Eat less, exercise more. There, I’ve written my first book. I will also be making it available as an audiobook.

The day we did the module on weight loss in nutrition the first thing our lecturer did was write on the board in big letters.

STOP DIETING.

The one thing all these fad diets fail to mention is that if you severely restrict calorie intake in order to achieve a target weight, then you slow your metabolism down and when you hit your target and return to your old eating habits, your body simply lays down as much fat as it can in case the food becomes scarce again. It’s the bodies survival technique for famines, and the more often you starve yourself – the worse it gets.
This is why most people not only regain the weight they lost, they gain extra.

These fat binding pills – I am appalled that while the EU is placing restrictions on VITAMINS and MINERALS under the guise of “safety”, they will allow these drugs that reduce your ability to absorb fat soluble vitamins, essential fatty acids and co enzyme q10. All of which not only has a detrimental effect on health, they can actually prove fatal (a lack of co enzyme q10 can cause heart attacks).

Diets don’t work. If you want to lose weight and keep it off you need to redefine your relationship with food – as it has obviously become unhealthy. It needs to be a permanent change – so it has to be realistic and not overly restrictive. This is your body’s fuel. You don’t put petrol in a Diesel engine. People really need to pay more attention to what they are running on.

The body image affects both sexes, often the ‘diet or workout’ books contain photos of people who won’t have used the product , diet or workout . THey unfortunately will be the professional model, male and female who earn a living from their bodies.
The high level exercise regimes, pre photo shoot diet (extreme) fat burning chemicals and supplements all lead to a body that the photographer and post production enhancements produce that body to die for.
Often they do die for it,
This is the image the kids are seeing on a daily basis, and don’t understand how it was gotten to that it is a pipe dream mostly peddled by purveyors of snake oil.
A side note is the amount of teens and young people now taking steriods in our towns is huge and a hidden problem because they are not falling over.
The body image issue is a lack of real information And understanding of diet and exercise in general. We need education in our schools and not a .5 hour of PE a week… We need correct program’s on nutrition and exercise in place.
With the willingness of parents to sue schools for little johnny falling over in playground, causing a retraction of activity by schools for fear of legal action… All feeds into social problems, body image, obesity, and all the disorders arising from lack of activity.
We might look to all the above to protect the adults of the future.
Sorry for the Sunday rant,,,

It is true that people with eating disorder are drawn to these books, and that the entire dieting industry from books to Operation Transformation to Special K encourages and exacerbates eating disorders.
I’m a bit dismayed that a spokesperson for the biggest national eating disorders support group in the country using the term “trigger”. Many years ago I was in an eating disorders support group and found it very useful. I returned to such a group a few years later to find this word “trigger” in constant use. People talked about trigger foods, they warned against certain magazines and websites as being “triggery”. One woman described a book she’d read and when I asked her for the name she refused to tell me as she said it was a trigger book.
These women and girls (they were all female) thought this avoidance of triggers was part of recovery but I was, and am, skeptical. It necessitates a view of the self as weak, susceptible and curiously lacking in willpower. I say curiously because whatever people wih eating disorders lack, it’s not willpower.
While I had my eating disorder I devoured diet books, cookbooks and bought diet magazines. That’s part of the syndrome. I read autobiographies of anorexia “survivors” like they were the Bible. Now these things leave me absolutely cold. I read them because they aided my behaviour and at that point I was more motivated to continue than to get better. I might have used the word trigger if it was around back then. And doing so would have been another brick in the “I’m helpless, I have an illness, I can’t live a normal life, I’d be fat if I ate a normal diet, I need my eating disorder to function” wall that surrounded me.
Books on their own cannot trigger behaviour that the reader isn’t already invested and interested in. They can only aid and support the reader’s own motivation.

Used to work in Easons. To the one woman I sold ‘Six Weeks To OMG: Look Skinner Than All Your Friends’ to, I wish you luck.

Body image, unfortunately has become a very important part of human life in the western world, our tv, papers, and mags are constantly bombarding us with images of super looking men and women, in fantastic shape. of course they have to look well there celebrities, they spend most of their lives trying to look well, if their not modelling or acting in a movie. These images have a direct effect on mainly the young generation, but not so much as we get older. As we get older most of us realise its what’s inside that counts. We all want to look well when we are out in the public. But one of the big problems starts at a very young age. It has become only too easy to feed kids a easy meals, ie fry’s, fried meals, take away’s, pizza’s, etc, instead of good wholesome foods. Our market has become flooded with all sorts of snack foods, from crisps to chocolate snacks, and bars. It’s nearly impossible to enter a shop and not grab something for later. There’s nothing wrong with a fry, or a chocolate bar, but not every day. Eat good fresh vegetables and by that I mean 2 types your plate, not a big plate of spuds, a small quantities of meats, and plenty of fresh fish, and above all exercise. Exercise burns up fat, which helps keep us in shape. It all starts with our parents, and its what they feed us when we are young.
It should be thought in school about nutrition and the different types of food products our bodies need to stay healthy and in good shape. That’s where it starts..

Home Ec is in 95% of secondary schools!! It teaches all about nutrition and healthy eating aswell as supplying kids with the skills necessary to prepare and cook themselves healthy meals!!! Not only is this subject not compulsory BUT with the new JC on the way it may be ‘cut’ from many schools’ curricula to make room for more ‘academic’ subjects!!! How does this even make sense when we are in the midst of an obesity epidemic????

It’s a nice morning this morning..

It is books like these that make eating disorders worse. We live in a society where the idea of being a certain size is prominent in young peoples minds. These crazy diets are tricking the body in a way which its not meant to. It is great the way the media is now showing the down side to these diets and should do a lot more. Maybe one day people will realise that these diets are not improving their lifestyles but are making it worse.

Good night all. Nice evening. X