Thin for Good: The One Low-Carb Diet That Will Finally Work for You

Read an Excerpt

Thin For Good provides the missing link to thinness by giving you:

1. a good, healthy low-carbohydrate diet program, and
2. the power to use your mind to control your body.

The way most North Americans are being encouraged to eat today is wrong. There is no scientific evidence to support the claim that by eating a high-carbohydrate, low-fat diet, you will get healthier and thinner. Instead, there is ample evidence to support the fact that a diet too low in fat may eventually lead to adverse health consequences, especially an increase in heart disease-- amazingly, the main problem a diet low in fat was supposed to solve.

This "low-fat myth," as I like to call it, has resulted in people believing that they can eat as many carbohydrates as they wish, as long as they don't contain fat. How many times have you sat down and finished an entire box of cookies or an entire pound of pasta and rationalized it by telling yourself that, after all, the food was fat-free? Fat-free maybe, but what about all the sugar you've just ingested? Yes, there is sugar in those fat-free foods. And yet you still expected to lose weight. Besides, don't you find eating fat-free a little boring? I know I do.

When I decided to write this book, I wanted to keep the good principles of low-carbohydrate eating, leave the bad ones behind, and at the same time change the way people look at food.

Thin For Good teaches you to choose all the delicious and nutritious foods you may eat-- and which foods you should avoid-- while still losing weight. Thin For Good eliminates a treacherous roadblock on the way to thinness: boredom, by not only being much more varied than most other low-carbohydrate diets but by giving you a mind plan that will leave the boredom behind.

During my years as the Associate Medical Director of the Atkins Center, I realized that the paradigm needed to change. I do not want people relegated to counting carbohydrates their entire lives-- a new obsession that for some people has replaced the old obsessions about counting calories or fat grams. The problems with the old low-carb diets were especially evident with women, who found that eating all that meat wasn't enabling them to lose the weight they wanted.

Thin For Good offers a new low-carbohydrate way of eating, though not as restrictive as the Atkins diet. I believe it is possible to lose weight without having to be so strict about the carbohydrate content. You won't have to completely ignore carbohydrates that have nutritional value. Just as all fats are not bad, neither are all carbohydrates. I'll show you the differences.

As for fats, you will not be eating an unlimited amount of that food group, either. Fried foods and saturated fats must be limited when trying to devise an eating plan for life. Eating all the bacon and chicken skin you want is not healthy. The Atkins diet rarely took those things into account.

Think about it. How many diets have you been on in your lifetime? If you are an average North American, the number is at least ten. As you read this, one out of three Americans is currently dieting. Some of the diets we go on are pretty loony. And frankly, many of them work-- at least in the short term.

In Thin For Good, I will also show you how the most important component of being a successful dieter was missing from all the other programs you have ever been on. Simply put, you must have the proper mind-body connection if you are ever going to be successful at dieting. No other diet has given you this information, and that's why you haven't been able to stay thin-- up until now.

I have developed a concept called "Mind Over Calories." Mind Over Calories will help you understand the rage and frustration you feel every time you follow a diet perfectly and still fail to lose weight. Food plays an extremely powerful role in the psyche. If you doubt this, I encourage you to take a moment to consider your food cravings and how emotional they may make you get from time to time.

Thin For Good opens the power of your mind to aid your weight loss, something you will not find in other low-carbohydrate eating plans such as Protein Power, Sugar Busters, or The Zone. None of those diets focuses on balancing the mind with the body. If you don't include your mind in the dieting process, you are ultimately doomed to failure. Thin For Good provides the solution to many of dieting's psychological roadblocks-- you won't find it in those other bestsellers.

This book will help you learn how to overcome the overweight mind-set, or at least how to have better coping strategies. Ultimately, it will teach you a new way of life. Your mind holds the key to your success. This is what will make this diet work where others have failed.

For each day of Thin For Good's initiation phase, I will give you an inspirational tip to teach you how to overcome your overweight mindset. I'llgive you an easy one now: Don't call this a diet; call it a nutritional lifestyle program.

For most of us, the word "diet" makes us think of deprivation. As someone who spent most of his childhood and young adulthood as an overweight person, I can tell you that I uttered the phrase, "I can't wait for this diet to be over!" so many times that it practically became my motto. As soon as this diet is over, I can go back to eating the way I like, right? Wrong! You can never be a truly thin person until you stop thinking of a diet as something that has a beginning and an end. Simply put, "diet" must become what you eat.

Thin For Good will provide you with the solution you'll need to master in order to never have to "diet" again. You will see that your mind plays an enormous role in this transformation.

Besides the power of the mind-body connection, there is something else I've learned in my years of practicing nutritional medicine: Women and men eat differently. No other diet book has addressed this cornerstone topic. Thin For Good provides you with another first, namely, one diet for women and another for men. The two diets are similar in that they draw on the same premise of low-carbohydrate eating, but they take into account the fact that there are basic physiological and psychological differences between women and men. After all, how can women and men possibly eat the same way and expect to lose weight? It's not possible, yet other diet books use a "one diet fits all" philosophy. The result is that when we don't lose weight fast enough or we don't lose it at all or-- worse yet-- when we compare ourselves to others we know, we wonder why we're not successful. We then use our lack of success as an excuse to stop dieting.

Over the years, in my role as associate medical director of the Atkins Center for Complementary Medicine in New York City, I worked with thousands of people who were trying to diet. At the center, everyone was placed on the same diet, with few variations. After years of experience, I saw that this was clearly not the way for everyone. There are differences in how a person metabolizes food, and the Atkins diet, as good as it was, did not take that into consideration at all.

Besides the differences between the sexes, there are also eating differences having to do with the stage of life you're in, which doesn't necessarily mean the same thing as your chronological age. Through my years of clinical practice, I have noticed certain stages of life that correspond to different dieting needs. There are four different female stages and three different male stages. So I subdivide Thin For Good into different categories according to your stage of life. One quiz for women and another for men will help you determine exactly in which stage you should start your diet. This is a critical issue, because just as every human being should not be on the same diet, every woman or man should not be on the same diet as women or men in different stages of life.

Another breakthrough is the diet I have devised for vegetarians-- the first low-carbohydrate vegetarian diet available. So, even if you are lacto-ovo or a strict vegan, Thin For Good can help you lose weight the healthy way, too.

Included as part of the diet program are nutritional supplements. These are essential for any dieter. As there are so many to choose from and the array can be confusing, I have laid out a plan that covers the most common needs of any dieter. Individual supplement programs are outlined for both men and women, based on what stage of life you are in. This takes into account the most common health issues, such as menopause for women and prostate problems for men. The information found in this section will take the confusion out of a most difficult task.

With these concepts and tools, I believe that Thin For Good is the solution you need to break the previously inevitable cycle of yo-yo dieting.

When I was young I had no idea that I would be dedicating my life to nutritional medicine. I did know at an early age, however, that I wanted to help people lose weight. The reason was simple: I was an extremely overweight child and, over the years, I have been fortunate enough to learn that it is possible to lose weight forever.

After I initially lost my excess weight, I have never put it back on, yet I know firsthand what a lifelong struggle it can be-- not so much to lose weight, but to keep it off. Many of my patients don't believe I was ever overweight (or simply "heavy," as my parents called it) because of my appearance today. But believe me, it's true.

In the years after medical school, I read every diet book I could find. Two problems all of them shared were 1) the inability to describe a proper maintenance program-- the most essential component of any dietary regime, as far as I am concerned, and 2) the lack of a psychological game plan. After all, how can anyone lose weight without a practical program, with both a nutritional and a mind-body perspective, for how to change improper eating habits and, most importantly, a roadmap for how to learn new habits?

The patients I have treated-- first at the Atkins Center and now at the Centers for Integrative and Complementary Medicine-- have almost always been successful because I am able to modify their diet in order to make it work for them. My secret is to individualize each patient's program by using many of the methods you are about to read. Thin For Good will provide you with many of the tricks I learned to get even the most stubborn body to lose weight.

The emphasis needs to be on teaching you how to lose weight and be successful for a lifetime-- not only for the first few weeks.

With Thin For Good, you will not only enjoy the benefits of low-carbohydrate eating, but you will enjoy something stronger: the power of your mind working with you, not against you. This time, truly make it thin for good.

Let's get started!