Sora Vernikoff is a no-diet weight loss expert at nodieting.net. Her book “Eat What You Want! Stop When You Want! A No-Diet, Weight-Loss Program” became a number one Amazon bestseller and won the 2018 Distinguished Favorite by the New York City Big Book Award contest. Over 20 years ago, she healed herself of compulsive eating by transferring her classroom management techniques from teaching challenged kids in East New York, Brooklyn to food management techniques. She developed the Green Technique, which teaches people to know when they can stop eating before their first bite. She is also a member of the Society for Children’s Writers and Illustrators and Storyteller Academy, and describes herself as a visual storyteller.
Host: Richard Lowe | Guest: Sora Vernikoff
Conversation Transcript
Richard: How does your no-diet program work?
Sora: Before I answer that, I’d like to give some background. I taught city kids in East New York, Brooklyn. It was really rough. I used to diet, take off the weight, and put it right back on even though I did everything perfectly. Over 20 years ago I was keeping a journal on what I ate.
One day I looked at these 35 kids and said, “How come these kids listen to you, but food has no such qualities? You can’t stop thinking about it and you can’t stop eating.” I had an idea: what if I ate the foods I really wanted, but with a caveat? I’d journal every eating experience before, during, and after, because I had to find out why my brain was thinking about food all day.
I did that for years. Every piece of food I put in my mouth, I wrote my thoughts before, during, and after. I took off 25 pounds and kept it off. At that point I knew I could transfer my classroom management techniques to food management techniques.
Why Diets Don’t Work
Sora: Think of your diet as a clock. At 12 o’clock you go, “I need to lose weight.” You pick a diet. There are over 150 diets. If diets worked, why would we need so many?
A diet is a group of rules created by four people in a room who decide what you can eat, when you should eat, what’s good for you, and most of all: don’t trust yourself. You came to us because you can’t keep food out of your mouth.
At three o’clock you’re following the rules. Good, good, good. You can book the cruise because you’re not afraid of food. You feel worthy because you’re following other people’s rules.
At six o’clock, the diet binge happens. You’ve been good for a period of time. Then one day you reach a place where you think, “I just want one more piece of cheese. One more Oreo. One more quarter of that hamburger.” You start eating food that’s not on your plan and you can’t stop. The good news is you did the only thing you could do to get back control from rules that aren’t yours. But the flip side is you beat yourself up. Low self-esteem. “I just ate a bag of Oreos. I’m not a good person.”
At nine o’clock you decide, “I can’t trust myself. Look what I just did.” You go back to 12 o’clock, back to other people’s rules.
Diets don’t work because they’re not your rules. They’re based in deprivation. They tell you what you can eat and how much, and that has nothing to do with what you want. Give yourself a big hug. It’s not your fault you can’t stay on a diet or that you lost weight and regained it. You’re just running away from other people’s rules.
How the Green Technique Works
Sora: What I found in my journaling is that nobody can eat and stop because nobody knows how much is enough before they eat the food. At Thanksgiving dinner, everyone says, “I’m so stuffed.” The only marker they have is a stuffed stomach. I developed techniques that let you know when you’re going to stop eating before you start eating.
Once you stop yourself, what happens when you have enough of something? Do you overthink it or think about it less?
Richard: Think about it less, of course.
Sora: Exactly. My process allows you to consciously diminish the visual repetitions of your food thoughts, not only in your mind but in the amount of food you want to take in. When you use my process, you have a non-overweight food mind matching a non-overweight body. That’s why people keep the weight off. Even when you reach your goal on a diet, you still have an overweight mind.
Richard: Give me a “for instance.” How would you handle me overeating?
Sora: What food do you have a hard time stopping?
Richard: Ice cream. French vanilla. Haagen-Dazs.
Sora: That’s the highest calorie ice cream there is. So when you eat your ice cream, do you buy the very big half gallon or individuals?
Richard: Usually they have a two-for-one, so I buy two half gallons.
Sora: Do you want to lose weight, or is ice cream just what you go to for comfort?
Richard: Both. I want to lose weight, and it’s what I go to for greater comfort.
Sora: First, I’d suggest buying individual containers. It’s not about money. It’s about making peace with food. When you buy those two half gallons on sale, you’re hurting yourself.
Richard: Especially because I usually feel guilty and throw one away.
Sora: So here’s the Green Technique. Everyone, think of a food you have a hard time stopping. Mine was chocolate. I have so much chocolate in the house now. But that’s what I couldn’t eat and stop.
You go to the freezer, get the ice cream, put it in your bowl. Now before you take the ice cream out of the container, I want you to ask yourself two questions: How much is enough? And how much is too much?
Richard: Probably a couple tablespoons is enough and more than four is too much.
Sora: Put those four tablespoons in your bowl. Now ask yourself again: how much is enough and how much is too much? Now physically move the amount that’s too much to a separate place in the bowl. You have two amounts in front of you: the amount that’s enough and the amount that’s too much.
Richard: One tablespoon is too much.
Sora: Now look what happened. When we started, you said four heaping tablespoons. After the exercise, you were able to tell me in real time that one tablespoon of that was too much. Isn’t that interesting?
Now eat only the amount you decided was enough. The other amount is your “too much” marker. It’s saying to you: you just ate and stopped because you knew how much was enough. Once you commit to using the Green Technique, always asking how much is enough and how much is too much, separating the too-much amount, you will stop thinking about vanilla ice cream as much. Because without this technique, nothing’s ever going to be enough, so why would you stop?
Richard: Makes sense.
Sora: What I’d suggest is buy the small individual containers. Every day eat as much as you want with the marker. Over time the number of containers you consume will diminish.
Richard: Less. I think less.
Sora: I know. Boredom is the death of desire. Once you see you can have vanilla ice cream and stop when you want, you’re going to want less.
The Subconscious Food Puppet
Sora: Think of your mind as a department store. The ground floor is your consciousness, your awareness. The stock room is your subconscious, your non-awareness. Your subconscious sends an elevator to the main floor, and there’s your food puppet sending thoughts to your consciousness. The deal is you can’t control the frequency and timing of your food thoughts. Until you make peace with your food puppet in your subconscious, you’re never going to manage the over-repetition of food thoughts in your consciousness. This is all in my book, and I go much more in depth in my next book.
Richard: When’s the next book coming out?
Sora: I’m working on the graphics. I’m a visual storyteller. I don’t write the book first. I design the graphics to tell the story. That’s my approach. I’m interested in a short book that takes you to the place in a fun and easy way. The first book is a workbook. Don’t forget, I’m an educator. You get to see it, feel it, touch it.
Food as Reward and Childhood Patterns
Richard: What I found in my own relationship with food goes back to childhood. I was rewarded with food when I was a good boy. Sugar when things were going well, chocolate, caffeine. I’ve discovered I can’t use food as a reward anymore.
Sora: Because you’re more grown up and you know there are other ways to reward yourself. It becomes a conscious decision.
Richard: You get what you focus on. If you’re focusing on dieting, you’re going to be focused on food.
Sora: My focus all day is: how much is enough? How much is enough work? How much is enough play? How much is enough food? How much is enough money? How much do I have to do today to feel I can let the day go and feel like I’ve done enough? Everything for me, beside putting the higher power first, is “how much is enough?”
Richard: I start each day thinking: what am I going to accomplish today? What’s my goal? What am I going to do that’s good? Good for me, good for somebody else, good for the world. And I smile through the whole day because I’m focusing on the good.
Sora: When I used to teach, most teachers give out candy to get their class quiet. I wouldn’t. I found the most exciting stickers you can imagine. I went to Greenwich Village and found moving stickers, jumping stickers. I would only give stickers because I didn’t want to reinforce the mouth business.
Richard: One of the things I remember from childhood are the librarians who gave me a little stamp every time I read a book. I still have that page 50 years later. I don’t remember the ones who gave me candy.
Closing Words
Sora: I have a sign in my apartment that says “each day has its own unique adventure.” I just like to do the best I can with each day. To all of you out there struggling with food: you can do it. You can find my book on Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Visit nodieting.net. If you want to make peace with food, if you want to find your best self without using food to support that self in a way that makes you unhappy afterwards, then step out and stop dieting.
Richard: Do the best you can for you today.
Sora: I love that. I want to write that down. “Do the best I can for me today.” That’s really lovely. I hope everyone listening feels hopeful about their relationship with food now.
Find Richard Lowe at TheWritingKing.com.