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Heavy Lettuce
Adventures of a Journeyman Dieter
by Johnny T. Flynn
$14.95
ISBN #
0976352516
Johnny
is
Available
for Media
Interviews
Frequently Asked Questions
Click on any question to read the answer:
Why did you decide to write this
book?
Where did you get the title?
What are the messages you wanted to
deliver through this book?
What did you learn by writing this book?
What do your family and friends think
about this book?
How is this book different from other
diet books?
Why did it take you 16 years to lose the
weight?
Are you afraid you might gain the weight
back?
What is your secret to weight-loss?
What exercises work best for you?
What is it with you and 7-Eleven stores?
Why is your Mother mentioned so often in
your book?
You dedicated a full chapter to
chocolate. Is it that important?
Do you think you might write another
book?
Why should readers buy this book?
How can readers buy this book?
Q: Why did you decide to write this book?
A: I’ve thought about writing a book since I was in college, but I didn’t think I knew enough about any subject to fill 200 pages. But a few years ago, I realized that I had spent many years reading and thinking about dieting while analyzing my failures. I knew then that I had quite a bit to say to other struggling dieters. I had finally found a topic I could write about. The process of writing the book actually helped me to lose weight.
Q: Where did you get the title?
A: I surveyed my friends and relatives to help me with the title. I gave them a list of choices, and Heavy Lettuce was the clear winner. Oxy-morons are great for grabbing the reader’s attention. Other titles on the list included: Seeing Your Toes, Scales of Terror, Chocolate Covered Broccoli, and Adventures of a Journeyman Dieter. I still loved the concept of a “journeyman dieter” so I turned that choice into my subtitle. It was also pointed out to me that Seeing Your Toes was rather insensitive.
Q: What are the messages you want to deliver through this book?
A: One is that you have to learn as much as you can about the mechanics, or behaviors, that cause you to fail. If you fail, you need to know where you went wrong. It is not enough to say that you failed because you ate that piece of cake. You need to dig deeper. Why did you eat the cake? Were you frustrated or apathetic? Were you in a highly emotional state? You need to find alternative behaviors for yourself for when your emotions run to the extremes. Another message is that you need to keep your sense of humor intact. When you are without your sense of humor, you are actually testing the boundaries of your own sanity. At least that’s how it works for me. Your sense of humor really helps to keep all else in the proper perspective. The other big message I tried to hammer away at is that planning a diet is very easy, but trying to stick to it is where we fail most often. Many types of diets will work great if we can just stick to the rules. Unfortunately, the rules include laying off the ice cream, pie, and chocolate.
Q: What did you learn by writing this book?
A: I learned that writing a book is hard work. I also learned that having a finished copy of my book in my hands is more rewarding than I thought it would be. However, I still maintain that losing weight is harder and more rewarding than writing a book. I also came to know myself much better during this book project. I would analyze my actions every day, and I started realizing where I was going wrong, on a physical and an emotional level, during my previous dieting attempts. Another huge learning point for me was realizing that it takes less than five minutes of any given day to blow a diet. In other words, losing control for just five minutes, out of the 960 minutes we are awake, is enough to turn success into failure.
Q: What do your family and friends think about this book?
A: Most of them seem quite impressed, and others are proud. They recognize that writing a book is a major accomplishment. In school, I was always better at math and science than I was in composition, but I found that having something of value to say makes the process much easier. On the flip side, other friends think that I should spend more time dating, finding a wife, or venturing outside my home more often. I also spent a good sum of money to push this project to completion, and some of them will never understand why.
Q: How is this book different from other diet books?
A: This book is not only informative and insightful – it is humorous. It is a real change of pace from the other books that are out on the market, and heaven knows that I have read my share of dry diet books. I didn’t draw the illustrations, but I think they set the tone for the book quite well. This book is also a very easy read. I could have put a bunch of large polysyllabic words in my book, but I didn’t want people to have to refer to a dictionary in order to understand what I am writing about. I also used true stories to get my points across. I’m the perfect example of a journeyman dieter, and those are the people I’m trying to reach with this book.
Q: Why did it take you 15 years to lose the weight?
A: I made lots of dieting mistakes, and unfortunately many of them were repeated with alarming frequency. I found it hard to break the cycles of my usual behaviors around food. It’s hard to reach the level of awareness that one needs to successfully lose weight. However, there was one life event that really woke me up and provided the proper motivation to lose weight. Around two years back, I had surgery on my left shoulder, but before they could operate, I needed to have a complete physical examination. Rules are rules. The exam revealed that I had very high cholesterol levels and even higher triglyceride levels. I was also told that diabetes was knocking on my door. That helped to place the necessity of losing weight into the forefront of my mind. Losing weight was now a necessity rather than just a simple desire.
Q: Are you afraid you might gain the weight back?
A: Yes, definitely. Statistics seldom lie. Most people who lose a lot of weight actually gain the weight back in a year or so. Your target weight isn’t really a final destination. You have to work to keep yourself there. You need to have a real change in your thinking and behaviors for lasting success. Lifestyle changes are really necessary. I used to laugh at the skinny people jogging down the street. I’d think to myself that they didn’t really need to do that every day, but now I can see that I was wrong. They are in maintenance mode, as am I. I continue to weigh myself every week or so.
Q: What is your secret to weight-loss?
A: There isn’t really one big secret about losing weight. We all know that losing weight means eating less, eating right, and getting more exercise. But just knowing that is not enough to succeed. Your dieting performance is what really matters, and that’s hard to control. I believe that your best bet in losing weight is to get to know yourself at very high levels of detail. Know your strengths and weaknesses. Know your inclinations and soft spots. Your friends and family are good sources for this type of information. Just make sure they don’t pull any punches. You want the straight version rather than one that is candy-coated.
Q: What exercises work best for you?
A: I play softball twice a week, but I don’t consider that to be aerobic exercise. I love to walk around a nearby lake. I can feel my mind relax as I walk. I also have a stationary bike, a mountain bike and a Total Gym. I never wanted to get a gym membership, because I thought I was too heavy to be seen at those types of places. But what really matters is that you build time into your schedule to exercise regularly. A sticking point for many people is that they don’t like to exercise alone. I guess I’m lucky that I am able to do that.
Q: What is it with you and 7-Eleven stores?
A: I mention them as my adversaries throughout this book. I love convenience stores. They pull me in as a magnet does steel. I even used to work at one down in San Diego. They seem to remind me of my childhood every time I enter their doors and walk down the candy aisles. My problem is that the junk food hypnotizes me, and I can’t see what else they have to offer. I’m as much of a chocolate freak as I ever have been. Some things have changed at 7-Eleven stores. They now make an effort to supply some healthy foods. I’ve changed as well. I have now found the self-control to walk into a 7-Eleven store and walk out with just a Diet Pepsi and a lottery ticket about 80 percent of the time. The other 20 percent of the time, I crumble. Still, that is progress. I would have to be a robot to cut that down to zero percent.
Q: Why is your Mother mentioned so often in your book?
A: We have similar personalities and the same love for chocolate. Her excellent cooking has been a source of my weakness over the years. I always seem to overeat when I visit my parents for dinner. I think it’s the multiple-choice dessert menu that kills me. I always select choice E: All of the above. My Mom wants me to eat enough, because she remembers my first diet – I was not getting enough nourishment, and I became very sick. She never wants that to happen again, and neither do I. So as I have tried to eat less, my mother seems to be trying to get me to eat more. What can I say, she’s Italian.
Q: You dedicated a full chapter to chocolate. Is it that important?
A: For sure it is. Why do you think supermarkets always place the candy bars right in the checkout aisles? They know that we have a hard time resisting the stuff. I can guarantee you’ll never see broccoli or Brussels sprouts in those spots. Even the crappiest chocolate bars taste good to me, and perhaps that is another reason it took me 15 years to lose the weight. I’m a real chocolate whore, and I would venture to say most dieters are. I’ve seen quite a few sweatshirts that say, “Give me the chocolate, and nobody gets hurt!” I steer clear of those people. For my own safety, I have to assume that they actually mean it.
Q: Do you think you might write another book?
A: It was hard to find time to write this while working a full-time job. I’d have to do that all over again, since I still have to work for a living. Perhaps if this book sells well I could write a sequel. But I would only do that if I could come up with a load of new material. I have thought about writing a book on a different health-related issue, but I’m not ready to reveal the subject just yet. I can tell you that it might be a shorter book with many illustrations. In fact, I might consider taking drawing lessons so that I can create my own illustrations. Needless to say, they would not be great works of art, but they would be good enough to convey the right messages.
Q: Why should readers buy this book?
A: Readers will find this diet book unlike any other they’ve read. I’ve read dozens of different diet books prior to writing one, and I have even scoured through the Amazon.com website to find similar books. I did find a few books consisting of diary entries, and other books with the author’s success story. But my book wasn’t meant to be another success story. I would have written it regardless of whether or not I lost weight. It just so happens that writing the book helped me to lose weight. That is why I did not include pictures of myself before and after I lost the weight. This book is also meant to be entertaining. If you have three diet books lined up to read, you might want to stick this one in the middle of that queue. We can all use a change of pace at times, and that can be beneficial in all sorts of ways. I also think that dieters will see themselves in this book. They can probably identify with many of the stories or thought processes detailed in this book. Readers often tell me, “Hey, that’s just what I was thinking” or “I do that all the time.”
Q: How can readers buy this book?
A: This book is available for purchase on my website – www.heavylettuce.com. I accept Visa, MasterCard, and American Express. You can also print out an order form from my website and mail it with a check to my mailing address, or you can request to have an order form mailed to your home. (see ordering info page) . You can also find my book on Amazon.com and BarnesandNoble.com if you prefer to order it that way.