EXCERPT OF PREFACE
Natural Perfection
Your body is a complex marvel of intricate design, with everything you need to be lean, healthy, and energetic already built in. Don’t let anyone tell you that you’re irreparably overweight, sick, or otherwise “flawed.” You are already naturally perfect.
The secret—so simple yet so profound—of permanent weight loss and ageless health is to work with your body instead of against it. By going with this natural flow, you’ll slide to your preferred weight as effortlessly as a plant grows toward the sun.
You have likely been hurt by harmful diets that don’t work, that raise and then smash your dreams, leaving you in worse shape than when you started. I want you to succeed with a new, effective set of choices. Throughout this book, I’ll be talking with you and sharing what I learned the hard way.
Once I was trapped in the muddle of chronic overweight, multiple health problems, and hopeless disdain for my body. Assisted by my daughters and pioneering researchers, I struggled to Perfect Health and a trim fi gure.
I want to share the breakthrough formula I discovered with you and see you marvel at the same transformation to the health, youthful energy, and lean weight you desire and deserve. You shouldn’t suffer one day longer than you have to! You don’t need to put up with being overweight or obese for years to come!
In the past, you based your diet on information you had at the time. With 21st century knowledge, you are free to make better choices. After all, what will your life be like in 10 years if you don’t find a better way to eat and stay healthy now?
I appreciate your confidence in me, and will earn it by sharing hard-to-get information about whole foods that has been hiding in plain sight.
Living To Eat
The story of food is the story of my life. Food was a family obsession. As far back as I can remember, my days centered around meals and snacks. Special events were inseparable from extraordinary meals. The highest compliment for anyone in my family was praise that a meal they cooked or hosted was “delicious.”
I was always planning what to eat next. Amazingly, I was thin—almost skinny—during my growth years in Philadelphia. I had been tall for my age as a child, but stalled at 5 feet 4 inches at age 12. After that, I gained a few pounds and, although still an appropriate size, became obsessed with weight.
I tried different crazy diets popular in the 1960s. Like most kids in my generation, I was indoctrinated early in the supposed importance of “protein.” My favorite food was meat, and I could easily devour a pound of steak, half a chicken, or an entire slab of ribs at one meal.
So it’s no surprise I ended up on the animal-based Stillman Diet, the precursor to subsequent “high protein” diets. How clever I thought it was to eat the hamburger and leave the bun. Little did I dream then that several decades later the fallacy of this eating plan would become overwhelming for me.
