You Can Be Thin: The Ultimate Programme to End Dieting... Forever by Marisa Peer Read Free Book Online Page A

immoderately made you happy you would be happy by now and you’re not. No one who is overweight is truly happy because the price they pay is so horribly high. Being overweight doesn’t mean you aren’t loveable or wonderful or a great person, but it does mean you are suffering when you don’t need to.
    I am always amazed when people tell me that they refuse to restrict their eating while their life is in fact restricted by being overweight. Cutting out certain foods may seem restrictive, but if your weight limits your ability to be happy with what you look like and your self esteem, to be active with friends or family, to buy clothes that you admire on the hanger or in magazines or even affects your sex life, that is truly restrictive. Clients often tell me that they refuse to get involved in the tyranny of restricting what they eat but they are already involved in the tyranny of being overweight. They tell me they refuse to suffer by denying themselves certain foods while explaining how much they are suffering physically and emotionally from being overweight because so many options and activities aren’t open to them. They cannot get involved in many activities because they get breathless, they can’t play with their children because they are too out of shape. They won’t go to the beach, the swimming pool or even a communal changing room because they feel inhibited by their body shape. They can’t wear the clothes they want to wear.
    You may see eating differently and changing your lifestyle as being enslaved to some dull monotonous diet, but what I’m suggesting is not a diet in the traditional sense at all, and if you aren’t leading a full life and don’t feel good about yourself and your body then you are already leading a very restricted life and missing out on so much. Restrict your eating instead of your living is a motto I live by, and I should know as I had an eating disorder for years and now I willingly restrict what I eat and I love getting the most out of my life as a result. I have been asked many times if I think my way of eating is restrictive and the honest answer is, yes it is, but only very slightly, whereas being overweight is restrictive all the time. It is much more restrictive to hate your body and to be depressed about how you look and to live life to only half its potential. I feel good almost all the time now, whereas when I was eating without any restriction I felt horrible almost all the time, including when I was eating like there was no tomorrow. I didn’t just feel bad about myself and my lack of control, I felt horrible physically, with constant headaches, lethargy, mood swings and stomach aches. And as for the guilt, yes there was an abundance of that too, and no amount of chocolate or ice cream could cure it. If you choose to willingly and happily restrict how you eat, this one action will free you from being restricted in other areas of your life forever, you will never look back with any regrets

What’s Restrictive Anyway?
    You are probably sick of the ‘R’ word already, but here’s the thing – you already happily live with a wide range of restrictions without a second thought. If you are married you have to accept certain restrictions – you can’t behave like a single person, you can’t do just whatever you want, come in whenever you want, buy whatever you want and flirt with whoever takes your fancy as you made a choice when you got married to forgo those things. If you have a job you can’t go to work whenever it suits you and stay in bed when it doesn’t, you can’t even wear what you like. Again, in order to keep that job you have to restrain some urges and impulses. We all know that having children means sacrificing late nights, long lie-ins and pristine houses and we make that choice willingly when we want a baby. When you finally get to buy your own home, owning it means you may no longer have surplus cash to spend, but you are willing to accept