Introduction

Why did I write this book?

This book has been many years in the making. I have notes as far back as 1980 and I have developed my views with over 20 years worth of research and experience. I was finally inspired to devote the time and energy to writing everything down, by two television programmes. I saw them in the UK but I am sure they have been replicated in the US, if not started there first.
The first was called “Inch Loss Island” on a UK morning TV show and the second was called “Fat Club”. Inch Loss Island chose five people at the start of 2001 and took them off to an island where they received coaching from a doctor, nutritionist, life coach and fitness instructor. They had one week on the island receiving advice and coaching before they were sent back to the mainland to try to lose weight on their own. They were visited regularly by the ‘experts’ they met on the island and were also weighed at regular intervals.
Fat Club was remarkably similar except that the 10 contestants were gathered together at a country home for a weekend and given access to a doctor, nutritionist, psychologist and fitness instructor. They then went home to apply their new found knowledge and returned one weekend a month for the next six months to chart their progress.
In both cases the people lost weight initially but, just a few months into the programme, people were barely losing weight or were actually even putting weight back on. An example guinea pig from Fat Club called Kelly started off at 245 pounds (she is 5’3”) and she lost 8 pounds the first month, 2 the next, 6 the next and then actually put on 2 pounds in the fourth month. The weight loss for the whole group of 10 contestants was 104 pounds the first month and then just 18 in the fourth month. At this fourth weigh-in one person had left the programme and three people had put on weight. Another person left the programme the following month. In Inch Loss Island the results were similar – they even started Inch Loss Island II a year later when the Inch Loss Island I hopefuls were still far from their goal weights.
There were two things that inspired me to write this book:
1) The despair that the overweight people showed when, despite trying so hard, their weight loss slowed or in some cases they started to put weight back on and
2) The advice that they were given.
Click here to download a FREE extract from the book that explains why the advice they received could never work long term

Who am I?

Most of the diet books I have read have been written by doctors, or PhD students, who have given very technical descriptions of how the body works and what happens when we eat certain things. I have talked to many people, who want to lose weight, about diet books that they have read and almost all of them confessed that they skipped the medical jargon in diet books and just turned to the ‘what do I eat?’ section. They can get the gist of what the diet book is about and they then see if it works.
I am not a doctor. I am just like you. I was anorexic at 16, bulimic by 19 and I have fought food cravings to rival any drug addiction for many years. I have suffered all of the conditions that I will share with you in this book. (I no longer suffer any of them and I know how to make sure that they never return). I had the great fortune to be treated by Dr Jonathan Brostoff whilst suffering one of them as a student at Cambridge University in England. I had a test in hospital, for another of the conditions, which was stopped as I passed out within an hour and a half of the test starting. I had the third condition diagnosed by a nutritionist over 10 years ago. I have read allthe  diet books, and healthy eating books under the sun and have spent years wondering why people overeat when all they want is to be slim.

I have got the answer. You too can get these answers that will stop your cravings FOREVER.

Why do fat people we see in the streets ‘let themselves get like that’ we ask (as if they have chosen to be that size). When we lose weight and feel great why do we overeat and put it back on? Why do we overeat to the extent that we feel ill? Why do we overeat in a way that doesn’t even let us savour and enjoy the food we are eating? Why does food rule our lives? Why do we have ‘good’ days and ‘bad’ days? Why can’t we stop overeating once we start? Why do we overeat when all we want is to be slim? Why do you overeat? – When all you want is to be slim.
This book has the answers to all these questions and more. I will show you a way out of the cycle of overeating and out of the binge/starve cycle that so many of us get into. I know that the reason I used to overeat is because I had food cravings that had to be experienced to be believed (but then I’m sure most of you know what I’m talking about). I now understand where the food cravings come from and how to overcome them. I know that only when I am free from food cravings can I control and really enjoy my eating.
I weigh 8 stone which is 112 pounds (I’m 5’2”) and have been at this weight for over 10 years. I enjoy eating in a way I could never have dreamt of. I am no longer afraid of, or out of control with, food. I eat chocolate and indulge in Haagen-Dazs ice cream when I want to. I eat the same portions as my husband, who is almost double my size (He is also at his natural weight after previously being overweight). The most common thing that friends and colleagues ever say to me is “how can you possibly eat so much and stay so slim?” This book will tell you how.
Some diet books will promise that you can eat what you like, when you like and be the size you like and you know that is nonsense. This book has three eating phases – the first will set you on the road to being free from food addiction. In many cases, if not most, this can take fewer than five days. The second phase is followed for as long as you want to lose weight. You will have just three ‘rules’ about what you can and can’t eat but you will not be limited in the amount you eat and you will not go hungry. The third phase is where you’ll stay at your ideal weight for life whilst eating anything you want almost as often as you want!
I have thought a great deal about what makes an a diet workable and practical. My diet is intended to be followed easily by business executives, busy parents, students and anyone else keen to lose weight. You will be able to eat what you want almost when you want. I will show you how to make sure that food cravings don’t return, you will know how much you can have of what you want and how often and you may actually find that many of the foods you crave like an addict right now hold no interest for you in little more than five days.
I feel desperately sorry for every overweight person who is still trying to fight food cravings on a daily, sometimes hourly, basis when they would give anything to be slim. I want to share the way out with you. I want to help you answer the question – Why do you overeat? – When all you want is to be slim.