problem? What can they possibly do to stop someone’s desire for certain foods? It may stop someone eating certain amounts of fat through fear of a sudden ‘soiling of their pants’, but what on earth does it do to stop the excess consumption of refined sugar – the biggest cause of excess bodily fat there is? What does it do to stop them even wanting fatty foods but just not having them through fear? Even if someone does lose weight taking any weight loss drug, if nothing has been done to change the way that person perceives what they eat or the way they eat, then what on earth stops them piling the weight back on when they stop taking the pill? Doesn’t this work in exactly the same way as the ‘fad diets’ many in the dietetic and medical profession slag off so readily? Aren’t these over the counter diet pills a ‘quick fix’ solution? Once the ‘quick fix’ is over, it’s back to the same pattern of behaviour which caused the problem in the first place. Once again, excess bodily fat is a physical symptom of addictive psychological problem. With that in mind, please rest assured that in my opinion there will never be a weight loss pill that can possibly send you to the utopia of a Food Freedom mentality and so the land of the thin.
Shortly before going to press the European Medicines Agency (EMEA) recommended the suspension of the marketing authorization of Accomplia, as Rimonabant is known as in Europe, because its ‘benefits no longer outweigh its risks’. This despite the fact that the drug was cleared by NICE (National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence) for use as a last resort on the NHS only four months earlier.
Under The Knife
People’s desperation to get to grips with their weight and health doesn’t simply stop at radical, nutritionally unsound, diets or suspect diet pills. Going under the surgeon’s knife is getting more and more popular. In the United States alone, 177,600 operations were performed in 2007, according to the American Society for Metabolic & Bariatric Surgery. One of the most common operations and now probably the most widely talked about is gastric bypass surgery. This works by making your stomach smaller and removing part of your bowel to make your digestive system shorter. This was also the operation Fern Britton famously had and it’s not for the faint hearted. Personally I feel Fern Britton was given a hard time when it came out her dramatic weight loss was not simply down to diet and exercise, as she had apparently claimed, but rather surgery. I don’t think some realize how low and desperate someone has to get to even contemplate surgery for weight loss. Gastric bypass surgery can be potentially life threatening and is usually used in extreme cases only. However, due to what they deem as the ‘success’ of such operations, the plan is to extend this ‘opportunity’ to those who aren’t necessarily morbidly obese (large chance of dying as a result of their weight), but just obese. Please understand that the way obesity and morbid obesity is measured at the moment is using an antiquated system known as BMI (Body Mass Index). This ridiculous system doesn’t take into account muscle mass and is completely inaccurate in many cases. This system even shows the extremely muscular and well-toned rugby player Jonny Wilkinson as obese! Pretty soon you will have slightly overweight people (who according to the BMI scale are obese) getting this surgery. It’s also worth knowing that we are already in a position where many children are now going under the knife for obesity, yes kids.
Once again though I have the same question – does this treat the cause or the symptom? Unlike drug pills I can actually see an argument for some types of weight loss surgery. There would, I believe without question, be some people who would be dead now without it. However, this type of treatment is getting more and more popular and for some, far from being the last resort, it can be seen as the ‘easy’ solution and one of the first things they try. Easy is not the word I would use for this operation, stomach bypass or any similar procedures. Remember, these operations don’t stop you wanting certain foods; you just can’t eat as much of them. So you still want to, but you can’t. This, for many, is a form of living mental torture. Many get around the problem by simply blending a load of junk food with some liquid and drinking it instead. So they are still often having their sugar and refined fat fix, just in a different form or chewing the same crap very slowly. This is why there are some people who despite operations like this, still have problems losing weight. One lady lost just 1 lb (0.45 kg) in the seven weeks following her stomach bypass op. She spent £6,000, went through the nightmare of being under the surgeon’s knife to have her stomach strangled, yet still has exactly the same problem as before. She still battles every day with the mental cravings she has for the chocolates, cola, cakes, and all the other artificial sweet things that are causing the problem – and she still consumes them. She is still on a permanent mental diet – still constantly trying to fight a desire to eat and drink certain foods. And exactly the same can happen with jaw wiring, the stomach ‘pacemaker’ (yes there is one) or any of the other drastic surgical methods used to try and shift the fat.
When In Doubt – Suck It Out!
Then we have those who don’t fancy the idea of their stomach being stapled and having to restrict what they eat, and opt for a bit of liposuction. No willpower, discipline, and control needed here, simply let them knock you out and suck the fat out. You then leave hospital so battered and bruised you feel like you have just gone ten rounds with Mike Tyson – but at least you’re thinner! Your skin is the biggest organ of the body and when you start cutting it open and sucking fat out, it simply cannot be a good thing to do. And, like all the other weight loss methods I have mentioned here, liposuction again does absolutely nothing to remove the psychological addiction to certain foods and drinks and desire for them. All it does is treat the physical symptoms of being mentally locked in what I describe as ‘the food trap’.
Set Yourself Free
What’s required is a very different approach. The irony is, as I will keep mentioning throughout this book, that the whole process of changing what you eat in order to get slim and healthy and to stay slim and healthy is ridiculously simple. The problem is we have all been going about it the wrong way for so long we are all totally convinced that there isn’t an easy way. We all strongly believe losing weight will require tremendous amounts of willpower, discipline, and self-control for life. We think if we don’t possess such strengths, we will need to seek out pills, patches (yes there is a weight loss patch!), or the fat hoover to help us get thin. However, just because we believe something is difficult to virtually impossible – and even if that belief is backed up by 99 per cent of the population – it doesn’t make it so. If I can simply a) change this false belief and b) show you an extremely easy way of thinking that will set you free around food in a way you possibly haven’t felt in years, freedom is yours.
This process cannot only be easy, but also enjoyable. The answer is not to starve yourself, cut yourself open, pop a pill or staple your stomach, but to change the way you think about the ‘foods’ in order to successfully, not go on a diet, but …
