FatBlogger

What if you were thin?

Its an interesting concept, one that I have heard and read about in various forms over the years. The thought is that to be a thin person, one should act like a thin person. Of course, that is easier said than done for many, lucky for us that Rachel Young has figured it out. 

Rachel has lost over 80 pounds, thats right...80 pounds! All through a method she learned while growing up in Japan called "kaizen". In her words...

You see, the Japanese use the term “kaizen” to describe small steps that can be taken to achieve

large goals. I used this concept to learn the language (speaking and writing), to try and discover

new local foods, to live and love the country I was being raised in.

It's an easy to read, no nonsense approach, full of good advice, a unique approach to losing weight sensibly and for life, I enjoyed reading it. Those of you who know me well, know I do NOT recommend many diet books, but this is one that I can, whole heartedly! To read more about Rachel and her kaizen approach to weight loss, go to her website...

What If You Were Thin?

You on a Diet!

I was excited to get this book. I had seen the two doctors who wrote it (Dr. Michael Roizen & Dr. Mehmet Oz) on the Discovery Channel in a 1 hour special, and what they said and did intrigued me enough that I felt like I should read it.

It has taken me a long time to get through it, much longer than most diet or health books I pick up. I have mixed feelings about it. On the one hand the two doctors offer some compelling new information about weight loss, if you can believe that there is anything new, or compelling, about it! On the other hand, the book is written in such an obnoxious manner that it is often hard to cut through the gibberish to glean what that new information is. The book is written in the manner of a "Dummies" or "Idiots" type book, only it's more like a "Dummies" book on steroids, or an "Idiots" book on amphetamines. It comes at your hard and fast and there is just as many glib jibes as there is fact.

On top of that, the two doctors repeatedly tell you diets are no good, they don't work, you should not go on them...then they put you on a diet! The main premise of the "You on a Diet" diet is to "reprogram" you body to eating good and healthy and thereby help it to feel fuller faster, or more normally. Their 14 day "reprogramming" plan will leave you with a waist 2 inches smaller, they say. On day one you are to dump any and all items from your fridge and pantry that contain sugar, saturated fat, trans fat or enriched flours as their first five ingredients. You are then to replace it with (they give you a shopping list and meal plan) more whole foods, whole wheats, high fiber and low fat protein sources. Their meal plan and specific recipes do contain limits and measurements and they admit it amounts to around 1700 calories a day. Sounds like a diet to me.

OK, it IS on the New York Times bestseller list, (but then so is every Ann Coulter book that comes out) so what is so good about it? Two words...waist management. The good doctors reveal that the fatty sack under your abdomen, your omentum, is really the death threat that faces the over weight. They clue us in to two chemicals in our stomach that raise and lower hunger, and how to do with with certain foods. They describe what happens to that extra fat in your body, blood stream and liver, and what it means to you and your health. They tell you to stop worrying about your weight, and start worrying about your waist. Here are some the key things I DID like about the book

• Waist management instead of weight management
• Inflammation and how it attacks our immune system
• The chemicals that control hunger and satiety, ghrelin and leptin
• The importance of the liver in obesity, health and weight-loss
• The detailed activity plan that ANYONE can do.

To sum up my thoughts about the book...annoying to read, but full of new and useful information that may educate and motivate. It lacks the grace and  peacefulness of say "SuperFoods Health Style", it's more like a kids plastic hammer tapping you on the head with every page trying to drive home a point. As long as you don't look to it as anything revolutionary (exercise and eating better are hardly that), and look more of it as a science guide into the fat effects on your body, you will be satisfied and find it well worth the money.

Of course this is just one FatBlogger's opinion, buy it and judge for yourself...and let me know what YOU think.

Changing For Good!

This the the title from the 1994 book by James Prochaska, Ph.D., John Norcross Ph.D., Carlo Diclemente, Ph.D. To sum it up as succinctly as I can, this book reflects the 5 year+ study by these men on uncovering the "secret" to successful personal change. They studied more than 1,ooo "self changers" who were able to permanently alter their lives without psychotherapy.

God knows I love science, which is probably one of the reasons I liked the SuperFoods books so much. No made up bullshit, no false assumptions, no fantastic promises, just straight forward research and assessment. These three men, in doing research on preventing life threatening diseases, brought on by human behavior such as alcoholism, smoking and over-eating, found a remarkable thing; there are actual stages  and processes that we all must go through when making a change and breaking a bad habit, and the reason many of us fail to succeed is that we get stuck in one of these stages or processes, and need a little help getting over the hump. The example below is based on their graphic from p.54 of the book. The stages are located on top and under them the process are shown as they begin and end in certain stages.

Precontemplation --- Contemplation --- Preparation --- Action --- Maintenance ---Termination

            consciousness - raising-------------|

             social liberation ----------------------------------------------------|

                                                               emotional arousal-----------|

                                                               self-reevaluation-------------|

                                                                                                         commitment--------------------------|

                                                                                                                              reward---------------------|

                                                                                                                              countering----------------|

                                                                                                                              environment control---|

                                                                                                                              helping relationships---|

According to the authors, and backed up by study after study, everyone goes through this process, often times without even being aware of it. For the most part they are fairly obvious right? I mean at first glance one might say "duh, of course"!  But isn't it nice to know that there is a process, not madness, and that you can move through it? Can you guess which stage I am stuck at? After reading the book I can clearly see that I am stuck between contemplation and preperation, because I lack what I need to do for the commitment.

As the authors discuss each stage and process in the book, they provide a small 5 question self assessment to see if you are ready to go to the next stage. Just by reading the book I could see that I keep getting stuck in contemplation and preparation, and the self-test provided only backed that up. I failed to pass the "commitment test", and anyone reading my blog knows that is true! So even in my own case, I can validate the authors findings.

Most of you know how I have gone back and forth throughout the blog, how I have continually searched for answers as to why, and when I think I have it figured out I come up with a plan, and  I never begin that plan or at least never maintain that plan. I can't tell you what a RELIEF it was to know that I was not NUTS, only a bit stuck. I also can't tell you what a RELIEF it was to know that all my work on my self was not in vain, in fact it is part of the process, I just took it way too far, and I did it because I could not commit to the plan or the changes. In fact many of my own discoveries and revelations about myself were even in the book, I was on the right track.

What I didn't realize is that for me, the pros of staying fat were actually not enough to overcome the pros of being fit, and until that happens, I am not going to be able to go forward very far.

So, I know what I have to work on, and the authors have included some examples and techniques for getting over the hump in each stage, but it is work, and I will most likely do that work here at FatBlogger.

Next post... I will begin to discuss each stage and process.

PS - I thought Typepad was WYSIWYG? It is anything but! I had to re-post this thing about 5 times before "what you see is what you get"!