Simplest diet ever

SIMPLEST DIET EVER
By Kathy Robinson
ASK. 72 pages. £6.50
Available from http://www.lulu.com/content/1364113 or http://www.simplestever.me.uk or from bookshops and online bookstores.

Simplest Diet Ever is a totally new outreach innovation. This book intertwines a gospel presentation with a holistic approach to dieting.

It has an easy read, almost magazine-style format with quizzes, cartoons and humour, yet doesn’t skirt the reality of the problems caused by being overweight.

The book advocates a change to both intake and activity level. It recommends simple, straightforward adjustments which anyone can make. The things we drink, as well as what we eat, are addressed. There are no unusual or expensive foods or equipment to buy.

Weight-shifting

The usual promises about amounts of weight or inches that will be lost are surprisingly absent. Rather, there is a recognition that weight gained over a number of years will take a considerable time to shift. There is a gentle approach, suggesting that changes are made on just one day a week to start with. But also a realistic recognition that changes will need to be for life.

The holistic approach points out that people may need their heart comforted, their spirit awakened, and their minds renewed before they can start to face their eating issues. It tackles loss and change, and explores the possibility that our overeating is connected to us being stuck in the shadow of a life event which has not been completely resolved.

Putting it back on later

Four out of five people in the UK who lose weight put it all back on again. So there has got to be something more involved than just the food. It recommends that we get help to explore our lives, and this includes both prayer ministry and counselling.

The medical chapter, entitled Bodies Behaving Badly, considers various facets of the connection between weight and medical conditions. Some are a causative factor in why people carry extra weight, such as under active thyroid and Polycystic Ovary disease.

It also discusses the rare condition Prada-Willi Syndrome, where the normal appetite message system is dysfunctional and insatiable hunger is felt all the time. The author reflects that many people think they have insatiable hunger all the time but in reality they have emotional hunger, which they are unsuccessfully trying to satisfy by comfort eating.

Medical conditions which cause people to be less active, such as depression, ME and Post-Viral Syndrome, are also included. A lower activity level can contribute to weight gain. It is recommended that all those with a condition, or who are not usually very active, should see their doctor before starting this diet. As should anyone who thinks they need to diet but whose family and friends disagree.

Major diseases

Being overweight is a causative factor in many major diseases. The most shocking statistic in the book is from an American study which found that severely obese young men were 12 times more likely to die than their smaller friends. Being overweight clearly threatens our health status. In a way it is a form of self-harm. The Simplest Diet Ever is recommended as suitable in all cases.

Motivation

Motivation is seen as essential to success. It is explored through reviewing past success and the provision of a list of ideas to try.

Spirituality is introduced in a gentle way. There’s no churchy jargon!

There is the great reassurance that God made us, knows us, and loves us, whatever our size. The invitation to belong to him is clearly and challengingly expressed.

Paul recommends that we find something in common with people through which to share the gospel. What could be more in common with people than a diet? This book is unlike any other diet book and has the potential to be life changing for Christians and non-Christian alike.

Extract from the book

Due to wonderful medical advances, doctors are sometimes able to restart the hearts of people who would otherwise die. Television hospital dramas are popular viewing. You may be able to picture a resuscitation room and hear ‘stand clear’ before the paddles are put on the casualty’s chest.

When this occurs the patient is briefly dead. The heart has stopped beating but then life has restarted. These people can often describe what happened to them during that brief death experience. The similarities in these accounts are fascinating.

Looking at your body

Most describe being able to look at their own body as they float away from it. There is always some kind of tunnel with light at the end. When their heart is restarted, they experience going back into their own body. How can this be a coincidence?

If you have been unsure about any sort of life after death, then these accounts will be of significance to you. How could they see anything after death unless part of them, their spirit, was still alive?

Bigger picture on diet

What has this got to do with a diet? We are approaching our food issues from a holistic point of view, by looking at our whole being, body, mind, heart and spirit. When people lose weight, only concentrating on their body, four out of five will put the weight back on again. If we are going to be consistent with our weight loss, we need to look at the bigger picture. You need to see yourself as a whole person.

We know that life on this earth is temporary.

Those who have briefly experienced death, report that it is not the end. If we go on living after our life here on earth, do we have any say about it?

Does anything that we do here on earth or any of the choices that we make, affect where we go when we die? Who is in control of that?