LIVING TO EAT
vs
EATING TO LIVE

While I was on my way to being 212 pounds, I was always on a diet. When I was with other people I ate like a bird. People wondered how I gained weight when I ate so little. When I was alone, however, I would make up for my bird-like public behavior. I didn't just indulge myself with a piece of cake or even two pieces. I ate the whole cake!

When I was tipping the scales at over 200 pounds, I wasn't eating because I needed the food! I had a psychological need. I was just using food to fill that need. Food was my friend, my confidante, and my crutch. Food was also a compulsion and, despite knowing that the calories I was consuming were not what I wanted, I could not say no to my comforter. While food was my friend, I thought calories were my enemy.

While the weight-loss industry encourages calorie counting to control food intake, I observed that normal people seldom, if ever, bother to actually count calories or fat grams. In fact, most normal eaters maintain their weight while consuming diets that include many of the foods that dieters associate with restriction and weight gain. I decided that it isn't counting calories that is important but rather maintaining a balanced food intake. I decided to become a normal eater again. I quit dieting.

In Chapter 4 I tell you how I stopped the charade of eating less when I was with people than I would when eating by myself. Normal eating allowed me to order whatever I wanted to when I went out to eat with clients, friends, or family. When asked about my new behavior, my response was "I'm not on a diet, I'm on a weight-loss program." Only someone who has really struggled with controlling their eating habits can understand the relief that came from no longer feeling guilty when I was eating alone! My charade was over.

Veteran yo-yo dieters, practiced in the art of denial, may initially have problems giving up dieting and becoming a normal eater again. In Chapter 4 I show you how to do exactly that. I share with you important discoveries about eating and some techniques I developed that will help you get back to normal. Eating an entire cake or pie at one sitting is not normal. It isn't even healthy. In Chapter 4 you will discover how, to eat what you want to, when you want to.

I'll also show you how to overcome the habit of denial. When I got off the starvation/bingeing food cycle, my cravings disappeared. While I still binged on occasion, I soon realized I was no longer overeating because I knew it wasn't the last time I would ever have ice cream or eat potato chips! When you have been on as many diets as I have and lost hundreds of pounds and always gained them back, you eventually begin to believe you can never eat your favorite foods again. The implication is obvious - if you eat the foods you really like, you will be fat the rest of your life! In Chapter 4, you will learn how to be in charge of the food in your life.

DEVELOPING YOUR OWN BALANCING ACT

It does mean eating what you want to the level that makes sense. There is a big difference. In Chapter 4 I show you techniques to eat what you want to without overeating. The EverTrim system provides for taking certain Essential Food Nutrients before each meal with a full glass of water. When you sit down at mealtime, you usually won't eat as much. The full glass of water and certain nutrients that curb cravings, taken before each meal, will make you feel full more quickly.

Chapter 4 will also show you how to quit treating social eating differently from eating alone. When eating socially I no longer ate like I was on a diet. I ate what I wanted to eat. If I felt like having dessert when I was out, I did. And I refused to feel guilty about it. I knew that an occasional dessert was not going to keep me from reaching my goal.

Eating alone was a different situation. That was when I could eat the whole cake by myself. I knew I was not eating purely from hunger. When I binged, I overate everything in sight. Chapter 4 discusses the techniques I used whenever I had an urge to overeat. These techniques helped me be in control and remove the guilt I often felt after overeating. There was no more dieting and therefore no right and wrong foods.

No matter what it was, if I really wanted a candy bar, banana split, or French fries, I went ahead and had it. None of those things were really my problem because I did not consume them every day. But there was one thing I did have every day - and in Chapter 4 I tell you what it was and what I did about it. Because I overdid it every day, I gave up this one thing entirely. When I craved it, I told myself that it was the only thing I had to give up to become thin again.

Through my research for the EverTrim book I discovered the next evolution in my approach to eating. I learned that you can use diet and nutrition to actively manage your metabolism, which can help you lose weight faster and keep it off permanently. On pages 34 and 35 you will learn about my EverTrim Metabolic Boost Program. You will discover that you can use food to increase your metabolism, to overcome plateaus when you feel stuck, and to quickly get back to your normal weight when you have put on some extra pounds as a result of stress, travel or some other factor.

WHY DIETING DOESN'T WORK
FOODS THAT AID IN WEIGHT LOSS
EVERTRIM METABOLIC BOOST PROGRAM
BACK TO: QUIT DIETING AND EAT NORMALLY