The Food Philosophy will show you how to lose weight, feel genuine choice and control around food and set yourself free from overeating for the rest of your life.
The conversation about VLCD s continues as I answer another message posted by a reader. WannabeTVChef has his own fabulous foodie blog which I read regularly and highly recommend - find it here
Dear Sue,
I applaud your well reasoned arguments.
As you say a very high rate of diets dont work on their own.
Only a combination of exercise and perhaps a more thoughtful plan of what you are going to eat will make a difference.
Hi WannabeTVChef
Thanks very much for your contribution to this blog. I try to argue as reasonably as I can! You appear to have a half enlightened view, which is very good for the times we live in! I'm not being patronising but so few people understand the problem that it's thoroughly amazing that you hold the opinion that you do.
You say that a very high rate of diets don't work on their own.
The truth is that ALL diets fail for 98 per cent of users - whether they're used on their own or with any other assistance, including exercise.
And also a more thoughtful plan of what you are going to eat sounds like a sensible and rational alternative to a diet, but when you examine this concept carefully and consider the reason that diets fail (the psychological reaction to food restriction) you can begin to see that any plan - even a more thoughtful one - will mean that you will react in the same way as you would with a diet.
Sensible eating, healthy eating, a change in lifestyle, or 'a more thoughtful plan of what you are going to eat' are all just other ways of saying 'diet'.
Any of the millions of people out there who have 'given up' dieting because of the bad press it has got over recent years and turned to sensible or healthy eating can tell you, I'm sure, that they have reacted in the same way to their new way of eating as they did when dieting and many have now become the modern alternative to the yo-yo dieter and joined the rising tide of yo-yo healthy eaters.
That's millions and millions of people who believe the healthy eating message who, armed with enough 'knowledge' from consumer magazines and TV propaganda to gain a degree in nutrition, pledge themselves to the path of fruit, veg and wholegrain only to find themselves unable to stop themselves from stuffing down chips, chocolate and family bags of crisps or any of the other foods they're told are bad. Feeling bad about themselves for their lack of willpower, their eating (and their happiness) frantically spiralling downwards into disordered eating.
Even those who have tried what seems the most intelligent solution ever - don't ban any food but eat 'unhealthy' food in moderation - find themselves headfirst in the fridge in the middle of the night stuffing down the very foods they've been trying to moderate.
This is a natural and normal reaction to food restriction and it is exactly why more and more people are becoming overeaters.
Dieting, healthy eating, sensible eating and even eating in moderation are obviously not the answer - and VLCDs most definitely aren't! - if any of these were viable solutions then the problem would be solved right now.
Wouldn't it?
