Only Fat People Skip Breakfast: The Refreshingly Different Diet Book. Lee Janogly
a dream, but a real goal, a target you can reasonably achieve? Of course it’s fine to dream (‘I wish I could eat as much as I like and still be slim’) but a goal is something you want to achieve and are prepared to work towards. Is it only your weight that you want to change or some other aspect of your life? What is really keeping you fat? What do you need to change? Be realistic in your answers.
If your goal is to be permanently slim, what are you prepared to sacrifice to achieve this? You now know that you can’t eat everything you want any time you want it. Are you prepared to live without the sort of food you know is not good for your health and shape and just concentrate on putting healthy food into your body?
Step 2: How Do You Intend to Measure Your Progress?
Are you aiming to stay below a certain weight or go for a dress size at which you feel comfortably slim? Again, make this something that is achievable, not wishful thinking.
Step 3: Devise an Eating Plan
This should be a plan you can live with, not too far removed from the way you eat now. I will help you do that in the next couple of chapters. Arrange your environment in such a way that it helps you achieve the results you want. This means making your house and your workplace ‘safe’; stocking up your fridge and freezer with healthy food; and planning an exercise routine that you can stick with on a regular basis. Rely on your strategy, planning and programming, not on your willpower.
Step 4: Assess the Obstacles
To pursue a goal seriously requires you to assess the obstacles realistically and create a strategy for dealing with them. Identify those places, times, situations, other people and circumstances that set you up for failure. Reprogram those diversions so they cannot compete with what you really want. This means getting to know when you are likely to be tempted, and working out your own plan to deal with it. For example, if you always pop into the bakery for a Danish pastry on your way to work, find an alternative route. Avoid buying your evening newspaper in a shop where they also sell sweets and chocolates. If crisps set you off, tell your children not to eat them in front of you.
Step 5: Define Your Goal in Short, Measurable Steps
A wishful-thinking statement would be, ‘I am aiming to go from a size 16 to a size 8 by the summer’. A reality-based statement would be, ‘I will make the necessary changes to enable me to lose one pound a week for the next 20 weeks’. Changes happen one step at a time.
If you think about losing four dress sizes, the task can seem overwhelming. But it looks decidedly manageable when you break it down into the steps of losing one or two pounds a week. Steady progress through well-chosen, realistic stages produces lasting results in the end. But you have to know what those steps are before you set out.
Step 6: Be Accountable for Your Actions or Nonactions
As they progress towards their goal, people tend to con themselves and think, ‘That little bit won’t hurt’ or ‘It’s raining, I’ll go for my walk later’. Some people find it helpful to share their plan with a trusted friend to whom they have to report their progress periodically. The thought that someone is checking up on them might prevent a tempting situation from turning into a binge. If you think this will work for you, then go for it.
Personally, I usually advise people not to confide in others, mainly to avoid the sort of remarks people feel obliged to trot out whenever anyone is on a diet, such as ‘Why? You don’t need to lose weight’ or ‘Oh, come on, try a bit of this, it’s not fattening’. It is nobody’s business when you put on weight and nobody’s business when you lose it.
Step 7: Lose the ‘Diet’ Mentality
If everyone stopped talking about eating, weight and body shape all the time, it might cease to be such an important and debilitating issue in our lives. We might also find many more interesting things to talk about. So how about:
That last point is extremely important. I understand that you want to be different from the way you are now. I also know that, ironically, accepting yourself as you are is a prerequisite for changing. This means accepting your body in its current shape and not putting yourself down all the time. Hating the way you look sends you scurrying to the fridge. Possibly your self-hatred is the factor most responsible for keeping you fat.
Get ready to programme yourself for success.
Conversation with Client
C: How can I get rid of cellulite?
Me: You can’t.
C: Is that it?
Me: Is that what?
C: The end of the conversation?
Me: What do you want me to say? Have you tried to get rid of cellulite?
C: Are you kidding?! I’ve tried everything. I’ve rubbed in creams, lotions, radioactive mud and seaweed extract. I’ve had pads strapped to my thighs with electric currents going through them. I’ve been wrapped in tight bandages and enveloped in hot wax. My bum has been squished between rollers and I’ve even had electrodes put in under the skin into the actual fat…
Me: Ouch! What does that do?
C: An electric current passes between each pair of positive/negative needles and it’s meant to make the fat cells fight each other.
Me: And do what? Jump out and run away? Oh please! How did that work for you?
C: It didn’t.
Me: Then get real. You cannot break down fat from the outside. It has to go through the process of lipolysis within your body to be turned into a form that can be used as energy. Look, you are eating sensibly, you’re losing weight, your legs are getting toned from all the exercise, so just relax and enjoy life.
C: But the cellulite is still there.
Me: Then learn to love it—because it sure loves you. Why else would it stay with you all this time? Because it’s very attached to you, that’s why!
C: Smartarse!
Conversation with Client
C: I have always believed in taking extra vitamins and minerals to ensure I get a balanced diet. Am I right?
Me: Most people who take vitamins do so