Three and a half years ago, I made one of the best decisions of my life. As my New Year's resolution, I gave up dieting, stopped worrying about my weight, and learned to eat mindfully. Now I eat whenever I'm hungry, and I've lost 10 pounds.

三年半前我做了人生中最棒的一個決定作為新年的新決心我放棄了節(jié)食， 停止了對自己體重的憂慮我開始謹慎地對待進食現(xiàn)在，只要我餓了我就吃我甚至還減了10磅 （約為4.55公斤）。

This was me at age 13, when I started my first diet. I look at that picture now, and I think, you did not need a diet, you needed a fashion consult. (Laughter) But I thought I needed to lose weight, and when I gained it back, of course I blamed myself. And for the next three decades, I was on and off various diets.No matter what I tried, the weight I'd lost always came back. I'm sure many of you know the feeling.

這是我13歲時候的樣子那是我開始第一次節(jié)食現(xiàn)在我看著這張照片，我想我需要的不是節(jié)食而是一名時尚顧問（笑聲）但當時我認為自己需要減肥當我體重反彈回來的時候我感到自責在接下來的三十年里我開始又結(jié)束了各式各樣的節(jié)食無論我采取怎樣的努力我減去的體重總會反彈回來我確信你們中的很多人能體會到這感覺。

As a neuroscientist, I wondered, why is this so hard? Obviously, how much you weigh depends on how much you eat and how much energy you burn. What most people don't realize is that hunger and energy use are controlled by the brain, mostly without your awareness. Your brain does a lot of its work behind the scenes, and that is a good thing, because your conscious mind — how do we put this politely? — it's easily distracted. It's good that you don't have to remember to breathe when you get caught up in a movie. You don't forget how to walk because you're thinking about what to have for dinner.

作為一名神經(jīng)科學家我很疑惑，為什么這如此困難？很顯然，你的重量決定于你吃了多少和你消耗了多少能量但絕大部分人沒有意識到的是饑餓和消耗是由大腦掌控的大多數(shù)情況下你甚至不會意識到你的大腦在后臺做了很多事這很好因為你的意識讓我想個更有禮貌的說法—-很容易被分散當你專注于電影的時候你不需要記得呼吸 亦可自由暢快地呼吸你不會因為思考晚餐吃什么而忘記如何行走。

Your brain also has its own sense of what you should weigh, no matter what you consciously believe.This is called your set point, but that's a misleading term, because it's actually a range of about 10 or 15 pounds. You can use lifestyle choices to move your weight up and down within that range, but it's much, much harder to stay outside of it. The hypothalamus, the part of the brain that regulates body weight,there are more than a dozen chemical signals in the brain that tell your body to gain weight, more than another dozen that tell your body to lose it, and the system works like a thermostat, responding to signals from the body by adjusting hunger, activity and metabolism, to keep your weight stable as conditions change. That's what a thermostat does, right? It keeps the temperature in your house the same as the weather changes outside. Now you can try to change the temperature in your house by opening a window in the winter, but that's not going to change the setting on the thermostat, which will respond by kicking on the furnace to warm the place back up. Your brain works exactly the same way, responding to weight loss by using powerful tools to push your body back to what it considers normal. If you lose a lot of weight, your brain reacts as if you were starving, and whether you started out fat or thin, your brain's response is exactly the same. We would love to think that your brain could tell whether you need to lose weight or not, but it can't. If you do lose a lot of weight, you become hungry, and your muscles burn less energy. Dr. Rudy Leibel of Columbia University has found that people who have lost 10 percent of their body weight burn 250 to 400 calories less because their metabolism is suppressed. That's a lot of food.This means that a successful dieter must eat this much less forever than someone of the same weightwho has always been thin.

你的大腦對于你的體重有著自己的一套想法無論你有意識地在想些什么這被叫做你的設(shè)定值但那是個誤導(dǎo)人的術(shù)語因為事實上它是一個范圍大約在10到15磅內(nèi)浮動你可以通過選擇生活方式來改變你的體重在這個范圍內(nèi)上下浮動但是如果要超出這個范圍 將是非常非常困難的大腦的一個部分叫下丘腦它調(diào)節(jié)著你的體重你的大腦有十多種化學信號會告訴你的身體去增加體重還有另外十多種信號會告訴你的身體去減重，這系統(tǒng)的工作原理就像恒溫器對身體接收到的信號做出反應(yīng)通過調(diào)節(jié)饑餓感，活動，新陳代謝根據(jù)條件的變化，維持你的體重這就是恒溫器的作用，對吧？恒溫器會根據(jù)房屋外部天氣的變化不斷調(diào)節(jié)從而保持室內(nèi)的溫度恒定現(xiàn)在你可以通過在冬季打開一扇窗來調(diào)節(jié)室內(nèi)的溫度但這個動作并不會改變恒溫器的設(shè)置恒溫器對此的反應(yīng)是打開火爐把屋內(nèi)的溫度調(diào)節(jié)回溫暖的狀態(tài)你的大腦就是這樣工作的當你體重減輕的時候它會用有效地工具讓你的體重回歸回歸到它認為正常的狀態(tài)如果你減重過多你大腦的反應(yīng)就是你快餓死了無論你最初是胖還是瘦大腦的反應(yīng)都是一模一樣的我們非常希望我們的大腦可以感知我們是否需要減重但它不能如果你真的減去了很多體重你會感到很餓你的肌肉會消耗更少的能量哥倫比亞大學的魯?shù)侠悹柌┦堪l(fā)現(xiàn)那些減去體重10%的人們消耗的熱量比未減重之前少250到400卡路里因為他們的新陳代謝被抑制了這些（熱量）等于相當多的食物中所含的熱量這意味著一個成功的節(jié)食者必須比和他相同體重的人少吃這么多食物因為這個人一直都這么瘦。

From an evolutionary perspective, your body's resistance to weight loss makes sense. When food was scarce, our ancestors' survival depended on conserving energy, and regaining the weight when food was available would have protected them against the next shortage. Over the course of human history,starvation has been a much bigger problem than overeating. This may explain a very sad fact: Set points can go up, but they rarely go down. Now, if your mother ever mentioned that life is not fair, this is the kind of thing she was talking about. (Laughter) Successful dieting doesn't lower your set point. Even after you've kept the weight off for as long as seven years, your brain keeps trying to make you gain it back. If that weight loss had been due to a long famine, that would be a sensible response. In our modern world of drive-thru burgers, it's not working out so well for many of us. That difference between our ancestral past and our abundant present is the reason that Dr. Yoni Freedhoff of the University of Ottawa would like to take some of his patients back to a time when food was less available, and it's also the reason that changing the food environment is really going to be the most effective solution to obesity.

從進化的角度上講人的身體對于減重的抵制情有可原當食物匱乏時，我們的祖先依靠身體中儲存的能量生存當食物充足時增加體重將會確保他們在下一次 食物短缺的情況下能夠生存下來在人類歷史進程中饑餓一直是比吃撐更大的問題這說明了一個非?？杀氖聦嵲O(shè)定值可以增加但幾乎不會減少現(xiàn)在如果你媽媽跟你說生活很不公平這就是她所說的情形（笑聲）節(jié)食成功并不會降低設(shè)定值即便是你已經(jīng)減輕體重長達七年之久你的大腦一直會讓你把減掉的體重增回來如果減重是由長時間饑餓造成的這是合情合理的反應(yīng)在充斥著得來速漢堡的現(xiàn)代世界這種反應(yīng)并不適用于大多數(shù)人過去我們祖先的生活和現(xiàn)代人富足的生活的差異是渥太華大學的約尼 弗雷德霍夫 博士想讓他的一些病人回到食物不充足年代的原因這也是為什么改變飲食環(huán)境將成為解決肥胖問題最有效的方法。

Sadly, a temporary weight gain can become permanent. If you stay at a high weight for too long,probably a matter of years for most of us, your brain may decide that that's the new normal.

不幸的是，短暫的增重可變?yōu)橛谰玫脑鲋厝绻汩L時間處于超重狀態(tài)對于我們大多數(shù)人來說可能是若干年你的大腦就會覺得這是新的正常狀態(tài)。

Psychologists classify eaters into two groups, those who rely on their hunger and those who try to control their eating through willpower, like most dieters. Let's call them intuitive eaters and controlled eaters. The interesting thing is that intuitive eaters are less likely to be overweight, and they spend less time thinking about food. Controlled eaters are more vulnerable to overeating in response to advertising, super-sizing, and the all-you-can-eat buffet. And a small indulgence, like eating one scoop of ice cream, is more likely to lead to a food binge in controlled eaters. Children are especially vulnerable to this cycle of dieting and then binging. Several long-term studies have shown that girls who diet in their early teenage years are three times more likely to become overweight five years later, even if they started at a normal weight, and all of these studies found that the same factors that predicted weight gain also predicted the development of eating disorders. The other factor, by the way, those of you who are parents, was being teased by family members about their weight. So don't do that. (Laughter)

心理學家把“吃貨”分成兩類一類人靠本能的饑餓反應(yīng)去吃另一類人則是用意志去控制飲食就像大多數(shù)節(jié)食者一樣我們稱他們?yōu)楸灸苄褪持妥钥匦褪痴哂腥さ氖潜拘湍苁痴吆苌贂夭⑶宜麄儠ㄝ^少的時間思考吃什么東西自控型食者則更容易受到廣告，超大分量和自助餐的影響而造成飲食過量一個小小的放縱比如一勺冰激凌更有可能在自控型食者中導(dǎo)致暴飲暴食的結(jié)果在這種節(jié)食和暴飲暴食的循環(huán)下孩子們特別容易受到傷害一些長期研究表明在青少年初期節(jié)食的女孩在五年之后超重的可能性是未節(jié)食者的三倍即便她們一開始體重正常所有這些研究發(fā)現(xiàn)預(yù)示體重增加的因素也預(yù)示著飲食失調(diào)的產(chǎn)生順便說一下請家長們注意了另外一個因素是“因體重而被家庭成員取笑”所以別那樣做（笑聲）。

7:26I left almost all my graphs at home, but I couldn't resist throwing in just this one, because I'm a geek, and that's how I roll. (Laughter) This is a study that looked at the risk of death over a 14-year period based on four healthy habits: eating enough fruits and vegetables, exercise three times a week, not smoking, and drinking in moderation. Let's start by looking at the normal weight people in the study. The height of the bars is the risk of death, and those zero, one, two, three, four numbers on the horizontal axis are the number of those healthy habits that a given person had. And as you'd expect, the healthier the lifestyle,the less likely people were to die during the study. Now let's look at what happens in overweight people.The ones that had no healthy habits had a higher risk of death. Adding just one healthy habit pulls overweight people back into the normal range. For obese people with no healthy habits, the risk is very high, seven times higher than the healthiest groups in the study. But a healthy lifestyle helps obese people too. In fact, if you look only at the group with all four healthy habits, you can see that weight makes very little difference. You can take control of your health by taking control of your lifestyle, even If you can't lose weight and keep it off.

我?guī)缀醢盐宜械膱D表放家里了但我就是無法抗拒想要拿出這張圖因為我是個書蟲，沒圖表不舒服（笑聲）下面我要講的是一個進行了14年的有關(guān)四種健康習慣與死亡風險的研究吃足夠的水果和蔬菜一個星期鍛煉三次不吸煙飲酒節(jié)制我們來看看在研究當中體重正常的人柱狀圖的高表示死亡風險水平坐標上的數(shù)字0、1、2、3、4表示一個特定的人擁有健康習慣的個數(shù)你們的預(yù)期是，生活習慣越健康研究中人們死亡的可能性越小現(xiàn)在我們看看在超重者身上會發(fā)生什么那些沒有任何一個健康習慣的人有更高的死亡風險僅僅增加一個健康的習慣就會讓超重的人回到正常范圍對于那些沒有健康習慣的肥胖者這種風險極高，比那些在研究中最健康的一群人高七倍但是健康的生活方式也能幫助肥胖的人事實上，如果你只看有四種健康習慣的組你會發(fā)現(xiàn)體重無關(guān)緊要你可以通過控制生活方式來控制自己的健康即使你不能減掉體重并且保持住。

8:47Diets don't have very much reliability. Five years after a diet, most people have regained the weight. Forty percent of them have gained even more. If you think about this, the typical outcome of dieting is that you're more likely to gain weight in the long run than to lose it.

節(jié)食并不是非常值得信賴的節(jié)食五年之后大多數(shù)人體重會反彈其中百分之四十的人甚至比原來還要重如果你想到這些節(jié)食的一般結(jié)果是在長期過程中更有可能增重而不是減重。

9:07If I've convinced you that dieting might be a problem, the next question is, what do you do about it? And my answer, in a word, is mindfulness. I'm not saying you need to learn to meditate or take up yoga. I'm talking about mindful eating: learning to understand your body's signals so that you eat when you're hungry and stop when you're full, because a lot of weight gain boils down to eating when you're not hungry. How do you do it? Give yourself permission to eat as much as you want, and then work on figuring out what makes your body feel good. Sit down to regular meals without distractions. Think about how your body feels when you start to eat and when you stop, and let your hunger decide when you should be done. It took about a year for me to learn this, but it's really been worth it. I am so much more relaxed around food than I have ever been in my life. I often don't think about it. I forget we have chocolate in the house. It's like aliens have taken over my brain. It's just completely different. I should say that this approach to eating probably won't make you lose weight unless you often eat when you're not hungry, but doctors don't know of any approach that makes significant weight loss in a lot of people, and that is why a lot of people are now focusing on preventing weight gain instead of promoting weight loss.Let's face it: If diets worked, we'd all be thin already. (Laughter) Why do we keep doing the same thingand expecting different results? Diets may seem harmless, but they actually do a lot of collateral damage.At worst, they ruin lives: Weight obsession leads to eating disorders, especially in young kids. In the U.S., we have 80 percent of 10-year-old girls say they've been on a diet. Our daughters have learned to measure their worth by the wrong scale. Even at its best, dieting is a waste of time and energy. It takes willpower which you could be using to help your kids with their homework or to finish that important work project, and because willpower is limited, any strategy that relies on its consistent application is pretty much guaranteed to eventually fail you when your attention moves on to something else.

如果我已經(jīng)讓你相信節(jié)食會帶來一些麻煩下一個問題便是，你會做些什么？我的答案是，簡單說，就是留心我并不是說你需要學著調(diào)整或開始練習瑜伽我指的是在吃上面多加注意學會了解身體發(fā)出的信號這樣可以讓你在餓的時候吃在飽的時候停下來因為大量的增重歸結(jié)為在并不餓的時候吃東西你該怎么做？允許自己盡可能的吃然后找出吃多少才能讓你感覺舒服你需要一心一意坐下來吃一日三餐當你開始吃和吃完之后想想你的身體感覺如何讓你的饑餓感決定你應(yīng)該什么時候停止我花了差不多一年才學到這些但是我做這些確實很值得在食物面前，比起之前我變得更加釋然我經(jīng)常不去想它我會忘記家里有巧克力這就像外星人控制了我的大腦一樣生活變得完全不同了我需要說的是這個方法可能不會讓你減重如果你不是經(jīng)常在你不餓的時候吃東西但是醫(yī)生們并不知道可以讓很多人都能顯著減重的方法這就是為什么現(xiàn)在很多人專注于防止體重增加而不是讓體重減輕我們需要面對現(xiàn)實如果節(jié)食有效的話，所有人現(xiàn)在都已經(jīng)瘦下來了（笑聲）為什么我們一直做同樣的事情并且期待不同的結(jié)果？節(jié)食似乎是無害的但是它確實會帶來很多附帶的危害在最壞的情況下，它會危及生命體重的困擾會導(dǎo)致飲食混亂特別是在小孩子當中出現(xiàn)在美國，80%的10歲女孩說她們在節(jié)食我們的女兒們學會的是用錯誤的標尺來衡量她們的價值即使結(jié)果很好節(jié)食還是既浪費時間又浪費精力它消耗一種意志，而你可以將其用在幫助你的孩子完成作業(yè)或者完成一項重要的計劃因為意志十分有限任何依賴堅持不懈的行動計劃當你把注意力分散到其他方面的時候當你把注意力分散到其他方面的時候最終一定會以失敗告終。

11:54Let me leave you with one last thought. What if we told all those dieting girls that it's okay to eat when they're hungry? What if we taught them to work with their appetite instead of fearing it? I think most of them would be happier and healthier, and as adults, many of them would probably be thinner. I wish someone had told me that back when I was 13.

我來讓大家做一下最后的思考假如我們告訴所有那些節(jié)食的女孩子們當她們覺得餓時吃東西是可以的將會怎么樣？假如我們教她們控制她們的食欲而不是懼怕它？我想她們大多數(shù)會變得更加快樂健康當她們成年之后她們中很多人可能會變瘦我真希望在我13歲那年有人告訴我這些。