AGAINST THE GRAIN

“Inside me lives a skinny woman crying to get out.

But I can usually shut the bitch up with cookies.”

(Unknown)

This was the story of my life.  And I presume yours too if you are reading this book….

How long have you been dieting?

Since you stopped fitting into your pre-pregnancy clothes?

Since the invention of Spandex? Since you had to record (and lie about) your weight on your driver’s license?  Since the very first time you filled out a driver’s license application – fifteen, twenty, thirty years ago?

In other words, have you been dieting forever?  And feeling guilty, inadequate and maybe even hopeless because you’re not getting any thinner – and maybe fatter! – Or because your weight fluctuates more often than the price of gasoline?

Isn’t it time to stop?  Stop dieting, and find a real solution and a new path toward PERMANENT weight maintenance.

I found that path and it’s simple (not easy, magical or miraculous), and it works for women with the lifestyle, time constraints, responsibilities and stresses that most of us share. Women like you. Women like me.

When I stopped dieting seven years ago and started listening to what my body was telling me, I lost – and kept off – weight for the first time in my adult life.

And you can do it, too.  Because when it comes to knowing what eating patterns work for you, YOU are the expert.  You know which foods satisfy you, which ones make you hungrier, which ones trigger eating binges that incite you to raid the 7-11 snack aisle at ten at night.

You KNOW but again, if you’re like me, your desperation to be thin overrode your common sense and you’ve been had by every fad diet and burnt by every fat-burning pill on the market.

Why have people been telling you to count calories, eliminate fat and/or carbs when the evidence – your tummy, hips and thighs – proves that none of these methods works in maintaining your desired weight?

Because a lot of people have been getting rich off of your misery.  Some 129.6 million overweight Americans have spent nearly $33 billion annually to find the answer

to permanent weight loss and good health, but the answers we get are more often borne of corporate greed than our dietary needs.

Thanks to the wonders of marketing, even doctors (who should really know better) fell victim to one of the greatest and longest lasting hoaxes of the twentieth century: the low-fat, high-carbohydrate diet. Now, with equal enthusiasm, but no greater examination, many are leaping on the new -- and, perhaps polar-opposite low-carb trend.

Just like most of us, the medical community has been prey to the manipulations of the marketing departments at Quaker Oatmeal, Kellogg’s and now Atkin’s, and EVERY brand that stood to gain market share by creating the great American diet trends -- from fat-hating to grain-loving to carb-avoiding mania.