Andrew B. Chung, MD/PhD

EmoryIMVC.org Cardiologist

Here are the instructions I give my patients:

How to permanently lose weight if you are not taking diabetic medications.

How to permanently lose weight if you are on diabetic medications.



FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS ABOUT THE 2PD-OMER APPROACH.

Where can I get a food scale on-line?

Here is a list of on-line places to get a food scale (provided by a friend):

I was gonna try it, but then I started thinking about how much I like fruit and how it's high water content would quickly use up my daily weight allotment.

If you are overweight (i.e. you weigh more than ideal), and all you are eating is fruit, you should still reduce the *amount* of fruit you are eating if you want to lose weight. The point is *not* to change what you eat but to reduce the amount.
At first I was intrigued by your diet. On second thought, this diet does not appear to be nutritiously sound and may be dangerous.

If what you are currently eating is nutritionally sound, it is unlikely that reducing the amount is going to make it not nutritionally sound.
It does not make sense to me that you consider two pounds of milk chocolate equal to 2 pounds of sugarless Jell-O.

If you really want to lose weight, you won't work so hard to thwart the effectiveness of the 2PD Approach. Certainly, if you *choose* to exchange eating two pounds of chocolate instead of eating your current 6 to 8 pounds of a more reasonably balanced diet, you can maintain your obesity but I would be willing to bet you could not keep this up forever.
If you can guaranty that I will lose weight if I eat two pounds of chocolate a day, I will start on your diet today. It will have been a short but satisfying life.

If you are currently eating about 6 to 8 pounds of food per day and cut down to 2 pounds of similar foodstuffs, I would be relatively certain that you *will* lose weight.
Perhaps the diet requires an ounce of common sense along with the 2 pounds of food?

It does :-) However, it seems that those who choose to try the 2PD Approach have this prerequisite already.
Could someone post a link to this miracle 2-pound diet? lol I am not overweight by any means 20 year old male college student...5'11"...135lbs. I have the appetite of a horse and I just don't gain weight even though I try!

It is not a miracle diet but a lifestyle change and it certainly is not indicated for you to be on it since you are not overweight.
I noticed two exclusions, H20 and sugar free drinks. I assume ETOH is excluded as well. :(

Sorry.. can't exclude ETOH... lots of calories there. Only zero-calorie drinks are excluded.
Even if approached with common sense, it's too simple a concept to allow for foods with a high water content.

The water content is already accounted for. If you consume 2 pounds of food per day that had absolutely *no* water content, your caloric intake would be around 4000-8000 kcals which is still more reasonable that the amount that will be in 6 to 8 pounds of food (even moist food).
However, I think that an actual diet plan based on the weight of one's food is just as defeatable by the dieter as both the standard low fat approach and low carbing are. I can think of several ways putting a lot of calories into my body and yet still stay within my 2 pound allotment.

That would be one's approach if you do not have any motivation to lose weight. The same could be said for any diet plan currently available except lifetime incarceration in a concentration camp. The 2PD Approach works because it is simple enough for folks to see themselves making this lifestyle change permanent.
Eating anything either very high in fat or very high in sugar with little fiber or protein should thwart the 2 pound diet.

Sure, 2 lbs of Crisco will approach 8000 kcal per day. However, if you are currently eating 4 lbs of Crisco per day, I would still be certain that you will lose weight.
Wasn't the food the climbers would have taken when climbing Mount Everest dehydrated or freeze dried.

Ok... 10 lbs of dried food + 4 lbs of snow = 14 lbs of rehydrated food.

14 lbs divided by 7 days = 2 lbs per day.
Climbing mountains isn't something you are going to do while eating the USDA recommended 2,000 calories a day.

Actually, 2 lbs of bread can approach 3600 kcals (carbohydrates are 4 kcal/gm). Moreover, 2 lbs of pecans approaches 6400 kcals.
The diet is basically saying -- hey, weigh your food and you can eat anything you want-- just don't go over the 2 lb a day limit!

Actually, the 2PD Approach is saying here is a way to eat less without becoming nutritionally deprived.
People are going to use that as an excuse to eat foods they shouldn't be eating.

You really can't keep people from using *anything* as an excuse for dietary indiscretions.
There is more to a diet than just the *quantity* of food you eat. There is also the *quality* of the food you eat, and that point doesn't seem to be very well addressed in the 2 lb diet.

Both quantity and quality are indeed important but for different reasons. Quality is important for overall health and the prevention of diseases that are known to have a nutritional basis. Quantity is important for obesity.

Which is more important in controlling obesity?

If quantity is excessive, it will override quality in causing obesity.

If quality is either excessive or lacking.. there will be no measurable impact on obesity.

Why do other diets fail when the 2 pound diet doesn't?

A diet that alters the kind of food a person is accustomed to eat... the kind of food a person grew up eating... the kind of food associated with *love* and *comfort*... is likely to be jettisoned as soon as there is adversity which pretty much defines life for most.

Here, quality *is* important for keeping people on a diet. Instead of nutritional quality... we are talking about *kinds* of foods. This is why the 2PD Approach does *not* restrict the *kinds* of food a person can eat.

Here, quantity is still the key to weight loss but alter the *quality* as diets do and folks just can not see following the diet for the rest of their life.

I have quite a bit of respect for you, Dr. Chung, but this is an area which cardiologists could greatly improve: understanding why obese people can often remain uncompliant about losing weight. It goes far beyond adhering to bucking up to the 2 pound diet or any other plan which encourages portion control.

We all have an instinctual tendency to overeat especially when food is abundant and heaped before us.

I do not feel that we can call it a compulsion because to do so would imply that it is treatable/extinguishable.

There are plenty of examples of obesity in other mammals. Most would be hard pressed to say those animals have a compulsive overeating disorder.

It has been my experience that most people who are obese are not aware that they are overeating. Most of these folks feel they are *not eating enough* of the healthier foods and/or are not exercising enough. If I had a nickle for every time I hear from my obese patients "Doc, I've been too busy to exercise and to eat healthy"

What percentage of the population has had long-term success with the Two Pound Diet idea ?

100% have had weight loss upon decreasing their intake to 2 lbs per day. My definition of long-term success is maintenance of near ideal body weight until the time of death...

By this definition, we will have to wait several decades for the answer. The preliminary observations have been very encouraging. Just seeing the results have been rewarding for me personally and has made my being a physician more meaningful.

Is this two pounds cooked or two pounds raw? ie: 1 lb of fresh macaroni is gonna become several pounds of cooked noodle, and a lotof meats might start out a pound and once cooked you get 1/2-4/5 of that weight.

Cooked.

Some of this obesity has to do with America's historical role of creating needs through advertising, where sophisticated psychological song-and-dance routines create false needs for commodities and junk food.

*YES*

When you are offered the *value* of "supersizing" and you buy into the idea... you are psychologically committed to eating all of it. If you do not eat all of it, you will have wasted the *value* that you bought !

I don't believe there's an instinctual drive to overeat to obesity. I have more faith in the body's sense of self-preservation to allow that to happen.

The instinct to overeat to obesity is a means of self-preservation because historically it did allow self-preservation.
Many Europeans on visiting the US for the first time are quite frightened by it. In any crowded street or store you can see folk so fat that in many parts of Europe you'd have to look for months to find one to match.

I know...
Why don't you just call it the kilogram diet? It sounds more modern.

I'll change the name when folks in my community start reporting their weights to me in kgs :-)
It is my contention that *what * we eat is of more relevance to good bg management than the actual quantities.

You are correct that for diabetes, you need to avoid sugars and excessive refined carbohydrates.
There has not been one reported case where the Two Pound Diet has not worked?

I remain very interested in speaking with the first one (have been waiting since 1998)
Are there any double blind studies published in respected peer reviewed journals showing the 2 lb diet works?

Actually, there have not been nor will there ever be a double-blind study to prove the efficacy of any diet.
What evidence do you have that this diet hasn't killed anyone??

As for evidence that it won't kill anyone, you could consider me living proof as I have been on it since 1997.
Since when does a researcher require the public to prove his hypothesis?

A few points to be made at this juncture:

(1) The 2PD Approach is not a hypothesis but a practical solution to a problem. It was invented because there was and still is a need.

(2) Analogous to other inventions, its success will depend on its utility. That utility will be proven by how it works for the public. It isn't enough to say "it's a better mousetrap" or to even say "it is scientifically proven to be a better mousetrap"... the public will find out for itself whether the invention is truly a "better mousetrap".

(3) More importantly, it is unethical for a doctor with the means to improve the human condition to not do so. This is my primary motivation for publishing the 2 lb diet on my web site so that it is freely available to those who need this solution.
Won't I starve eating only 2 pounds of food per day?

WWII POWs apparently survived for many months on much less:

Mr. Howard Thornley's POW Experiences

"Each day we were given a small slab of bread or a piece of hardtack, which was full of small black insects. Often we had a barley soup for breakfast. Our other meal was almost always a very thin watery soup which was full of white cabbage worms. We learned never to look at what we were eating. Meat was always horsemeat. Because of the small amount of meat available, we took turns on this, receiving one horsemeat patty about every 4 months.

On our forced march, the guards would take a cow away from a farmer each day. They ate the meat and would boil the bones into a thin broth for us. A cup a day of broth was the only food we were given. At nite we would sleep in open fields. One day, the Germans set up tables in the town square so that all the civilians could watch. These tables were laden with fine cheeses and meats. Women in white uniforms cut this into pieces. Each of us was given a small piece of cheese or meat, about one ounce. But the civilians thought that we were really eating well.

The camp food was not enough to sustain life. The Red Cross parcels saved most of us. I weighed less than a hundred pounds when we went on the forced march. And then I lost more weight."

Why is it "one size fits all"? Surely, bigger more active people need more food, right?

This is a very good question. For a long time, the only answer was "This is what is being observed. One size does seem to fit all. Two pounds of food is turning out to be the right amount for everyone to reach and maintain an optimal weight. There is no explanation to offer because I have none." However, while rereading the Bible with hunger that comes from eating less per the 2PD Approach, the answer to this question was found in the Bible where the problem of overeating was addressed *after* God provided an unlimited amount of tasty manna (food) to His people for their trek through the desert after leaving Egypt.

It is written in chapter 16 of Exodus:

16 This is what the LORD has commanded: "Each one is to gather as much as he needs. Take an omer for each person you have in your tent."

The Hebrew word omer literally means "a certain measure of weight" and not a certain measure of volume as many have erroneously interpreted in the past.

It is my belief that if the Ark of the Covenant were ever found, the jar inside with one omer of manna (Exodus 16:33) will reveal that this "certain weight" will be about two pounds. Bottomline: When there was a concern about people overeating when food was unlimited, God had people weigh out the food they would be allowed to eat. This amount was one omer and was the right amount no matter the gender, the age, the size, or the activity. In short, it is "one size fits all" because that is how God made us.

Are folks obese because of eating at fast food restaurants like McDonald's?

No. Those who are obese have become heavy because of overeating. And, if they continue to overeat, they will remain obese. Specifically, eating more than two pounds of food a day is overeating.

Yes, you can easily overeat at McDonald's and here is an example:

Their #1 "extra-value" meal (Big Mac, large fries, and large drink) plus dessert of one hot apple pie weighs in at:

37 oz, which is 2 lbs and 5 oz.

Note: This is comparable to all the other "extra-value" meals at the other restaurants, fast-food or otherwise.

Why are there people so opposed to your simple 2 lb diet idea?

Perhaps they once found comfort in the generally accepted notion that diets don't work (and indeed they do not) so that their being obese was a failure of the diets. The idea that the 2PD-OMER Approach, which is not a diet but rather a lifestyle change, has worked for everyone who has tried it is probably a frightening prospect for these folks.


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