Copyright

Thorsons

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published by HarperThorsons at Slim for Life in 2002 This updated edition published 2014

© Jason Vale 2002, 2014

A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library

Jason Vale asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

Cover photographs @ Shutterstock.com

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Source ISBN: 9780007284924

Ebook Edition © JUNE 2014 ISBN: 9780007466375

Version 2015-01-12

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

‘The Best Book I Have Read on the Subject for Twenty-five Years’

1. OH NO! NOT ANOTHER DIET BOOK!

2. THE FLY SYNDROME

3. NEVER GO ON A DIET AGAIN

4. PHARMAGEDDON

5. CHANGE YOUR DIET

6. WE DON’T NEED TO KNOW!

7. WHY DO PEOPLE EAT JUNK FOOD?

8. THE FOOD TRICK

9. OH SUGAR!

10. FAT FREE

11. A PINCH OF SALT

12. THE PLEASURE OF EATING JUNK

13. CHANGE YOUR MOOD BY EATING SOME FOOD

14. CHOCS AWAY!

15. OUT TO LUNCH

16. FAST FOOD

17. A MEATY PROBLEM

18. ‘DAIRY’-ARIANS

19. PASTA LA VISTA BABY

20. LETHAL COMBINATION

21. CON – APPETITE

22. LIQUID ASSET

23. A DIET COKE BREAK

24. COFFEE WAKE UP CALL

25. BLIND DRUNK

26. VERY BIG FAT PROFITS

27. THE MOUSE TRAP

28. THE ADVANTAGES OF EATING JUNK

29. THE SACRIFICES YOU WILL BE MAKING

30. DIET MENTALITY

31. THE FAT CURE

32. PURE JUICE POWER

33. FURNITURE DISEASE

34. THE BEST EXERCISE PROGRAMME IN THE WORLD

35. PEOPLE PHOBIA

36. GET BUSY LIVING OR GET BUSY DYING

37. THE FOOD POLICE

38. GIVE YOUR BRAIN A BREAK

39. BE FLEXIBLE

40. YOU’VE GOT A TICKET TO THE BIG GAME

41. RE-TUNE, RE-TUNE, AND RE-TUNE

Appendices

1. THE INSTRUCTIONS

2. SEVEN SIMPLE STEPS TO BE SLIM FOR LIFE

3. A DAY IN THE LIFE OF

4. FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

5. BASIC RULES FOR MAKING JUICES

6. RECIPES

7. GET THE RIGHT JUICER … FOR YOU!

Also by Jason Vale...

About the Publisher

‘The Best Book I Have Read on the Subject for Twenty-five Years’

I sent the manuscript for this book off at 12 noon on a Wednesday, and at 2 p.m. the following day I got a call from the first and only publishers I had sent it to. The first thing the editor from HarperCollins said was, ‘This is the best book I have read on this subject for twenty-five years’, followed by, ‘It’s like a cold glass of water on a hot summer’s day.’ I was flattered, to say the least, but I knew at the same time that the information was pretty groundbreaking. Luckily, the editor at HarperCollins wasn’t the only person to think the book was extremely different to everything else out there and I have received thousands of emails from all corners of globe, saying how the book has completely changed their lives. The problem is there are so many ‘diet’ and ‘health’ books on the market that it’s all too easy to group them together. Luckily, through no press or advertising, Slim For Life has grown through word of mouth alone and is now not only a best-seller, but is even quoted in some medical papers.

Don’t Listen To Me

My words cannot possibly encapsulate the ways in which this book has helped so many people, so before we begin, here is an extremely short selection of the very genuine unsolicited emails and reviews we receive on a daily basis. Please make a point of taking the time to read them as every aspect of this book is here for a reason. I sincerely hope this small selection helps to inspire you, now that you have bought the book, to actually go on to read it. After you have read this short section I will finish the introduction explaining what you have in store so that you fully understand the nature of my writing and you get the most from the book.

A whole new way to look at food

‘Since reading this book twelve months ago I have lost 5 stone [31 kg], my skin and hair looks amazing and I am full of energy! This book is truly life changing. It’s not the sort of “Same old …” diet book which tells you to weigh out 3 oz [368 g] of cottage cheese every day, it actually changes the way you think about food and explains why you’re hooked on certain foods (and un-brainwashes you too!). I started by reading another of Jason’s books – The Simple Way To Stop Eating Chocolate – as I used to eat way too much chocolate. Now it’s been fifteen month since I’ve had any and I’ve not missed it for a second! I’d recommend these books for absolutely everyone, fat or thin (my slim boyfriend has read Slim For Life and it’s changed his views on food too!)’

J. Bramwell

4 stone in 4 months

‘From reading this book in May and adopting most of the principles within it I have gone on to lose 4 stone [25 kg] in as many months and feel better than I have in years. The book is very informative yet easy to read and something about the way it is written makes you want to take heed and actually cut out many foods from your diet (something I never thought I could do!!). I have never written a review before but for this I had to make an exception, this many people can’t be wrong!’

J. Ainley

Another one of the converted

‘This book is a life changer. I am a 52-year-old male who has been on a diet for the majority of those years. I have lost 5 stone [31 kg] three times and other large amounts along the way. And every time I’ve put it back on and more besides. I’ve reached goals at Weight Watchers, Slimming World (I was Suffolk’s only male consultant there) and other slimming clubs. I read Jason Vale’s book on the 27th of December (yes in a day) and I’m cured of ever being on a diet again. I will never weigh again. I will never drink diet drinks tea or coffee again. I will not eat cakes, chocolate, or the foods I now know to be damaging. In what amounts to a month (in which I have juiced every day and eaten well) I feel a whole lot better and am sleeping at night (I used to get up to eat), I have so much more energy and my trousers are falling down. If you are thinking about buying this book you would be a fool not to. This book is a godsend. Thank you Jason Vale. If anybody buys this book on my recommendation and reads it from start to finish I will be a happy man because I too will have made a difference. It works!’

M. Howe

Buy this book and transform the way you think about health

‘This book isn’t just about what to eat, it’s about the psychology of health, and it’s something everyone should read.

‘I’m not fat and I never have been – but this book has given me more power to improve my health than anything else I’ve read in the last decade. I used to be addicted to certain types of foods – usually those loaded with sugar. Even though I looked healthy to most people I struggled with low blood sugar on a daily basis and I experienced massive mood swings because of the food in my diet. So I was delighted when I read Slim For Life because it helped me understand why I was hooked on all sorts of junk, and it gave me the simple solutions I needed to take my health to a whole new level.

‘If weight loss is your goal, I’m sure Slim For Life will help you get what you want. And if you’re already slim, you should still read this book because it will help you stay in shape for the rest of your life without feeling stressed or under pressure.

‘I’m now free from the food trap, and I owe massive thanks to Jason Vale for writing this terrific book.’

17-year-old life change

‘Before I read this book I had spots – a lot on my forehead and some on my cheeks and back. But within a few weeks of adopting Jason’s easy ideas ALL my spots disappeared. I’m a 17-year-old who read this book when I was 15 so I’m sure if I can do it anyone can do it. I was never fat but I binged all the time (and I mean all the time!) on crisps, chocolate, McDonald’s, chips, Coke, white bread etc. I don’t eat any of that rubbish any more and I never will again. At first I was scared of giving up these foods but by the time I finished the book I never wanted to touch them again. Thanks a million Jason – you’re so accurate when you say that this book is for people who want to be slim for life and not just for a week. Great book, great advice, great life changer.’

I could print an entire book from the thousands of testimonials I have had from this book alone. These were just a few and I hope they have provided even more reason to read the book. One thing you should know before you get stuck in is that my basic writing style isn’t to everyone’s liking. I fully understand and appreciate this, but my aim is not to win literary awards but to genuinely make a difference in the area of health and addiction. My aim is also to reach as many people as possible. Not only will my sometimes basic style annoy some, at times, but I also repeat myself constantly throughout the book. I do this as a form of hypnosis and re-conditioning and it is all meant for a reason. We have been bombarded for years with emotional messages from what I call BIG FOOD and BIG DRINK in a bid to lure us in and trap us. We have the space of one book to reverse all of that brainwashing and the repetition of key points is one of the best ways to achieve our goal.

THIS IS NOT A BOOK ON JUICING!

I would also like to make it clear that unlike many of my other books, this is not a book on juicing and smoothie making. In fact, if you don’t want to go near a juicer after you finish this book you don’t have to. Yes I will talk about juicing and yes I think it’s a truly wonderful tool to the land of the slim and super healthy, but it’s not 100 per cent essential. I want people to fully understand that although I am also known as, ‘The Juice Master’, this new version of Slim For Life, Freedom From The Diet Trap, doesn’t rely on juicing as a prerequisite to lifelong slimming and health success. I am hoping that after you read this book you will want to get fresh juicing into your life and use it as a tool to lifelong good health, but if you don’t you will still have success.

This version of the book is slightly different to when I first wrote it and there are a couple of new chapters too, but the message and impact is still the same. If you have read the book before the new format and few bits of new information may well make re-reading it easy and worthwhile. It’s like an old film you’ve seen before, many aspects you would have forgotten and it’s good to revisit some aspects again to remain free from the food and diet trap.

Read the book with an open mind and read at least a chapter a day until you finish. I realize that it’s hard to imagine how a simple book can make such a massive difference; especially if you have tried God knows how many different methods before. However, after reading thousands of letters from people all over the world, I can guarantee you cannot read this book with an open mind and not make a fundamental change to your diet. You will also never see food or the industry in the same light ever again.

I wish you every success and if you get time I would love to hear from you.

1
OH NO! NOT ANOTHER DIET BOOK!

That’s right – what you are holding is not another diet book. In fact, if you’re looking for something that is the complete opposite to the misery, deprivation and ultimate failure of dieting – then you have finally found it.

This book is not just for people who are overweight either; it’s for anyone who has ever had the slightest issue with food, which – in today’s processed food and image conscious world – pretty much covers everyone I think. And it’s also not what I call a ‘state the obvious’ book either. What I mean is, I’m not going to spend the time we have together stating the mind-blowingly obvious to you about certain foods or treating you like some kind of moron. That was one of the things I hated about eating the wrong foods, being overweight, feeling tired, lethargic and unhealthy myself – people assuming that just because I was thick physically, it automatically made me thick mentally. My doctor at the time was one of the worst for this and was head of what I call ‘The State The Bloody Obvious Brigade’. He would say things like, ‘You’re eating too much of the wrong types of foods, you don’t exercise enough and you should lose weight. If you changed your eating habits and exercised more you would feel better and be slimmer.’

Well no shit Sherlock! It was the same when I used to smoke 40–60 cigarettes a day; my doctor would say, ‘It’s killing you and costing you a fortune, you’d be richer and healthier if you quit.’ Once again – no really, what a revelation doc, hadn’t figured that one out, now you’ve pointed that out I’ll just extinguish this last one and I’ll call it a day.

Some doctors are not the only members of the ‘State The Bloody Obvious Brigade’ either; it appears most health books, diet clubs and people in general are also lifelong members of it. We’ve even got people like Gillian McKeith who, when confronted with a 5 ft (1.5 m) woman weighing in at 20 stone (127 kg), feels the remarkable need to see a sample of their poo before suggesting the appropriate measures. The appropriate measures not surprisingly being to eat less crap, increase fruit and veg intake and exercise more. Information which would hardly come as a surprise to anyone who hasn’t been on another planet all of their lives and information which would hardly be a surprise to the 20 stone (127 kg) woman either.

Then you have some members of the ‘diet guru’ world saying you can actually eat anything you like and be ‘thin’ as long as you ‘eat when you are hungry’, and ‘stop eating when you are full’ – as if anyone who is overweight doesn’t try to do this all the time. Is it possible that our compulsion to overeat just may be caused by the type of foods we are eating? Isn’t it also possible that it takes a shed load of food for some people to ever feel full?

What all members of the ‘bloody obvious’ fail to realize is we’re not stupid. We all know that things like chocolate, cola, coffee, cakes, crisps, ice cream, alcohol, milkshakes, and things like fast-food burgers and fries are not good for us and make us tired, ill and fat. We are also aware that fruit, vegetables, nuts, seeds, grains, fish etc. are all good and would keep us slim and healthy. We also know that a good dose of daily exercise makes us feel good and helps to keep us trim. I’m not being funny but who on earth doesn’t know this? However, my point is: does just knowing this help you to actually stop the unhealthy foods and change your eating habits in favour of the good stuff? Does the knowledge that daily exercise is wonderful for you help you actually to get up and do some? No. If it did you wouldn’t be reading this book, you would have already done it. And that’s the problem. The instinctive knowledge that these foods are bad might make you think more about how much of them you are eating and thus make you try to control your intake of them on a consistent basis, but it doesn’t stop you wanting them or, most of the time, having them. It certainly didn’t stop me.

That is why I was 30 lb (13 kg) overweight, badly asthmatic (took both the blue and brown inhalers, taking up to sixteen puffs a day), covered from head to toe in a skin disorder called psoriasis (at one stage I didn’t have an area of skin which wasn’t affected in some way) and had all the genuine energy of a comatose dormouse. The only reason I didn’t get even bigger and sicker was because I was always on a diet. The yo-yo king, that was me – always fighting a constant battle not to eat too much of the wrong kinds of foods; always using a degree of willpower, discipline, and control to keep my health under some kind of control; always doing spats of ‘healthy eating’ and exercise to ‘keep the weight off’. I hated it every time and always rewarded myself at the end of the nightmare with the very same stuff that caused the problem in the first place. I was more than fully aware that the foods I was eating were causing my physical problems – fat, lethargy and asthma – but the truth was I was psychologically hooked at the time and simply didn’t know what to do in order to escape. On the surface it appears obvious and logical, but addiction and logic have nothing in common. As already stated, logically we know what to do, but addiction totally transcends any degree of logic.

So, if you thought you’d picked up a health/slimming book that was simply going to tell you that you should eat more fresh fruit and veggies, drink their fine juices, do more exercise and cut out the crap from your diet, you are very much mistaken. The reason? You already know you should do this and so does every one else.

THE FOOD AND DIET TRAP

What you need, therefore, is not a lecture on the bloody obvious, which will get you nowhere, but a full understanding of what I describe as ‘The Food and Diet Trap’. You need a full explanation of why you do eat the foods you eat – even though at times it goes against your rational judgement – not why you shouldn’t. You need to know exactly how the physical effects caused by certain ‘foods’ and drinks affect your thoughts – how they cause cravings and additional hungers and how to rid yourself of them. You need to know exactly what is happening, both physically and mentally, when you eat things like refined sugar, refined fat, cakes, muffins, chocolate, coffee, cola, diet drinks, dairy products, etc. You also need to know precisely how the BIG FOOD companies manipulate and condition you into buying what I describe as ‘drug foods’, yes drug foods. You need to know how these drug-like food and drinks companies will do whatever it takes to get you – and keep you – hooked on their ‘brand’ of junkie foods and drinks. You also need to fully understand that many of the foods which we have been told by those we trust to do the right thing – governments in particular and their ‘food groups’ – are excellent for our health, are in reality causing us harm. You need to realize that BIG FOOD have BIG POCKETS and what is going on in the BIG FOOD and BIG DRINK world will astonish you. Much of what I know I am not even allowed to print and it’s more than a bugbear I can assure you. If I put down half of what I knew I would get hammered (perhaps even literally). But what I can print will give you at least enough incite to make an informed decision as to whether you continue to give BIG FOOD your hard earned money.

DIGGING OUR GRAVES WITH OUR FORKS

It’s worth knowing that what we put into our mouths in the name of food and refreshment is now the biggest cause of disease and premature death in the Western world. And BIG FOOD, BIG DRINK and BIG PHARMACEUTICALS aren’t really that troubled, as long before you are spent, you have spent … a lot! BIG FOOD makes you sick and BIG PHARMACEUTICALS have plenty of people to sell to, in the name of making you better of course.

And that is what this book is about – everything you ever needed to know about The Food and Diet Trap. The manipulation, the con tricks, the addiction, the control, the false advertising and everything you genuinely need to know to break free from it.

And when I say free I mean really free: free to move; free to eat what you genuinely choose to (instead of that choice being subconsciously made for you) free from restrictions; free to think for yourself; free to look at people eating junkie foods without any desire to do what they are doing; free from eating a load of crap and then wishing you hadn’t; free never to go on a diet again; free from having to exercise control over certain foods on a constant basis; free from having to use willpower; free to wear what you want; and totally free to live the rest of your life in a slim, sexy, vibrant, and energy-driven body. It’s the kind of freedom no amount of money can buy; it’s the kind of freedom many dream of but never reach. It’s the kind of freedom which can be easy to achieve, but only once the brainwashing and conditioning has been removed and you have a clear route out.

The Past Doesn’t Equal The Future

It also doesn’t matter what you have tried in the past or what you have been through, anyone – and having dealt with thousands of people of all ages from all over the world – I do mean anyone can find it easy and enjoyable to change what they eat and be slim and healthy for life. All you need is an open mind and the conviction to finish the entire book. Most people who buy books of this nature don’t even finish them and then complain that it was ‘something else that didn’t work for them’. This book really is different from any other food/diet/health book you’ve read on this subject and I am very, very excited to share this information with you and I know it will make a difference. However, the only way it can make a difference is if you do three things:

A) Read the book with an open mind

B) Finish the book

C) Follow the simple set of instructions at the end

Many of the points in the book are repeated at various times. This is deliberate. I ran an addiction centre for many years and addiction psychology is what this book is all about. The only reason why I repeat certain points is to help remove the years of brainwashing and conditioning by BIG FOOD and BIG DRINK. It may jar at times, but please have faith in the fact I know what I am doing. The book is a form of hypnosis. I make sure that the key messages are placed at precise intervals in order for you to make the change effortlessly. Many people can’t even pin-point what it was about the book that made the difference, they just know that after reading it they felt completely differently about certain foods and drinks (as the short selection of reviews and testimonials in the introduction to this book shows). So please don’t get caught up with what some in the U.S of A would annoyingly describe as ‘Analysis Paralysis’ – where you get so caught up trying to analyse something that it prevents you from getting the message and thus the result you are looking for. The book has many chapters, most short and punchy and all designed to keep you reading. I am not here to win any awards with the written word and yes plenty will be repeated throughout and my style will bug some for sure; just have faith and all will fall into place.

So first things first, before we get into the real juicy aspects of the book it is important to understand fully …

2
THE FLY SYNDROME

‘If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got’

I don’t know who originally said this now overused saying but they were bang on. I call it The Fly Syndrome.

Have you noticed how flies keep banging themselves against the same pane of glass in a desperate attempt to get out? And they continue to do it even when there is an opening just above them. Why don’t they just fly slightly higher and set themselves free? The answer is very simple – they cannot see that there is a simple way out and believe that what they are doing will eventually set them free. And this is exactly the same for the overweight/unhealthy person who keeps going on diets or special exercise programmes that they hate in order to be slim and healthy. They simply cannot see that there is an extremely easy alternative. They honestly think that if they just keep doing the same thing for long enough that this approach will eventually set them free. But, just like the fly, simply doing the same thing over and over again will not produce a different result and will not set them free. I know because I did more or less the same thing over and over again expecting to get a different result.

However, what if the fly decided to go to a ‘positive thinking fly seminar’? What if they went on a motivational fire walk to get all … motivated and stuff? What would happen then? Well nothing. All that would happen is you would now have a very excited, determined and positive fly who still couldn’t break the glass. It doesn’t matter how many times the fly repeats a positive mantra to itself along the lines of, ‘I CAN DO ANYTHING I SET MY MIND TO’, unless it sees the gap at the top, physics mean the fly will NEVER break the glass, regardless of what the bloody hell it says to itself and no matter how determined and positive it is. What the fly needs is clear to anyone observing the poor bugger banging its head on the glass over and over again. It simply needs to understand the position it’s in and simply change its approach. It’s not difficult for the fly to get out, it’s only difficult while it tries to escape by thinking it can break through the glass.

Exactly the same goes for anyone in the food trap. Whether you know it or not at this stage, the likelihood is you are in the trap yourself (to whatever degree) and you can do all the affirmations, positive thinking and be as determined as you like, but it won’t set you truly free – as you’ve no doubt experienced in the past. You may get slimmer and healthier at times using this approach but it won’t stop you wanting junkie foods and therefore having to exercise constant control not to have them. In other words, you will still be mentally locked in the food trap.

I used to think that if I was managing to exercise control over my intake of certain foods it meant I was in control. I now see that if you are having to exercise control on a consistent basis it means you are in reality being controlled, and if you are being controlled you are not free. It’s the constant need to exercise control on a daily, weekly or monthly basis that is one of the nightmares of the food trap (more on this later).

What you require is an incredibly easy escape route, and the exciting news is you’re reading it. I know it’s hard to believe a book can make such a difference, particularly if in your mind you have tried so many things in the past, but I promise you it can. The truth is it’s actually frighteningly simple to change what you eat and get slim, in the same way it’s simple for the fly to escape. The main problem is not only have we been conditioned and brainwashed to eat certain foods and drinks, it is almost taken as read that the whole business of losing weight is difficult. It isn’t – IT’S EASY!

I totally agree that it may be hard to believe at this stage, but again, it’s time to stop being a fly and open your mind to the fact that it’s more than possible when you approach it in a very different way. The reality is it’s feeling sluggish, living with excess fat and ill health and constantly either trying to control your food intake or bingeing that is hard work.

BACK TO FRONT

This is where most people have got it wrong, as I did for many years. We believe that health is hard work – that we will have to go through some degree of torture to achieve the body of our dreams. Many of us think that it’s just easier to eat junk foods and stay unfit rather than go through the tremendous amounts of willpower, discipline, and dedication – not to mention pain and hard work – we believe are necessary to achieve good health. That’s why we don’t get excited and look forward to getting slim and healthy – we assume that we will have to suffer in some way. We have been conditioned to believe that, and every time we try and fail we simply confirm this false belief. That is exactly what I used to believe too. I now realize that a life of junk food, being unfit, hating the way you look and feel on an ongoing basis, and lacking in confidence is not easier – and it’s certainly nowhere near as enjoyable as feeling alive, clearheaded, healthy, physically and mentally vibrant, and loving the way you look and feel.

We have a lot to get through and a lot of subjects need to be covered in order for you to break free. I want you to feel fantastic and live a quality of life, health-wise, that many people simply dream of. This book really is a catalyst to you getting there. There will be points in the book where you will want to stop, where you think you’ve read enough and that you ‘get it’, but please, please …

DO NOT ATTEMPT TO CHANGE YOUR EATING HABITS

UNTIL YOU HAVE READ THE ENTIRE BOOK

Do not go off ‘half cocked’ – you need to be armed with all the correct information and instructions, otherwise in no time at all you could very easily switch to what I call ‘diet’ mentality. You need a full understanding of all junkie foods and drinks first and how they affect your body and mind. Only then will the mental instructions that will guide you out of the food trap make sense and prevent you from having to use your willpower, or as I call it ‘the diet recipe’. That way you will not just be free, but you will feel free from the start and love the journey. So – in case I haven’t yet mentioned it enough – please finish the entire book if you want true freedom from the food trap without having to diet ever again. And while I’m on that subject let me explain why diets (in the long run) do not work, can never work, never will work, so that you can finally feel totally free to …

3
NEVER GO ON A DIET AGAIN

Let me ask you a question. If I told you I had discovered a way to lose weight and gain health, would you be interested? Well, perhaps. However, if I explained that the method involves months of physical and mental torture, that you would have to opt out of life on a regular basis and feel miserable and deprived for months, that it would make you irritable, and involves incredible amounts of willpower, discipline, and control – and, oh yes, I nearly forgot the best bit:

The method has a 95 per cent failure rate

Would you still be interested in trying it? In fact, would you invest incredible amounts of time, energy, and money in anything that guaranteed a 95 per cent failure rate? I would have thought nobody in their right mind would do such a thing, and that is exactly the problem – many people are not in their right (frame of) mind. That is why millions of highly intelligent people ‘diet’ despite knowing that at the end of their ‘hard work’ and misery there is a 95 per cent chance it will all have been for nothing – and most are fully aware of this fact before they begin.

I’m not knocking them either, for I am certainly in no position to do so. After all, I tried many, many diets myself. When I look back, I wonder why? Did it not dawn on me after my second diet that this mental approach to getting slim and healthy for life was not going to work? A definition of madness is to do the same thing over and over again and expect a different result. ‘But I’ve tried several different diets’ you say. But have you? I thought I had tried many different diets but are they ever really that different? They all involve feelings of sacrifice, misery, and deprivation. They all involve varying degrees of control and willpower. They all make you feel guilty when you’re eating and down when you’re not. They nearly always fail. They usually make you gain more weight than you had to begin with (if you’re on a weight-loss diet). This is not one specific diet that I’m talking about – it’s all of them. All diets are shining examples of the fly syndrome.

Despite knowing this, we still think that the next diet will be ‘it’ and seem willing to try anything, no matter how ludicrous or life threatening it may seem in our often desperate need to get to the land of the thin. Since the original F Plan diet (and we all know that the F doesn’t stand for fibre) we have tried eating grapefruits before every meal on the ‘grapefruit diet’ and even reached (or perhaps retched would be a better word) for that delightful smelling and tasting cabbage soup first thing in the morning on ‘the cabbage soup’ diet. Then we had the ‘wedding dress diet’ (but what happens after the big day?), the ‘Champagne and caviar diet’ (you don’t lose any weight, but you’re so plastered you don’t actually care) and the ‘egg diet’ (which involved eating eighteen eggs a day – no I am not kidding). Then, of course, there was the Hay diet (where you should never mix protein and carbohydrates together or you will internally combust) and the numerous ‘eat nothing but protein diets’. This is where we were expected to believe that eggs and bacon swimming around in fat was in some way better for us than a piece of fruit. As mad as it sounds, even some rational thinking people went for this one. Do you lose weight eating nothing but protein? Yes. Is it healthy? NO IT IS NOT. You can often spot a high protein diet follower, they often have a giant head on a twig like body. After the nothing but protein came The South Beach Diet, and once again we were allowed to eat fruit and some carbs, hooray!

Then came the hugely popular GI (Glycaemic Index) diets, but keep up because GI is already ‘so last year darling’, and it’s now been replaced by the many GL (Glycaemic Load) diets. It appears GI didn’t work after all and it’s the Glycaemic Load that’s important now. (Hope you’re keeping up with all of this). At least South Beach, GI and GL have some good basis in nutrition, but all sorts of mad ‘quick fixes’ have entered the fray. Have you heard of The Baby Food Diet? Yes we have intelligent grown adults eating baby food to get slim. It appears that whatever a ‘celebrity’ does, we all blindly follow, even if logically it’s completely bonkers. Take the Thumbnail Diet. Of all the ones I have spoken about so far, this perhaps takes the biscuit. This is where you get to eat anything you want (sounds good so far but wait) … providing it is no bigger than your thumbnail and you must eat every fourteen minutes. Who worked out the precise science behind eating a thumbnail of food every fourteen minutes (not fifteen, heaven forbid don’t round it up!), I will never know – but the word crackers springs to mind.

And let’s not leave out things like the Cambridge diet, Slim Fast and all the other ‘nutritious’ shakes that promise weight loss in supersonic time. Then we have the many calorie-counting diets; the Kensington diet, the ‘see’ food diet, the Eat Fat Grow Slim diet (where you had to drink oil before each meal – again not joking), the ‘sex diet’ (yes there is one – best of a bad bunch I’d say, and more fun than eating cabbage soup). I could go on and on and on, but all of the above, even the Thumbnail seems incredibly sane compared to, wait for it – the ‘Fresh Air’ diet. Yes, let me repeat that –

THE FRESH AIR DIET

I wish I was joking, but it is perfectly true. This really is ‘Extreme Dieting’ and I believe the most dangerous ‘food movement’ (or non food movement) on earth. It isn’t actually called ‘The Fresh Air Diet’, but ‘Breatharianism’. It is a lifestyle popularized by an Australian woman called Ellen Greve, or Jasmuheen, as she is better known. Greve claims she hasn’t eaten since 1993; yet, she admits ‘she drinks herbal teas and confesses to the occasional “taste orgasm” involving chocolate or ice cream’.

She claims not to eat the food but simply every now and then get the ‘taste’. The fact that three of Greve’s followers have starved to death while adhering to the Breatharian way of life, doesn’t appear to dissuade her. In 1999 the Australian television programme 60 Minutes tested her ability to live on ‘prana’, the ‘Light Of God’. After just four days, Dr Berris Wink – president of the Queensland branch of the Australian Medical Association, urged her to stop the test. He wanted to stop the test because, according to Dr Wink, Greve’s pupils were dilated, her speech was slow, she was dehydrated and her pulse had doubled. Funny how when tested she couldn’t live without food or water for four days yet claims not to have eaten anything since 1993! Believe it or not she’s not the only one at it either. One Wiley Brooks, who heads up ‘The Breatharian Institute Of America’, is equally as bats in my opinion and there are many, many more. This is obviously the ultimate diet and I am amazed they haven’t been shut down. How on earth can you encourage people to ‘live on light’ and not be accountable if anything happens to them? In a world where the holy grail appears to be a Size Zero, surely these people need bringing to book.

Clearly ‘Breatharianism’ is beyond extreme and obviously mental, but I think we have all been guilty of trying some pretty ludicrous diets over the years. But why do we do it? Why do we jump on one diet after the next, regardless of how irrational they are? In truth, don’t we already know exactly what we need to do in order to drop the weight and get healthy? Wouldn’t it be fair to say that you could write down at least ten different ways to lose weight that – if you followed them – would all work? Could you not also design yourself an exercise programme that – if you followed it – would make you lean and fit? I think that we are intelligent enough to realize that if we ate nothing but cabbage for three weeks we would lose weight (and most of our friends probably) and that if we ate loads of fruit and veg and drank the fine juices they contain, we would all be extremely healthy.

I knew exactly what to do to get into shape and get healthy, I don’t know anyone who doesn’t. What I didn’t know was how to stop eating crap and be happy about it. I knew how to stop eating rubbish and be miserable about it – I had a Gold medal in that one – but how the hell do you change what you eat and be happy about it? The problem is, we have all simply been going about it the wrong way.

TELL ME WHY I DON’T LIKE MONDAYS

When I started any of my diets I would almost immediately suffer, not physically but mentally. I would always start my diet on Monday (when else?). I think if people just stopped going on a diet they would instantly eat less crap anyway. Think about it. When I made the declaration that I was going on a diet on Monday, I would go into ‘food freefall’. I would eat as much rubbish as I could possibly cram in from the Friday onwards declaring to the world, ‘It’s okay, I’m going on a diet on Monday’. So I would always eat a lot more than I would have normally eaten if I hadn’t made the conscious decision to ‘diet’ in the first place. I would then go shopping on the Sunday and buy a trolley full of fruit and veg. Have you noticed how immediately judgemental we become when we have a load of good food in our trolley? We start eyeing up other people’s trolleys and if they have a load of sugar and fat laced ‘foods’ and drinks and they don’t look the picture of health and have a little hyper child with them, we start thinking, ‘well no wonder, what do you expect’. All this and we haven’t even bought the food yet, let alone actually eaten the stuff!

I would then wake on the Monday and immediately start to think of all the things I couldn’t have. I would ‘hang on in there’ using all my might and willpower. To be fair I had usually stuffed myself so much over the weekend in preparation for the dreaded day, that I was usually okay most of the first day. But then out of the blue, usually late afternoon, a little voice would start chipping away and my desire for something naughty would kick in. This is when I would use as much resolve as I could to resist temptation, which normally meant going to bed early in an attempt to sleep the craving away. Halfway through Tuesday and the inevitable ‘I’ve picked the wrong time’ would rear its ugly head. This would be rapidly followed by ‘The bomb could go off tomorrow’ and ‘What’s the point of living?’ and I’d be back where I started. Well not quite – usually I’d then eat more than normal to subconsciously make up for lost eating time.

On other occasions I would not call it a ‘diet’ but simply say ‘As from Monday, I will start to eat healthily’. Now I am sure that whoever invented the fridge hated fruit and veg. There is that drawer at the bottom to put your veg in so that you can conveniently forget that it’s there – only to rediscover it days later when it’s beginning to make its own way out! You then throw the mouldy veg in the bin with the declaration, ‘I forgot all about that, if I’d have remembered I would have eaten it. Oh well, let’s go get a take-out – it doesn’t matter because I’ve decided to make a fresh start … on Monday.’ Recognize the pattern?

I never once got excited about getting a slim physique and gaining health because of the hell I thought I had to go through in order to achieve that goal. I never once looked forward to a change of diet; it was always a feeling of dread. I was defeated before I started. We should all, if we think about it logically, be very excited when we are about to change what we eat in order to get the body of our dreams. But if you are psychologically hooked on certain ‘foods’ and you believe that you gain something from them – pleasure, comfort or whatever – then those foods, even if you know they are also making you fat and ill, do not become less precious if you are forced to do without them. As you have no doubt experienced, they become the most precious thing in the world. Your entire focus is on either eating them or not eating them – as a result you experience the same mental tug-of-war that so many people think they have to go through.

The problem with this is there is only so long that anyone can ‘hang on in there’ and experience this often nightmarish mental tug-of-war. No wonder I never succeeded on a diet. No wonder it has such a high failure rate. And that is the real problem with diets – you effectively force yourself to do something which you do not want to do in the hope that you will reach what you do want – i.e. your ideal weight or optimum health. But all the time you are doing something you don’t want to do you are having an internal, and often external, tantrum. One side of your brain wants the fat producing ‘foods’ and the other half doesn’t because you want to look and feel better: ‘Yes I will, no I won’t’ – it’s a constant mental battle. There is only so long any sane person can do this before they say ‘Sod this for a game of soldiers, life’s too flipping short!’

WHEN ARE WE EVER FREE?

And at what point do we ever feel free from this mental battle? I use the term ‘free’ to describe not having to worry about the food we eat or having to exercise discipline and control over our intake; I mean truly free to eat what we want, whenever we want, free from guilt and restriction. So, when are we free? The minute the diet is over? I would say no. Because, when the diet is over we then start to eat the same crap which made us miserable in the first place and in no time at all the battle starts all over again. And every time we diet we end up with a bigger battle on our hands. When you have been knocked down just once it’s easy to pick yourself up. If you keep getting knocked down you end up thinking ‘what’s the point in getting back up?’

The answer is to remove the very thing that is knocking you down – this is not simply the type of food itself, but more the conditioning, brainwashing, and misinformation that is the cause of why we put this crap in our mouths. All these factors, as well as the diets themselves, combine to create the belief that life would not be as enjoyable without junk and drug-like foods. That life would be ‘dull’ and ‘boring’ if we ate healthily and did exercise; that people who do this are boring, no-hope health freaks who have forgotten how to really live; that it is a ‘constant battle’ to be healthy and maintain your ideal weight. I used to believe this rubbish too.

Two of the main weight loss clubs in the world also perpetuate the belief that it’s a lifetime battle – so much so that you have to attend their meetings every week just to make sure you are still on track, that you haven’t ‘fallen off the food wagon’. Yes I am talking about Weight Watchers and Slimming World. Now, before I go on, I must say that I am fully aware that both of these organizations have helped many, many people throughout the world and if you get a good ‘leader’ at your meeting place, they can be extremely effective. However, I also know that however admirable their motives might be, they are often instilling in the person with a ‘food problem’ the notion that they will have to try and ‘control’ their weight forever. They usually imply that almost no matter what they do, for them, it will be a constant lifelong battle.

TOTALLY POINTLESS

Weight Watchers used to have a ‘points system’. You were awarded certain points per food and at the time they probably thought it was a revolutionary system. However, did you know that as far back as the late Thirties and early Forties there was a very similar points system used for restricting people’s intake of food? It was called the ‘Rationing’ club! Yes, when food was scarce in the war people were given ration books and were allocated what were literally called ‘Personal Points’ for each day. You were allocated a certain amount of points and each food had a ‘value’ – sound familiar? The big difference was, no one was in the rationing club voluntarily and no one was pleased to be losing weight either. The whole business of counting the ‘points’ value of certain foods and rationing yourself accordingly is nothing short of madness. I bet there was not one single person in the war who ever thought they would see the day when people would actually pay for the privilege of deliberately restricting the amount of food they were allowed by counting ‘points’ – especially in times when food is in abundance.

Most diet clubs give the impression that if you don’t do things like count points and attend weekly meetings you will binge and go back to your old ‘habits’. Overeaters Anonymous (yes there is such an organization) take the idea of the ‘constant battle’ even further by suggesting that the ‘problem’ is due to some kind of weakness inherent in you, rather than with the drug-like foods and drinks themselves. They suggest you are born with an ‘overeating gene’ and they have a twelve-step programme to help you ‘cope with’ your disease. Yes, that’s what they call your problem – a disease. The twelve-step programme is to help you cope with, not cure, your disease. For as far as they are concerned the disease is caused by something in your genes and there is no known cure. You were born with it and there is nothing you can do about it. How’s that for setting yourself up for failure? That to me is the same as seeing someone sinking in quicksand and saying that the reason they’re sinking is nothing to do with the quicksand but it’s because they were born with a quicksand sinking gene. Yes people will sink at different rates depending on many factors, but surely if you can get someone out of the quicksand, they are cured? (more on this later).

DO AS I SAY … NOT AS I DO

Due to our often desperate desire to lose weight, it appears we are willing to take advice from virtually anyone – regardless of whether or not they are ill and fat themselves. Many of the ‘leaders’ running the now over 12,000 slimming clubs in the UK are often ‘yo-yoing’ themselves. They are often still constantly having a battle with food, their health and their weight. One person who actually owns one of the biggest slimming clubs in the UK is reported to be overweight themselves – that’s the founder!

It is true that you don’t have to be a great football player to be an excellent football manager, but when it comes to this subject it is extremely important. For example, if you went to a ‘stop-smoking’ therapist to quit smoking and they had a cigarette hanging out of their mouth, would you listen to a word they have to say to you, even if the advice was correct? Clearly not. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not picking on these people (after all, I know what it’s like to be in the food and diet trap and it’s really not that funny to be constantly struggling with your health, weight, and food intake), I just think it’s very hard for anyone to get truly free from this whole diet and food struggle nightmare, when the people teaching haven’t done it themselves. Remember, it’s not about simply losing the weight, it’s about getting slim and free. That way the change is easy and is one for life.

The overall position of the ‘diet’ industry seems pretty clear then. When it comes to weight loss and changing eating habits we have only two choices:

A) Use willpower, discipline, and exercise control forever, or

B) Run out of the will to control, say ‘sod it’, binge – then after the binge go back to trying to control again for a while.

What a life!

It seems to be a no-win situation – miserable when you are allowed to eat the crap and miserable and deprived when you’re not. However, despite what we have all been conditioned to believe, there actually is an alternative and, as I have said, you are reading it. The best part of all is that when you see it clearly, when you see just how ridiculously easy it can be and indeed how obvious once pointed out, it will be one of the biggest ‘light-bulb’ moments you will ever experience

The diet mentality doesn’t just apply to people who are overweight either. There are many slim people who want to change their diet because they want to feel fitter and healthier and have more energy. But they too have the same problem. They want to be healthy, but they also want to eat crap. So they have to force themselves to do something which they do not want to do in order to reach their goal. Many overweight people think all slim people are happy campers, but often they are having the same mental battle with food as they are. They too believe life would be nowhere near as enjoyable if they ate healthily.

One of the main reasons for this false belief is often the diet itself. Diets often encourage us to believe that life is a nightmare and boring without our ‘usual’ foods and drinks and wonderful with them. But I feel a touch of amnesia sets in. Obviously when we are not on a diet we are happier than when we are on one; but we are still not happy. That is why we want to change isn’t it? It doesn’t seem to occur to us that even when we are not on a diet we are still more miserable than someone who doesn’t have to worry about their intake of food, their health or their weight. It wasn’t only when I was consciously on a diet that I had this ‘I want to eat, but I wish I didn’t’ mental tug-of-war. The truth is I always had it to some degree. I was constantly trying to control my intake of certain foods. On a diet I just had to try and control it even more than usual – which simply made me much more aware of it.

It is having to exercise control over your intake of food on a daily basis that is the problem.

You shouldn’t have to control what you eat, you should be free to eat whatever you want, whenever you want, without having to worry about your health or weight. We have all been doing it for so long we have come to accept it as the norm – but it’s not normal to have to exercise enormous amounts of control on a regular basis. For example, non-smokers can smoke whenever they want – they just don’t want to so clearly there is no problem. It is only smokers that have the problem of trying to control their intake that have a smoking problem, non-smokers have their freedom – the freedom of not having to smoke. Even those smokers who have stopped but still crave them all the time aren’t truly free either; they are still exercising control not to smoke. It is only those people who have smoked, stopped and don’t miss them who are truly free.

I can overeat whenever I want to, but I just don’t want to anymore. I finally have true freedom around all food. Wild animals have this freedom too. In fact we are the only creatures on the planet that do this control and dieting stuff. Why? Because we have television, radio, and so-called ‘experts’ telling us what we should eat and often when we should eat. Unlike us, wild animals rely purely on their natural instincts. We also instinctively know exactly what to eat and when to eat. Our problem is that we have an intellectual brain that can easily be ‘washed’ by people with all kinds of vested interests, either status or financial. However, if we were left to our own intuitive devices we would all be eating healthily and no one would have a ‘food problem’.

DIETS TREAT THE SYMPTOM – NOT THE CAUSE

Diets never solve a food problem – they ultimately make it worse for most people. The second you go on a diet you feel deprived. You are usually no longer ‘allowed’ to eat the foods you love or you have to restrict yourself from eating a certain amount of them. The situation is that even if you do manage to ‘hang on in there’ and reach your weight ‘target’ or ‘goal’, what happens? You ‘reward’ yourself … with what? Yes, the very ‘foods’ you have been longing for in the quantity you have been dreaming of. You have been incredibly ‘good’ and you feel you deserve a ‘treat’ for all the effort you have put in for all this time. The problem is the ‘feel good’ time is pretty short lived. In no time at all you soon realize that you are once again packing on the pounds. Once this dawns on you, the no-win situation rears its head again. You either let the food floodgates open, or you try to exercise immense control over your intake once again. The point I am making is simple – you are never truly free. All you have in fact ‘treated’ yourself to are feelings of guilt, self-loathing, lethargy, a body you hate, and a lifetime desperately trying to control your intake of certain foods. And how do we try and solve that problem – another diet!

We need to start understanding that excess fat is a physical ‘symptom’ of a psychological problem. The real issue is mental – not physical. Diets aren’t designed to change the way you think, they are simply designed to change either what you eat or how much you eat, not how you see certain foods. Diets are designed to treat the excess fat (the physical symptom) but they do nothing to address the real issue, which can solve the problem for life. Because diets only treat the symptom, inevitably the situation ultimately gets worse.

Hit The Roof

For example, if I had a leaky roof and rain was falling onto my ceiling tiles, pretty soon it would show. If I simply replaced the ceiling tile, I can feel good for a while, but soon the tile would need replacing again. However, because the cause of the problem hadn’t been addressed (the hole in the roof), the situation would naturally get worse. The hole in the roof would get bigger and more tiles would be affected. I could keep replacing more and more tiles and on the surface all would look good, but in reality far from solving the problem I am always making it worse. All I clearly need to do is fix the roof and I would never have to replace a tile again. Exactly the same principle applies here. Remove the brainwashing, conditioning, and false beliefs about certain foods and drinks while exposing BIG FOOD and BIG DRINK for what it is, and you get to the root cause of the problem. Once you remove the mental cravings, you have removed the need for any willpower, thus removing the cause. Once the cause has gone, the symptoms (excess fat) soon start to disappear and so to does the need ever to go on a diet again.

DIETS CAN MAKE YOU FAT!

Another major problem with restrictive diets is that they often aren’t nutritionally thought through and many times you literally starve your body. If you deliberately stop yourself eating when your body is genuinely screaming for food, you are fighting against the most powerful instinct in the world: survival. No wonder people find it hard. When you do this, your body’s metabolism slows down; yes down. If it keeps going at the rate it is with such a small amount of food coming in, you will die very quickly. This is why the minute the body senses that there is a severe lack of food coming in, it assumes you have no choice in this decision (after all no other creature on earth would restrict in times of abundance). And rather than let you die, your metabolism slows down considerably to conserve energy. At the same time, the body stores even more of what you do eat as fat as it senses lean times ahead. Because the fat is needed, the body even begins to burn muscle tissue, which is a bit of a bugger as muscle helps to burn excess fat – so a double whammy. In fact, virtually every time you go on a restrictive diet you lose muscle tissue and gain more fat cells. Once you gain fat cells they never die, they simply shrink. This is why it is so much easier for people who have been overweight in the past to gain weight again … rapidly.

MORE BIG FAT PROBLEMS

When the ‘diet’ is over (which normally happens either when you say ‘sod the diet’ or you somehow manage to reach your physical goal) your metabolism is still working much slower than before you started the diet. It will increase again, but gradually – which is why it is important to build food up again slowly and not overeat. However, as most people are chomping at the bit for the diet to end so they can ‘live normally’ again, any chances of a gradual increase in food is pretty slim. In fact, any ‘end of diet’ period is usually followed by a massive meal – either to celebrate the achievement, or to illustrate the fact that ‘life is too short so sod you all …’ etc.

Having acquired a slower metabolism, you now go back to eating exactly the same amount of food you ate before you started the diet. What happens? You put on more weight than before you started the diet – and, it seems, a lot faster than it took to shift it. This is not simply your perception either. A study carried out on a group of rats in 1986 showed that by the time they did their second diet, the weight loss was half of what it was the first time and, wait for it, the weight was put back on THREE TIMES AS FAST. This is happening to millions of people around the world as we speak. The problem is it’s a cause and effect chain reaction, for when you see the weight rapidly piling on again you once again think that it’s time to do something about it – what? Yep the latest DIET.

Now I understand why dieting, as well as the addiction to certain foods and drinks, makes people fat. They often contribute to the problem people are trying to solve. It is only in fairly recent times that people have reached over 500 lb (227 kg) in weight. One family in the US – The Woods family – weighed in at 1 tonne – yes ONE TONNE. And if you think we are talking about a large family (so to speak), we are talking a combined weight of just four women. One girl, Terriny Woods, was 41 stone 12lb(over 260 kg) and she was just 15 years old at the time. Yes 15 years old.

If you keep going on a diet and then binge directly afterwards, your body will produce more fat cells, your metabolism will not know what the hell it’s doing and your system will store more fat in case you starve it again. This is the cycle people repeat again and again. Physically and mentally diets can be a nightmare. You never break free from the constant mental battle of trying to control your intake of certain foods or certain amounts of food. Nor do you break free from the many physical problems they create – all that happens is you become totally obsessed with food. You’re not happy when you feel you can’t eat and you feel like crap after you do it. It’s time to stop this madness. It’s time to fix the leaking roof once and for all and stop replacing the tiles.

The Medical ‘Solution’

There are of course many people who have been through the dieting mill and have realized this is not a long-term solution. At the same time their excess weight, as well as ailments related to their obesity, often cause people to take much more drastic measures than simply trying the latest diet. The increase in weight loss surgery and weight loss pills has exploded over recent years. Big people are big business and there are many people making billions of pounds by preying on their insecurities and desperation – all in the name of ‘medical help’ and ‘genuine care’ you understand. While I am all for some short-term medical intervention in many areas of ‘disease’, I see no place whatsoever for weight loss pills. And when I say no place, I mean no place at all. Even weight loss surgery, in some very desperate cases, can at times be the only solution to save a life and I can see at least a debate for it. However, these all new all-dancing and singing ‘weight loss solution’ pills are never the answer. Weight loss drugs are no longer aimed simply at the morbidly obese and given by GPs only as a last resort to those who really do feel they have tried everything else and would possibly die otherwise. Unfortunately things have got so far out of hand with the weight loss drug industry (as indeed I believe it has with the whole drug industry no matter what the disease) that I think it’s now safe to say we are without any question on the verge of …

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