Slim for Life

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Introduction

User’s Guide

Selected References

Acknowledgments

Index

Back Ad

I have to tell you—I honestly never saw myself writing a “diet” book again. I thought I had said all there was to say about weight loss and maintenance, diet and nutrition, and even exercise. But over time I realized that maybe I and all the other “weight-loss gurus” had said too much, making things overcomplicated, confusing, even conflicting.

One expert tells you to count points, another tells you to count minute blocks, and yet another tells you to count calories. It all means the same thing on the scale, but hearing it three different ways leaves you guessing which method actually gives you better results, and which you should do. This can make a person feel overwhelmed and a little nuts. Or you have the people who
overinform
you, with information on biochemistry, kinesiology, and other science-y stuff. Once again you feel overwhelmed, and you don’t understand what to do with it anyway.

The worst offenders on this shelf are out to make a quick buck with too-good-to-be-true advice. They may tell you things like “You don’t really need to worry about calories to lose weight” or “You don’t have to exercise to offload the fat—you can just sit still and deep breathe it away.”

Bottom line, over the last several years, I’ve come to recognize that the more simple and straightforward I can make the information, the easier it is for you to cut through all the crap, apply the advice, and get the results you want.

So this is
Slim for Life
—a simpler, easier path.

It’s a set of straightforward methods, tips, tricks, and insider secrets that pertain to diet, exercise regimen, and general lifestyle. When you follow it, it will make any weight you’ve been holding on to fall off quickly—and remain off!

The advice here is doable, sustainable, fast, and affordable. Life is hard enough without dreading your workout, feeling punished by your diet, or being overwhelmed by your lifestyle. Not with
Slim for Life
.

I will dispel slim myths and lay waste to dangerous weight-loss ideas that end up damaging your metabolism and setting you even farther back behind the eight ball. That’s right, all that crap you’ve been trying, testing out, and buying into—no more. The Cookie Diet, Master Cleanse, Carb Cutting, Fat-Free, 17-Day Debacle—all over, done! This is not gimmick time. Instead, I offer you what I’ve found works: hundreds of straightforward ideas that are easily implemented and guaranteed to effect a dramatic body transformation.

My last promise before we get started—permanence. I’ve taken all I know about weight loss and distilled it into what’s in this book. It offers only what works, and nothing you don’t need.

The even better news is you don’t have to follow all the strategies listed within these pages or follow them all the time.
Slim for Life
allows you to pick and choose what works best for you and what’s manageable for your life, all while giving you better results than you imagined possible.

Slim for Life
is divided into eight chapters that take into account every possible area of your life where you might hit an obstacle or have a question—Eating, Moving, At Home, On the Go—you name it, it’s here. You’re covered, no matter where you are or what you’re doing. In any possible scenario you can imagine, I have your back and will provide you with the diet, fitness, and lifestyle advice you need to come out on top.

I’ve also covered every possible self-sabotaging act or slim pitfall, from lack of support and poor self-esteem to time constraints, access issues, and financial limitations. If or when any of these issues arise, you now have a number of solutions at your fingertips with which to circumvent them all.

But it’s not just about avoiding sabotage. I’ll show you how to optimize your fat-burning potential and supercharge your slim with strategic advice on everything from supplementation, food combining, and meal timing to body temperature manipulation, craving crushers, slim savvy fashion tips, and much, much more.

Now that you know what you’re in for, let’s get down to business and deliver the changes to your body, health, and life that you’ve desired for so long and truly deserve.

As you’re about to discover, there’s a lot of information in this book, but none of it is meant to overwhelm you. To make sure this doesn’t happen, I’ve created this User’s Guide to illustrate how to maximize your results and personalize your plan so that you not only get the body you’ve always wanted, you also have no trouble keeping it.

As I mentioned, you don’t have to follow
all
the recommendations in this book. Nor do you have to follow them all the time. Some are essential, and some are, well, more optional. The quantity and the quality of the tips you choose to implement will determine the quality of your results and the rate at which you achieve them.

What’s the magic combination? Which tips take precedence and what percentage of them must you follow to get life-changing, body-transforming results? The simplest answer: the ones you follow regularly. I’ve also built in a “hierarchy of slim,” which specifically tells you which pieces will give you the most bang for your weight-loss buck. It’s in the form of a point system that values each piece of advice as a 3, 2, or 1: 3 is the most powerful and important, 2 is solid and useful but not utterly essential, and 1 is a helpful add-on that offers advice on how to implement your slim lifestyle. All will help you get your slim on—so if you like one more than the other, have at it. That’s the whole point of this book: structuring what works for you and your life.

At the end of each chapter is a checklist where you’ll check off
the ideas you can realistically see yourself incorporating into your life—permanently. Then in
Chapter 8
, our final chapter and wrap-up, I will assess your total slim score aggregate from all the preceding chapters and tell you exactly what it means to you and for your results. Once you’ve totaled up your points, I’ll make recommendations for you based on the category range you fall in. If necessary, we’ll up the ante by fine-tuning your tip selection (both quality and quantity) to make sure you succeed.

Choose the strategies you like most, while utilizing your knowledge of which tips take weight-loss precedence, and you’ll have all you need to help you select, organize, optimize, and implement a personalized action plan that will deliver fast results and last forever.

Be aware, while there are universal laws of slim that apply to us all equally (they tend to be biochemically focused information about food and fitness), many strategies in
Slim for Life
will affect some of us more powerfully than others. (These are often more behaviorally focused suggestions on topics like building support and gearing your environment for success.)

Here’s my suggestion: as you read through each chapter, note the number next to each tip. The tips that I’ve given a 3 rating (the power tips) are all top priority. Do anything and everything you can to follow them and check them off in the checklist at the end of each chapter. For the tips that I’ve given a 1 or 2 rating to, picture yourself implementing them as you read the chapter. Ask yourself, “Are they realistic to my lifestyle? Do they seem doable to me?” Obviously the ones that do, you should check off as well. The ideas you aren’t sure about, I want you to put to the test. Try a couple each week. See how they work for you. Were they difficult to implement? Were they effective? This is literally how you determine what works and what doesn’t for
you,
so you can permanently change your behaviors for the better.