SAN DIEGO, CA—Trends come and go in the field of dieting and nutrition, but this one may be here to stay as people flock to it. It's called the No Puke diet, and is relatively simple, as its inventor Julia Payne explains.
"The whole thing started when I was working with some clients about a year back. I was asking them about their eating habits, and a man told me that at each meal, he will start eating, but like many people, he just didn't know when to stop. In fact, this guy would eat until he was on the verge of throwing up. He'd have half a dozen cupcakes after two helpings of spaghetti, and found that he had to physically regroup before going in for those last two cupcakes. That's when it struck me that he should have maybe stopped eating before it got that far."
The No Puke diet is pretty straightforward. There are no restrictions in the types of foods a dieter can eat, no schedules or point systems, and everyone can work alone or with other people on the diet. There is essentially just one rule: when you feel like you might throw up from eating too much, stop eating whatever you're eating.
Payne broke it down for us even more. "For example, I was working with a woman on her weight, and she told me that she really likes to eat cookies after a nice meal. I asked her to pay attention to how she knew to stop eating cookies, and she noticed that she would eat them until they were gone, or until she felt physically sick at the thought of eating another one. We started right there, and with a little work, we got her to stop eating cookies at the first sign of nausea. It may not sound like much, but that reduced her cookie intake by about a third."
Payne says that too many diets are aimed at people who want to shed weight or for athletes training for a specific event. "People who are in generally good shape probably won't benefit much from this diet, as they probably instinctively stop eating once they're full. This diet is really tailored more for the people who eat because food tastes good." For many people, a traditional diet sounds too difficult. "They don't want to really improve their health or image, but they do want to stop it from getting worse." She says that the purpose of this diet is just to try and extend a person's life by maybe a couple of years before they die of heart disease, to maybe see if they can breathe without wheezing, and possibly to reduce how much they sweat when they see food.
"These people have already worked really hard to resist their gag reflex, so the goal here is just to take that persistence and direct it toward stopping eating before their body has to take over and keep them from drowning in Alfredo sauce."
Payne says that anyone can try the diet on their own, and they can start with their next meal or snack. She offers public presentations on the method, which take about 2 minutes for her to tell people her one-step method, and then opens it up for 90 minutes of questions.
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