Click on the section you want to read:

    Sample 1: Please just tell me what to eat
   Sample 2: Your plans versus reality
   Sample 3: Overcoming the weight of statistics

From Chapter 2: Laying The Foundation
Please just tell me what to eat
 

I could actually list many more diets and programs than the above, but I believe I have covered the most prominent and the most humorous ones. There are well over 100 diets for Americans to choose from. We don’t even let the old ones die a graceful death. We have to go back 30 years and try to revive an old one, such as the Scarsdale diet. Given that, we now have more diets in this country than we’ve ever had before. If that is true, then why do we still have so many heavy people?
     Some folks might say that it’s all backwards, that we should have fewer obese people with all the diets we now have. They may think of the world as having more “diet options” from which to choose. All one has to do is find the right diet option that works for one, and then the weight will just come right off. I wholeheartedly disagree with that way of thinking. I realize that all people are somewhat different, but we all do have the same basic biological systems in place. It’s easy to envision your diet as a success, but it’s hard to stop eating when you smell French fries every few blocks.      Almost all of the diets that I’ve mentioned previously are low in calories. It is definitely conceivable that one could lose weight on any one of those diets. All one has to do is to follow the directions exactly and not overeat. Is that so hard?
     Apparently it’s very hard. This is where the real problem lies. Forget about how many diets are in this world. One or two will probably suffice. All we have to do is follow the damn diet. However, it seems very hard for most people to consume less than 1,500 (even 2,000) calories per day, as most diets require. The only way to find out how many calories you are eating is to count the calories yourself as you eat them. But this is too much of a bother for most busy people these days. You might say that you know you eat more that 2,000 calories per day, but you exercise a lot. Congratulations on your exercising, but contrary to popular belief, a brisk walk will not burn off that piece of cheesecake (I’ll explain why later in the next section of this chapter). You would be much better off pretending that the cheesecake tasted like hardened suntan lotion or Elmer’s glue (and not eating it). That sometimes worked for me.
     If we cannot control our appetites, then how can we possibly succeed on any diet? Do we need the guesswork taken out of it? Perhaps we do. It seems that many of us have made it clear that we want someone to tell us exactly what to eat at every meal. In response to this demand, many diets now have their own meal planners and cookbooks that go hand-in-hand with the diet book itself. By leafing through the pages of these “extra” books, you get the feeling that the diet offers more variety and great taste than the other diets (that is exactly what they want you to think). Although these cookbooks and planners can show you breakfast, lunch, and dinner for the next two months, there is a problem. You still have to cook it yourself, or in some cases buy the meals. And food never looks as good as the picture when you cook it yourself (or maybe that is actually my own problem). Some of you may love to cook, and I hope I haven’t insulted you. I might enjoy cooking if I ever had the time to do it properly.
     The idea of wanting someone else, besides our own mothers, to tell us what to eat seems very wrong. What would drive someone to that point? It’s clear that several years of eating different foods in varied portions on a few types of diets with no success would possibly cause a person to raise the white flag and ask someone to take over the meals department of his life. In this person’s mind, he has made a lot of changes (foods, diets, portions) but nothing has seemed to work. In his mind, he is losing faith in his own ability to tell himself what he needs to eat, each day or week, to lose weight. He probably thought it was going to be so easy like I did.
     (I should point out that it is possible that this person, we’ll call him Bill, eats Oreo Ice Cream Sandwiches four times per day. Bill may never tell us that, yet Bill still is stymied as to why he isn’t losing any weight. People do things like that—they don’t see the obvious connections. Perhaps Bill has been eating these Oreo sandwiches for 20 years. Now that Bill is 30, cutting out the Oreo sandwiches would be like cutting off his right arm. Isn’t it funny the way people get about chocolate and ice cream? For now however, let’s pretend Bill does not eat Oreo Ice Cream Sandwiches.)    
     Let’s assume that Bill makes the decision to buy all his meals from a company called SlimMeals. He picks up all his 21 weekly meals every Monday evening and figures that he will easily lose weight now. All he has to do is just eat what SlimMeals gives him, and that’s it.     
     I won’t finish this story. You can either have Bill succeed on his diet or fail miserably. But here’s some food for thought. If Bill were to succeed, what are a few things he would have to do to keep from overeating? Or how many different ways could Bill slip up and fail on this diet?    
     Bill was one example of a person who wanted someone to tell him what to eat. I think a lot of unsuccessful veteran dieters are tempted to try something like that, simply because they haven’t tried it before, and perhaps because they are getting desperate. I could have turned over my meal planning to the University during college (I could have continued to eat with the dorm people). However, I learned to navigate the supermarket aisles a little better instead.     
     I remember my second year in college, life after the dorms. I now had a kitchen and a lot of silverware, cutting boards, and plastic tubs that my mother had given me. Fairly soon I would learn how to use them. Now all I needed was some food. I walked into Ralph’s Superstore with a shopping cart, and within seconds I was lost. It did not look anything like the Safeway back in Kansas, um, I mean Millbrae. The problem was that I didn’t know what I wanted to buy. I figured I’d just go up or down each aisle and grab the items I wanted. That, however, would take too long. The store was just too big. I knew I wanted fruits and vegetables, so I figured I’d ask someone where that section was located. The funny thing is, I should’ve asked an 18- or 19-year-old young woman, because that would’ve been a good opportunity to meet somebody and be social. Did I think of that? No! I was looking for a 49-year-old (pardon me, I mean 39—my mother stopped having birthdays after her 39^th birthday) woman who looked like she knew exactly where her cart had been and where it was going. I found the fruit and vegetables and bought a lot of those, just in case I couldn’t find anything else. I recognized the bread and bought some. I picked up some spaghetti, noticed it was very hard, and put it back down realizing that I would have to cook it. I kind of laughed at that. I wiped my brow and went home. That was pretty good for a first try, I had said to myself. Next time I would be looking for meat.
     I still reflect on how my roommates and I would dine at a nearby Jack In The Box for an entire week when we ran out of food. We were college students, of course, and we eventually figured out how to find everything in the supermarket, especially the beer.

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From Chapter 3: In The Beginning...
Your plans versus reality

I have found that there exist two different worlds in the realm of dieting. The first is the world of planning. In the world of planning you can plan out every meal for the next week or month or for however long you want to plan. If you are detail-oriented, write down how many croutons will be in your salads, or specify the appropriate length for the banana you want to eat. Why not? The more specific you are in your plan, the easier it will be to follow, right? Well, maybe not.
     Let’s talk now about the other world: the world of reality. In the world of reality, you change your mind about what you want to eat, often. You go out with your friends for dinner on a few nights that you hadn’t planned for, and on two of those nights you eat pizza, lots of pizza. You eat a banana split one night because everyone else is having one, and you don’t want to stand out. On three occasions you buy and eat three candy bars within 20 minutes for no apparent reason. You eat three huge meals that your Italian mother cooked, because you know how happy she is when you have to loosen your belt just to breathe after her meals. Nothing ever goes as planned. That’s the important message. Circumstances will usually change and you will be forced to modify your original plan. I had to learn how to handle these situations.
     Let’s say that for this Wednesday’s dinner, you’re planning to have eight ounces of skinless chicken with vegetables, but you have just been invited to a barbeque (hotdogs, hamburgers). Don’t torture yourself and stay home, unless you don’t like that group of people. Have fun, but try to limit yourself. You will probably take in more calories at the barbeque than your original dinner, but maybe you can adjust your week’s meal plan. Making adjustments to your eating behavior is an art form that requires a little bit of practice. Try using logic and not your emotions when making these kinds of adjustments. 
     Try to eat slowly at the barbeque, because they will throw meat at you if you are empty-handed. It is easy to just panic and toss down a few greasy burgers while you aren’t paying attention. I’ve done that too many times. Try to look busy, and always have a food item in your hand, but don’t take any bites. Tell the hosts you’ve already eaten three burgers when you’re actually on the first one.
     Another way of looking at these two different worlds in dieting is to notice the difference between logical thought (planning) and emotional execution (reality). You can be very logical when making your plan, because you probably haven’t even started your diet yet. You will count up the correct number of calories per day, hit all the different food groups, and still be able to eat one piece of a candy bar every single day. That’s great—until the diet starts. Once you find yourself on the inside of the fishbowl rather than on the outside, everything seems to change. The rules now seem unfair. “Why do I have to eat this crap every single day?” “I have desires (pizza, enchiladas, chow fun).” “I feel like I’m in prison.” We often forget that we volunteered for this diet. And we can get so emotional that the execution of our diet, just following the plan, becomes completely impossible.
     That is how we came to be overweight. The types of food and the quantity we eat became too important to us. We try to give it up, but part of us still puts up a tremendous fight. It is part of us now, unless we can change.
     I have a friend named Jeff. I’ve known him for about nine years. He is just like you and me except he genuinely dislikes eating. I know that’s hard to imagine. Jeff told me one day that he wishes that he could just take all his nutrients in pill form. That’s right. Just slosh them down with water. That way he wouldn’t waste any time having to chew anything. The reason I have introduced you to Jeff is to show you that there are other ways to be. There is Jeff, us, and everyone in between. You can step into that “in between.” When your emotions are locked on a bear claw, think how much better you’d look if you lost an inch anywhere. Losing the weight has got to be more important than a one-night stand with some chocolate Kisses.
     If you want to stop eating certain types of food (like cookies or pies) the best place to start is in your own home. Take a look around your house, especially in your refrigerator and freezer. Do you see anything that will tempt you greatly? I generally have to keep all types of fatty foods and desserts completely out of my house, because if I know they are there, it will eventually crawl right into my mouth. I don’t mean to do it. I may be a victim of my own genes. So instead, if I absolutely have to have something, I’ll go to 7-Eleven and buy “just one” of whatever it is (usually chocolate) and bring it back. That’s my rule—just one regular-sized piece of junk food. Of course I could go right back and buy another one, but if the same clerk is at the store, he’ll think I’m a pig to come back so soon. I don’t usually take that chance. But many other stores sell candy bars, and unfortunately, I could drive to many of them blindfolded. 
     Some of you don’t live alone as I currently do, and you may have to get some help from your spouse or roommate to keep fattening foods out of the house. This may be more of a challenge for you, because your food environment might not be under your control. A little give and take may be in order. Hopefully, your spouse or roommate is someone with whom you can feel comfortable sharing the details of your diet. Or maybe he or she would also like to lose some weight. Having a supportive friend would be great, assuming he or she takes the diet seriously. It is usually easy to tell if someone is taking a diet seriously. If your roommate starts declaring Wednesday as “All-You-Can-Eat Pizza Night,” or if he or she feels that two “Big Macs” is the perfect meal, you are on your own.

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From Chapter 5: Along The Road To Success
Overcoming the weight of statistics
 

You’ve probably noticed that I have mentioned the idea of starting your diet over a few times. It would be great if we could all succeed on the first or even fifth try, but for most people, that is not enough. We usually have much more to learn about dieting, nutrition, and what works best for us, before we can succeed. Statistics would tell us that the great majority of people who try to lose weight fail miserably or have only short-lived success. But I like to look at these statistics in a different way, a way that gives us a chance to succeed.

     Do all of the people who are trying to lose weight work very hard at it? I didn’t interview the whole world to find this out, but it’s quite fair to say that the answer is no. People are different, and the amount of effort they put into diets must also be different. Are you willing to work hard at your diet? Perhaps you are willing to work harder than average, or perhaps you will work in the 90^th percentile. The harder you work at it, the more likely it is that you will be satisfied with your results. If you are deeply committed to losing weight, then you have just leapfrogged over more than half of the other people trying to do the same.

     Another problem I have with the above “Statistic of Fear and Doom,” is that the dieters mentioned surely have varying degrees of knowledge about proper nutrition. For all we know many of “the greater majority of dieters,” are on the “Buckets O’ Chocolate” diet, the “Krispy Kreme Krazy Dayz” diet, or the “Hershey’s Syrup” liquid diet. So, just because someone claims to be on a diet, that does not mean she is going about it the right way. If you lack this knowledge, go get it by reading this and other books, browsing the internet, talking to friends and professionals, or finding it wherever you can (see Appendix D for internet resources). Once you’ve done that, you can leapfrog over even more alleged dieters.
     My last problem with the “Statistic of Fear and Doom” is that many of those people trying to lose weight have probably given up after the first few tries. Back in the 1980’s, I had a few roommates who each wanted to lose over twenty pounds. They seemed to take special care in planning their diets, setting goals, and motivating themselves. I wished them success and hoped they could help spur me on to lose weight as well. But after only five weeks, they decided that it was too hard, and they went straight back to their world of pizza and beer. Five weeks is not enough time, and they didn’t even want to analyze what went wrong (though I can tell you it was just more pizza and beer). You can easily leapfrog over these people who give up with barely a fight.
     If you promise not to give up, I’ll promise that you have a much better chance to succeed. I almost gave up a few times myself. I put myself under so much stress during college that I decided that I couldn’t afford to worry about my weight. I was too worried about getting “good,” grades so I could get a “good,” job, a “good,” wife, a “good,” house, some “good,” promotions and a “good,” retirement package.
     My message to you, as I’ve stated before, is that you shouldn’t give up on your diet or yourself. It’s easy to do, and I’ve seen so many people do it. Looking sexy is nice, but your health and general wellbeing are more important. Take another look over the overweight and obesity statistics in the front of the book. Look at the frightening and ugly diseases you can get if you don’t keep yourself in good shape. Please realize that if you work hard, learn about nutrition and diets, and don’t ever give up, you are miles ahead of those other dieters. Now go lose some weight so I can tell the world that I helped somebody today.

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