BODY WATCH : Eat--Don’t Fast--Before Holiday Meals

“Cutting back on eating for a few days before a big holiday dinner is a smart weight-maintenance strategy.”

No way, says Janet Lepke, a Beverly Hills dietitian, who warns her clients that this does more harm than good. “Cutting down is going to make you hungry,” she says.

Then, on an empty stomach, you have to cope with seasonal stress such as shopping and spending time with long-lost family members. The hunger and the stress can push you to overeat once the big dinner comes.

“Continue to eat normally,” Lepke advises. Focus on other weight maintenance strategies, such as putting less emphasis on food and more on gift-giving or other rituals. Continue to exercise regularly throughout the holidays.

Abolish the notion that traditional holiday foods can only be eaten during the holidays, which can also push people to gorge. As Lepke reminds her clients: “You can have stuffing in March, too.”

Cutting back “can actually make you fatter,” adds Diane Grabowski-Nepa, a dietitian at Pritikin Longevity Center, Santa Monica. “Whenever you cut way back, you eat so much at that [holiday] meal that not only do you get uncomfortable, it’s not good for you. It forces the body to store more calories as fat. Don’t ever skip a meal because you know you are going to have a feast later.

“Certainly watch what you eat, but don’t deprive yourself. At the holiday meal, go ahead and enjoy it,” she says.

“Products that contain aspartame can increase production of gas.”

No. “Aspartame can’t do that,” says Dr. Robert H. Moser, senior medical consultant for the NutraSweet Co. in Deerfield, Ill., manufacturer of aspartame. “When it is digested in the small intestine, it is completely absorbed.” And that means gas is not a problem, he says.

Consumers of aspartame have also blamed the substance for a variety of other side effects, including headaches and panic attacks.

But none of the 108 participants in a manufacturer-sponsored study of aspartame, conducted four years ago at the University of Minnesota, complained of gas, Moser says. Half the volunteers took in 75 milligrams of aspartame in a capsule per kilogram of body weight; half took placebo capsules. The study was published in the Archives of Internal Medicine. (The volunteers’ intake was well above the average consumer’s intake of less than 5 milligrams per kilogram of body weight per day.)

So what’s causing the gas? “Products with NutraSweet may have other ingredients that are gas-producing,” says Dr. Priya Jamidar, staff gastroenterologist at Good Samaritan Hospital in Los Angeles.

“Lactose can cause gas in people who are lactose-intolerant,” he says. (Equal tablets have lactose.) And sorbitol, found in sugar-free ice creams and other products, has been blamed. “Sorbitol can cause diarrhea and maybe a little gas,” Moser says.

* Doheny cannot answer mail personally but will attempt to respond in this column to questions of general interest. Please do not telephone. Write to Mythbusters, Life & Style, Los Angeles Times, Times Mirror Square, Los Angeles, CA 90053.