I found Jon Gabriel's book and CD late last year. To me, it is the missing link. I have tried just about everything including many diets, weight watchers, Jenny Craig, Tony Ferguson, etc etc. I even had lapband surgery twice many years ago, and still have an adjustable band in place, but enlarged to the maximum. That is the only way I could keep food down.
There is far too much focus on food and diets, and way too little attention paid to the psychological aspects of obesity. Much of what we read is rubbish - losing weight is too hard, you must diet. Energy in, must be less than energy out. You must be greedy. It's in your genes. You must exercise. If you like a food it must be bad for you. You need to be punished, and on and on.
Jon's book was the first thing I found that made any sense of the whole debate. Obviously, what we are doing about obesity is not working. Yet we insist on doing it, and we continue looking for the magic pill or gene or protein or discipline, instead of looking into our minds.
I believe Jon has the answer for most of us, if we would take his theories seriously.
While his book is a great source of information, his meditation CD is the key to success. I find it fabulous, but thought his approach was a little off-beat. So, now I also use the nevereverdiet guided meditation program as well.
I have to admit that I am completely single minded about the gabriel method.
One thing to watch out for is that the weight loss is not steady - at least not for me and hubby. We dropped some, then spend long periods on a plateau. That is when most of us would give up or say that it does not work. Nevertheless, I have dropped 30kgs in a little over 6 months. Hubby is not as dedicated as me, but has lost about 15kgs. We both have about 20kgs or so to go, and we are happy to be persistent and patient and let it happen. It is no ordeal at all.
We do not "diet" but we have added more healthy foods to our routine. We start the day with fresh lemon juice and several glasses of water, then have a big yoghurt based breakfast most days (including fruit, nuts and ground seeds), a salad or such for lunch, and some snacks during the day. We are usually not hungry at night, and skip dinner most days, or have something light.
Our food bill has dropped dramatically, and we have very little waste - mostly fruit skins.
Anyway, I have raved on enough! Good luck with your goals.
Love Marie
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If you think "energy in must be less than energy out" is "rubbish" then you must think laws of thermodynamics are rubbish as well.
The ONLY REASON.. again, the *ONLY REASON* anyone EVER loses weight is because they use more energy than they take in. Period. End of story. This is not up for debate. It's an irrevocable fact of physical law carved into the very fabric of the universe.
ReplyYou are correct; but it obviously is the not the real issue. The psychological part of obesity is what many of use need to focus on, not energy in energy out. Once the mental part is on key, the energy in will match that which the body needs.
ReplyWhy are you peeling your fruits, unless you mean things such as bananas and pineapples. There's tons of good things and (at least in my opinion) flavor there. It sounds, though, like you've just lessened the amount of food you're eating and have found a program that helps you stay motivated with it. I imagine it would be difficult to overeat what you've described.
And it's not as if people are dropping their calories to work with calories in, calories out and then not losing weight. Most people radically underestimate the amount they eat or try to cut back on fat to facilitate cutting back on calories, but then eat a lot more fat free cookies. As Barry said, the laws of thermodynamics are not arbitrary.
ReplyGood for you to have found something that has you motivated and working consistantly toward your goals. His discription of the Fat Switch sounds like what I call the Thrifty Gene - the Thrifty Gene switches on to keep us from starving by storing fat for later use when we aren't getting the nutrition our bodies' need.
Keep up the good work!
ReplyCongrats on your weight loss success! That sounds similar to how I eat (minus the lemon juice and meditation), but I am not familiar with your particular program.
I do agree that the psychological/emotional side MUST be addressed. For me what worked was finding emotional support online, plus having the neverending love and support of my boyfriend who comes to the gym with me and cheers me on regularly! (I'm so lucky!)
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