Diets.  Even the word sounds restrictive.  How many times have you read a new diet book, and when you started you were full of enthusiasm for the plan?  WOW!  Everything makes so much sense.  The science seems to be there.  You can literally eat WHATEVER YOU WANT and the pounds will fall right off. Then you read a little more of the book.  Hmmmm.  It’s not really “whatever you want.”  You have to limit carbs.  Or meat.  Or fat. Or sugar.  Or things that start with the letter S. (That’s a real book, people.) But it is okay!  Because there are so many wonderful things that you CAN eat that you are not even going to MISS carbs/meat/fat/sugar/S-words!  Trust me!  Life is delicious and satisfying and you won’t miss it at all!  (That is the biggest lie ever, by the way.  After the first week or two you WILL miss carbs/meat/fat/sugar/S-words so much that you dive headfirst into a vat of the forbidden foods and there’s the end of that diet.  Again.  Oops.) Even though my degree is not in nutrition or medicine, over the years I have read everything about weight loss that I could get my hands on.  Each time I read a new weight loss book, I would try the plan out and see if it worked for me.  (Unless I knew within the first few pages that it was going to be too hard because of my inherent laziness, in which case I would just stop reading and chalk that book purchase up as another mistake.  Amazon loves me.)  I have read many excellent books (and also some that are worthless) and I probably have read more about nutrition than many physicians.  Do you know what is funny, though?  So much of what I have read WAS written by doctors, and each of the books directly contradicts at least one of the other books.  You know I am right.  It is incredibly frustrating to see how much contradictory information is out there. Many of the diet books promoted plans that were overly complicated, and I just couldn’t keep up with the rigorous demands and rules.  Have you tried the one where you pack up your food in dozens of tiny containers so you can snack on them all day long just to keep your metabolism stoked?  Me, too!  Who has time to prep all of that food?  I certainly do not.  How about the diet books where you don’t eat any carbs, ever?  Of course I am again talking about food that you have to spend the weekend cooking and packing up, because the food you can find in the real world doesn’t meet your stringent carb count criteria.  I’ve done that, and it wore me out.  What about the plan where you can only eat “clean” foods and follow certain rules about what is allowed? “I’m sorry, was that carrot organically farmed by Tibetan Monks?  If not, then I will not be eating it, Thankyouverymuch.”  The problem with all of these special food plans is that I don’t have time (or the willpower) to keep up any kind of rigorous schedule where I have to work hard to always have a certain kind of food with me, or to have certain foods that are eternally off limits.  Like you, some days I have to work until 6 pm and then I may want to eat dinner that I can pick up on the way home.  There is no drive through that dispenses fancy meals that meet all of the dietary restrictions that go with each wacky diet I tried, so eventually each plan was destined to failure for me. What about the magical supplements that you can buy that will magically allow you to magically lose the fat from your trouble areas, magically?  Been there, bought those.  I used to watch Dr. Oz every day and I would be glued to the LATEST WEIGHT LOSS MIRACLE! segment every time, knowing that YES!  This is my problem!  I am deficient in this herb that is grown in the Amazonian Rain Forest, and once I start taking this miracle cure I will be THIN!  The fat will melt off of my
body! I would order each miracle supplement and then start the regimen that would allow me to effortlessly drop the fat.  Usually, you had to take 3 capsules of this AMAZING herb 20 minutes before each meal, and then EAT WHATEVER YOU WANT and watch the pounds melt off.  Again, compliance was a problem for me.  I would forget to take the capsules, or I wouldn’t have them with me, and eventually I would just stop taking them and add them to the drawer of failed miracle supplements.  Thank the Lord I finally came to my senses and stopped DVR’ing Dr. Oz.  These days I don’t even look directly at magazine covers if he is on them.  Dr. Oz, you cost me a fortune. This is why all diets work, and no diets work.  We can follow a crazy restrictive regimen for a while, and we may even lose some weight, but eventually you are going to want to eat pizza or cake or Thanksgiving dinner.  These “diet” plans are just not sustainable long-term.  The good news is that with intermittent fasting, you don’t have to follow a crazy diet.  You can eat the foods you want to eat, and you can lose the guilt. After years of struggling, and learning that I am not going to follow a traditional diet or keep up a difficult schedule of supplementation, I FINALLY feel a confident sense of peace that I have found the key to permanent weight loss.  Over a 10-month period I lost 75 pounds (which has turned into 80+...yes, I continue to lose fat slowly while in maintenance), using techniques that fit in nicely with my overall eating preferences.  The best news is that my new eating style doesn’t require me to make elaborate plans about what I will be eating, and there is actually a wealth of cutting edge research that shows that my new eating style is healthier than traditional diets.  I am thrilled to report that I have been maintaining this weight loss for about 2 years now (and, in fact, I have gotten even leaner over the past year without even trying).  This is almost unheard of in today’s world where statistics show that the vast majority of people who lose weight gain it all back.  (I have seen estimates that only about 5% of people are able to keep off the weight long term.  That sure is depressing, isn’t it?) So—if you are sick of trying to find the perfect diet for you, and instead want to find a lifestyle that you can tailor to suit your eating preferences, you are in the right place.  Intermittent fasting is not only free, but it also allows you to eat whatever you want.  The solution is literally in the title of this book:  you will learn to DELAY eating, rather than to DENY yourself.