DoctorOz: Stretch Pants Obsession: Health Advice from Your Stretch Pants

Activewear. Activewear. Going to the movies in my activewear. Activewear. Activewear. Get a manicure in my activewear. Activewear. Activewear. Showing off my baby in my activewear. Activewear. Activewear. A drink Coke Zero in my activewear. Activewear. Activewear. Waiting for the bus in my activewear. Activewear. Activewear. Buying activewear in my activewear. The makers of that video say they're poking some fun at women's obsession with wearing active wear outside the gym. But is this obsession with all things stretchy keeping you from staying on track? We're gonna go to an unusual source to find out. Who is the real expert on this? I'll give you some hints. First of all, they always make you comfortable, they're totally flexible, they're closer to you than anyone else, even your husband, and they can tell you a lot about your health. What am I talking about guys? Stretch pants. Stretch pants. And here, my friends, is what they have to say. Oh wow, it is so nice to be out of the house. Although I did have this feeling that we'd be coming right back inside when I saw how bloated she was this morning. That tummy was not messing around. And as you know, nothing feels good on a tummy as much as I do. I always make her feel good and I always make her look good. Whoa whoa whoa whoa wait a minute. Hello? Is that a pizza place? Since when are we not stopping for pizza? You know how much I love pizza. I want pepperoni, extra cheese, and stuffed crust. And you know she can have it because there's plenty of room in here. I am incredible. I'm nice, I'm stretchy, everyone looks good at me. You don't ever need to go to the gym when I'm on your body. I mean, I am pizza eating, gym skipping pants. Ugh, look at them, those skinny jeans. You know, they think they are so hot, but they're miserable. Look at them, they're totally restricted. There's no way they're happy. And they must be starving. I think that was absolutely fantastic. Sasha, who produced this, she was walking around in those stretch pants, by the way. Have you lost your mind? It's hard. You got me very close to you. You got me to your knees anyway. So it sounds like these stretch pants can be pretty big enablers. I've heard about it a long, long time. I sort of feel the same way about my scrubs. You know when you wear scrubs in the hospital? You know why we wear them? It's not just because they're cheap and easy to wash. It's because we can let them enlarge. We get a little bloated in the OR, no one cares. They loosen up, just easy autopilot. Audience, tell me the truth. Who loves their stretch pants? Let me see some hands. Oh, we got, we got, we got a victim right here. What's your name? Aline. Aline. Yes. So tell me about your stretch pants. What do they tell you? Oh, I mean, I feel confident when I wear them. You know, they're kind of form fitting. So I just feel like I can eat a little bit more when I have them on. And you know, I love them. I love my stretch pants. You love lots of stretch pants. How many do you have? I have easily about 20 pair in my closet at any given time, like a heavy rotation. You know, are you kidding me? 20 pair? Yes, absolutely. Aren't they? They all look the same, don't they? Why do you need 20 of them? Uh, some are like more firm in the belly. So I can eat a little bit more in that particular day. They all talk to you differently. Is that what I'm hearing? They sure do. Definitely, definitely, definitely. Who thinks that the elastic waist helps you suck it in? That's something you all feel? Oh, definitely. They do that? Oh, absolutely. You all agree? Not just, oh, yes, they really do agree. Yeah. Oh my goodness. Can you relate to the possibility that they actually make you eat differently? I do eat differently. Like when I'm wearing the stretch pants, I'll go out and maybe have pizza or a pasta or something like that, you know. And like I said, they're more forgiving and I feel like it hides a lot more sins than, let's say, like when I wear jeans or something like that. Am I seeing, I'm seeing heads nod here. Yes. You all agree? Are you with this? Absolutely, absolutely. I was about to eat that hamburger up there. Yeah, you would have fit perfectly in those stretch pants. All right, here's the deal. I've asked a blogger who's very well known and she actually did something very interesting herself. Her name is Andy Mitchell and she gained a whole new perspective about her weight when she lost a hundred and thirty-five pounds. Thank you for joining us. You argue that some of your ability to lose that much weight, and congratulations by the way, was because you thought differently about the role of stretch pants in your life. How does that work? Look, I'm not different from other women in that I can feel like stretch pants are my most forgiving best friend in the entire world and I love them, but I don't know that that kind of comfort is always best. And I'll put it this way. When I was gaining weight, like up to 300 pounds, stretch pants were comfortable and sometimes the only thing that fit. But at the same time, like okay, I knew I was gaining, but I didn't have to think about the fact that I was gaining when I'm wearing like my expandable pants. You know, like when I'm eating whatever I want, my pants are moving with me. So they act kind of as blinders, I think. And then a few years ago, because I never learn a lesson once, I have to learn it like 18,000 times. Like all of us. Right, so I started working from home and I did that like work from home freedom call where you wear stretch pants all the time or you wear your pajamas. And so I went back to the stretch pants and within a few weeks I was, okay, putting on a few pounds and then also like feeling less motivated. Because I think it's easy, you put on stretch pants or sometimes you call them yoga pants because you want to make them sound a little bit better. And you put on stretch pants and you have a stretch pant kind of day. You have, you've like committed, you don't want to go out and like see everyone you love because you have stretch pants on. Like you're not gonna have your most productive day. Is this you, Aileen? That would be a good day to run into the ex. Good day to run into the ex. For me, it kind of put me in a more complacent state of mind. The stretch pant state of mind. So I had to break up with wearing them every day in order to kind of feel my best. So to prove your point. Yeah. You actually conducted a smarty pants experiment. I did, I did. With one of our viewers. I want you to tell everyone about it then we're gonna watch what happened. Okay, so we know stretch pants are comfortable and we've all put them on stretch pants after a huge meal because how they move. But we wanted to see how does that comfort translate to exactly what we eat. So how differently does one person eat when they wear stretch pants for five days. We tracked everything they ate, all the calories, and then we followed them for five days wearing skinny jeans. And the results are really fascinating. I own black stretch pants. I'm wearing them right now. I wear them pretty much every day. It's just a comfortable fit. They're so comfortable. I would never get rid of them because if they got worn out I just get new ones. They're like a staple piece. I would just keep replenishing them over and over and over. They're so easy to match with everything. I can still wear them to work because like they're black. I can just slide them on every day. Anytime, anyplace, anywhere. I would never get rid of my black stretch pants. A lot of street talk about these pants. Clearly you don't want to give up your stretch pants. But don't worry no one's gonna take them away. Not coming yet. But I'm curious how far off track could your stretch pants lead you? We teamed up with Andy Mitchell to do an experiment. Victoria is a self-proclaimed stretch pants addict who wore stretch pants for a week, then skinny jeans for a week. And she loved everything she ate. Is that true? How long have you been addicted to stretch pants? Well Dr. Oz, I've been obsessed with stretch pants for about two or three years now. So I'm a singer as well. So anything that helps me draw a good breath and not feel too tight around my gut is perfect. Here hit a note for me. Don't sing a song. If stretch pants can help you make that note, I'm good with them. But we want to do this little experiment. Thanks for playing with us. Andy, come on over here. I want you to share the results. It's very eye-opening everybody. This is what happened with again five days with stretch pants followed by five days with the skinny jeans that you give up a couple years ago. Take it away Andy. So it's really interesting. So we tracked all the calories and everything you eat and we found that you on average ate a thousand more calories when you wore your stretch pants than when you wore your skinny jeans. A thousand calories difference? A thousand more calories wearing stretch pants. So that's really interesting. And you think about it like over time if that's like a real increase over your you know BMR let's say, that's gonna lead to weight gain you know. So that's not the best in terms of your health goals. So could you hit the note with the skinny jeans too? I could, I tried. It was not as comfortable though. It was a thousand calories a big difference. That's a big number. That's two pounds a week of gain. It's an interesting thing to think about. You know like this does affect you. So I mean let's think about like what kinds of foods are you eating. So we did follow that as well. So on the weeks that you ate you know wearing your skinny jeans you were eating very different foods than when you wore your stretch pants. So you ate yogurt, you had green juice, you had salad. So does feeling a waistband, did that help you kind of make the next healthy choice? It did, it did a lot for me. I noticed it the first day. I had a cookie while wearing my skinny jeans and I was like maybe not. So I transitioned to maybe a green apple. Not worth the discomfort. So what did she eat on comfort days? To the stretch pants days you ate foods like the bagel with cream cheese, we have pasta. I mean who doesn't love this? The chocolate chip cookie. So like delicious foods. So good. So good, right? But it's like obviously like more indulgent, richer. And do you feel any of these choices when you make them when your pants are able to kind of stretch with you? Not really, just because they're comfortable and loose. That's what I'm hearing. Comfortable pants means comfort food. Yeah. Which is not what they're called comfort pants. Right. So you've got two solutions. Concrete ones that kind of help for folks who I understand love these stretchy opportunities but suffer from them too. I think it's one thing is I think we should get rid of our just-in-case clothes. I think a lot of us have closets full of the wish I could wear clothes and the hope I never need to wear again clothes because we're either shaming ourselves with too small clothing or we're dooming ourselves and giving ourselves a crutch with the too bigs and the 20 pairs of stretch pants and just accept where we're at. Okay. And remember that if you do have health goals you can love and improve your body at the same time. So that's one of them. And the second thing is wear your stretch pants but don't wear them two days in a row. And keep in mind that like when we say don't wear stretch pants we're not saying like wear a corset. You know what I'm saying? Like just maybe wear pants that make you feel good. Get dressed in regular clothes because it makes you feel confident and it makes you hold yourself accountable to your choices. And that's such a win. What do you think about that? Can you sing in pants once every other day? I can sing in any type of pants now but I will say I do feel really sexy in my leggings and stretch pants. The jeans I'm gonna start incorporating them into my lifestyle because I do like the fact that I made healthier choices because I was very conscious like I was like okay this waistband is not expandable so maybe I can have a salad for lunch and then on the weekends I can wear my stretch pants and go out with my girls like I'm going out with my girls tonight after this. So I feel sexy and that's why I'm wearing my stretch pants. You're a wonderful sport. Thank you very much. Thank you for watching. Don't forget to subscribe and turn on notifications so you never miss out on new videos to live the good life.