to where I thought I was going to cave in, I drank a bunch of water and went to bed.

Also, it's a known fact that men have a more efficient metabolism than women do. It's easier for men to lose weight, and society doesn't put the pressure on an overweight man the way they do a woman. It's not fair.

So, maybe for you as a child, having to eat everything on your plate didn't affect you in the same way it may have had you been a girl??

Quite possibly, Crystalk.

There were times I didn't finish all my food on my plate even though I was supposed to. For that, I got severely punished. Maybe that's the main reason I dislike overeating as an adult.

When I was a teenager, I felt like a human garbage disposal. I ate a lot. Guess it was the growing thing.

I have noticed that I eat a lot less than I did 10 years ago and that my tastes have changed. They say your taste buds change every 7 years. I think they just might. There are lots of things that I thought used to taste good, that I no longer care to eat. Must be part of the aging process. (YIKES!!)

A lot of people are emotional eaters.

Something happens that upsets them, they eat to change their mood. Something makes then happy, they eat because they are happy. Food is a mind-altering substance when abused.

Also, a lot of us were given food tokens as a reward for "being a good boy" or for doing something our parent deemed rewardable. That influences us as adults to reward ourselves with food in one form or another.

Reward: I lost 10 lbs, let's go out to eat and celebrate. (haha!!) bad example, but true

Little Johnny got all A's on his report card. Little Johnny gets a big plate of cookies as a treat/reward...and so on it goes.

Your spouse cooks you a big meal because she knows you had a hard day at work.

And sometimes, just out of boredom, people will eat. Eating in front of the tv, a person doesn't realize how much they are eating. I've done it myself, polished off an entire bag of chips all by my lonesome and then looked around to see who ate all my chips.

Yep, we weren't allowed snacks in between meals either. I snack now, just to keep my energy up. I feel tired if I go for 6 hours without eating something. I try to eat healthy, but I'm no health freak either. I eat plenty of stuff I shouldn't and on a regular basis. I eat fast food, but not as much as everyone else I know. I prefer eating in a regular restaurant instead of fast food, with the exception of pizza. I even know how to cook. (I know, shocking...hehe)

Very true. Everything you said I totally agree with. I too, let my emotions, rule my eating habits. Not always, but sometimes. I eat when I'm bored!!! Major problem for me. But on the flip side, if I am upset or very nervous about something, I can go for days without eating. In fact just the thought of food makes me ill. Someimes I wish I were upset more often..

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The 'Bite' Diet: Counting Down the Pounds

Experts weigh in on a controversial new plan that says the key to weight loss may be counting bites not calories.

By Colette Bouchez
WebMD Feature Reviewed By Michael Smith, MD

Forget counting calories. Don't bother calculating fat or carbohydrate grams, either. If you want to lose weight, just count the number of times your fork goes to your mouth -- and keep that count under 70 a day to lose big.

That's part of the theory behind a somewhat controversial new weight loss plan known as the "bite" diet. It's the brainchild of Miami nutritionist Meredith Luce, MS, RD, LD/N, and New York Pilate's instructor Joan Breibart.

"After a very long time of blaming themselves for fat thighs and diets that fail I think people finally began to realize that the information they were being given about weight loss was by and large wrong," says Breibart. Today, she says, they have discovered the "bite" diet because it's nutritionally sound, and she says, it really works.

At first glance the eating plan appears simple: You can chow down on a variety of foods, spread out in three regular meals -- and one smaller meal -- a day, with no more than 18 bites per meal. And a bite, says Breibart is what fits comfortably on a normal-sized fork.

"You don't stuff your cheeks like a chip monk or use a serving fork as your eating utensil," she says.

But, if you're thinking 16 bites of Boston cream pie for lunch and 18 bites of lasagna for dinner, well think again. The diet requires that you eat very specific foods -- in very specific amounts -- every day. And oh yeah, not a pie, cake, or cookie in sight!

"This is a completely balanced diet, maybe not at every meal but within any given day -- and we believe that this balance is intrinsic to weight loss," says Breibart.

And, in fact, upon closer inspection the "bite" diet is a very strict 1,000- to -1,100-calorie-a-day eating plan, with very strict portion sizes.

"What it comes down to is, this is a low-calorie diet -- it's just another gimmick for getting people to decrease their portion sizes and decrease their caloric intake," says Lona Sandon, spokeswoman for the American Dietetic Association and a professor at UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas.

While the concept of eating less is a good one, she says the confines of the "bite" diet make it too hard to follow. "I think it's going to be of very limited value in terms of how many people it's going to help," she adds.

Others agree that it's not as easy as it sounds.

"Portion control and balanced meals are important, but each individual must understand how they react to food and how food interacts with their unique genetic makeup and you really need a dietician's personal advice to do that," says Noralyn Wilson, RD, national media spokeswoman for the ADA from Columbia, Md.


Dieting: More Than Counting Calories

Dieting: More Than Counting Calories

While counting calories is important, Breibart believes the real key to weight loss lies in retraining the stomach to be satisfied with less food -- and, she says, part of the success of the "bite" diet is that it teaches us how to do just that.

"What we are doing with this plan is getting the hand and the body and the mouth and the brain to respond to very specific and smaller quantities [of food]," Breibart tells WebMD.

To show just how different the "bite" weight loss philosophy is, Breibart compares a typical nutritious diet snack -- a bowl of grapes -- to a traditional diet "no-no" -- a bowl of 12 M&M candies, both equal in calories. In the traditional diet, says Breibart, we have been conditioned to choose the grapes instead of the candy, to emphasize getting more volume for our calorie load.

The "bite" diet takes the opposite approach.

"You eat the candy and forget the grapes," advises Breibart. While the diet doesn't advocate eating candy, she uses it as an example, she says, because, it represents the choice of small over large, which she says, in the long run, is what retrains your stomach to be satisfied with less food.

To help convert our eating habits, the initial phase of the diet is 21 days -- the time that research shows it usually takes to change a behavior pattern.

To further help in this direction, the diet reinforces the theory of "sameness" -- all meals are roughly the same size, with the same amount of bites, to be eaten at the same time every day. And it's a principle that Breibart says also helps us lose weight.

"The body needs regulation and sameness to function properly," she says. The only deviation allowed: three bites of dessert, three times a week.

The "bite" diet also stresses chewing your food vigorously (to encourage better digestion), eating slowly, (to give the mind a chance to catch up with the body in terms of "fullness" signals), and avoiding all between-meal snacks. And all of this, say experts, is sound advice.

In addition, Breibart recommends starting each meal with a sweet drink to quickly raise blood sugar and take the edge off hunger -- and Sandon says even that can work, to a point.

"You still have to remember that calories still do count so the more calories in your sweet beverage, the less you have left over for the food portion of your meal," she says.

Where some experts really begin to waiver from the "bite" philosophy, however, is on the recommendation that we limit the amount of water we consume each day. Breibart suggests that water keeps digestive juices churning, contributes to hunger, and interferes with retraining the stomach to function on "empty." Barrie Wolfe, MS, RD, a dietician at the NYU Program for Weight Loss in New York City strongly disagrees.

"I have a real problem accepting that fluids between meals make you hungry," Wolfe tells WebMD. She says she frequently advises her patients to drink 6 to 8 cups of decaf coffee, tea, water, or other sugar-free drinks throughout the day, believing it not only helps with weight loss, but also helps keep our tissues hydrated.


Biting and Weight Loss Issues

Sandon agrees and adds: "I think if anything, drinking water throughout the day will help your stomach feel full without adding calories, and that can help control the urge to snack."

In perhaps the biggest split from traditional weight loss theory, the "bite" diet advises against vigorous exercise or any aggressively active endeavors while trying to lose weight.

The reason: "If you exercise vigorously you are going to get hungrier -- and the hungrier you get the more you are going to eat, and the less successful you will be initially at training your body to subsist on smaller amounts of food," says Breibart.

Again, Wolfe disagrees: "If they are claiming that exercise increases appetite -- well I have a real problem with that as well."

Exercise, she stresses, has many benefits including building lean muscle mass, which actually helps you burn more calories, as well as revving up your metabolism to help burn more of what you eat. And, says Wolfe, its benefits go way beyond weight loss to help maintain good health.

More Biting Issues -- and Weight Loss Concerns

As nutritionally balanced as the "bite" diet tries to be, experts say you can only accomplish so much on so few calories. Indeed both Wolf and Sandon agree that eleven hundred calories a day is just simply too low for an active adult.

"It's very difficult to get adequate nutrients on less than 1,200 calories a day," adds Sandon. If you do go on this diet plan, she warns that you must stick exactly to their meal plans and not just count bites -- or you will end up exceedingly short on important nutrients.

But even if you do follow the plan exactly, there are still some health risks to consider. Both Sandon and Wolfe say the diet doesn't provide enough fiber for men or women, or enough calcium or vitamin B for women -- something, which both nutritionists told WebMD, could be dangerous in the long run.

Experts also see the potential for trouble when consumers take the "bite" philosophy into their own hands.

"Where people may get really lost on this diet is in misinterpreting the system, and come away believing they can lose weight by just counting bites and not paying attention to what they are biting into -- you really have to eat what they tell you on this diet -- and that's not always so easy," says Sandon.

Still, experts say that you can glean some important tips from the "bite" philosophy, including the importance of portion control.

"Every bite counts -- and I like this simple approach to portion control and I like that the diet encourages balance and variety," says Wilson.

Sandon adds that the "bite" system may also make it easier to control portions in a restaurant or at a party, when a measuring cup isn't in our handbag!

"Instead of trying to guess how many ounces that steak is, you can just take your 10 or 12 bites and know that you're approximating eating 4 ounces -- it's a way to estimate food intake if you don't have a good visual of what your meal should look like," says Sandon.

The cost of the "bite" eating plan is $29, which nets you access to their web site (www.dietdirectives.com) where you will find the full diet, including menus and meal plans for 21 days, plus some helpful hints for staying on the diet. What you won't find, however, is much support for maintenance or what to do after the 21 days are up -- except to repeat the plan again.

Published Dec. 13, 2004.

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Lol. I was brought up with my parents PILING my plate full and THEN making me eat all of it. Lol. My dad's infamous for that. He did it mainly with spaghetti.

Don't mean to change the subject here, but Mr. Pit, I just saw your animated pic and it made me laugh and think of Phoebe. She was outside last weekend and I was watching her from the kitchen window. She had this HUGE branch in her mouth and she was trying to carry it around the yard. She couldn't walk with it because each end was dragging on the ground. She had her head held so high, I thought she was going to break her neck! It was the cutest thing!

On the diet thing...I was also raised to clean my plate. I am overweight also and I have constantly struggled with diets. I was on weight watchers and lost 30lbs, but gained that back plus some. I have tried atkins, and had some success, but then I really start to miss bread and pasta, and I blow it. I really love food, and unfortunatly I turn to food when I need to be comforted. I am so unhappy with myself, yet, the food comforts me.

LOL Labby,
My dogs try to bring trees into the house. They are sticks, but huge. I like this animation too. You should see them trying to get a 3 foot piece of a branch into a one foot doggie door, sideways. It's hilarius. Of course they think it's entirely possible.

I just stood at the kitchen window and laughed my arse off!! It was the funniest thing I have seen in a long time. She finally broke it, and of course Abbey had to take it away from her.

HI I HAVEN'T HEARD OF THE OF THE 17 BITE DIET BUT I HAVE JUST HEARD OF THE 3 BITE DIET WERE YOU TAKE THREE BITES OFF OF EACH ITEM ON YOUR PLATE. IVE BEEN DOING IT AND ITS WORKED SO FAR I'VE LOST 3LBS SO FAR A POUND A DAY. NOW I HEARD THAT THIS IS HOW THE FRENCH EAT THATS WHY THERE SO THIN.WELL I KEEP TELLING MYSELF THAT WE ARE WHAT WE EAT. THAT ALSO HELPS TO.AND AMERICA HAS SO MANY CHOICES OF FOOD. THATS ALL WE CAN DO NOT CONSUME SO MUCH.

I love food. I am a big eater and often.
I grew up eating everything on my plate before leaving the table too. I was told about the starving kids, and mom/dad worked hard to bring in the supper. The last kid to leave the table was to do the dishes. Breakfast was a different story, usually toast and milk. Always milk or water for every meal. No snacks or "munchies"... if we were hungry after school or anytime for that matter, it was milk.
I can't even remember eating fast food while I lived at home. Come to think about it. Pizza on far and few between Fridays was it.
My son now, eats everything on his plate at free will. The milk and water stick today also.
Snacks and munchies... well, he's allowed to at his own free will. I just have limits in the fridge. Fresh fruits and produce and dried fruits are snacks around here as much as you can eat between any meal.
He has no weight issues. Now me on the other hand I gained 30 pounds in the past 5 months, I can own that to this puter and BS all the time. I plan to rid this puter and go full throttle in a different direction here soon, and the weight will drop fast. Been there done that.
I love my mom and dad for the way they raised me on food, I'm a very strong and athletic woman. And I'm glad my son likes food also.
Honestly I think my biggest problem with food is milk. I'm addicted to it big time. I love it with ice cubes on a hot summer day coming in from the field. We go through 6 gallons here in a week, between myself and my boy. It does the body good.


Melissa.