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