Doug Lisle

Douglas Lisle is an American clinical psychologist and director of research at TrueNorth Health Center in Santa Rosa, California. He spoke for many years at the McDougall Program and applies evolutionary psychology to eating, motivation and relationships.

Best known for

The Pleasure Trap (2003), written with Alan Goldhamer, which explains overeating as an evolved reward system meeting highly concentrated modern food.

Approach

Weight is about the food, not willpower or emotions: eat foods with fewer calories per bite and the body's fullness signals do the rest. He favours steady progress over perfection, and would drop animal foods and fried food before worrying about salt and sugar.

Main talking points

• Weight problems are not mainly psychological, he argues.
• Animals eating their natural diet keep a steady weight; concentrated food upsets that balance.
• Added fat slips past the stomach's fullness sensors.
• You do not have to be perfect; steady improvement counts.

Books

• The Pleasure Trap2003