Self-Help Review 4: YOU On A Diet

Self-Help Review:
YOU On A Diet
2006
By Michael F. Roizen, M.D.
and Mehmet C. Oz, M.D.

This is one insidiously evil book.

On one hand, I have learned more about how my body works with regard to food by reading this book than I ever have with any other source. The content of this book is fantastic, and if you know nothing about how hunger works, this is a great introduction. That said, it is a book specifically designed to be popular, and as such, is jammed-packed with an equal amount of infuriatingly annoying bullshit. I respect the aim of this book, and I understand completely that if all one is given is a dry medical pamphlet reiterating the same food facts, then no one will ever take their weight seriously. This does not, however, excuse the overuse of what I call "Housewife Humor." These are jokes that seem to specifically appeal to the scores of fat-asses who spend their afternoons eating Thin Mint sugar burritos while watching Oprah. It is no surprise, then, that this book was featured on Oprah as part of it's promotion.

The book is divided up into four parts, in much the same way that those assholes at Taco Bell want to divide up our meals into four parts with their fucking RETARDED "Fourthmeal" campaign. I will describe each part and the ending Appendices in separate sections.

Part one tells us what we all know by now...that diets fail consistently and that yo-yo dieting is bad for us. No surprises here. It then goes on to say that instead of focusing on ideal weight, we need to get our waist size down to an ideal, since that is more of an indicator of health than weight. For the record, the ideal waist size for women is 32 1/2 inches, with 37 inches being the point just before your health dangers increase. For men, the ideal is 35, with 40 being the danger point. My waist size is 34, so I'm even more delicious than the average man. The majority of part one is a "pump up" to get us excited about our "waist management" journey, and it hammers away at the fact that you really need to read the chapters on how your body processes food before skipping straight to the diet and exercise plan. I agree whole-heartedly with this, as part two really fucked my head up and made me think about what the crap I stuff down my throat is doing to my innards.

Part two goes into long, painful detail about what makes us a bunch of fat-asses. I say "painful" specifically because this is the section where the book's attempts at humor are at their most excruciating. Because this part deals with science, the authors feel the need to stuff as many pop culture references as possible into the text, which is distracting and not nearly as cute as they think it is. Here's a sample; "In your brain, you react to actions: You feel love when your spouse holds your hand, mad when he forgets an anniversary, humiliated when he takes off his shirt at the Bears game and thumps his densely forested chest for a shot at being on SportsCenter." Now imagine that on EVERY PAGE. I had to check my temper so I wouldn't throw the damn book across the room, and I guess that fact that I didn't chuck it is a testament that maybe these Self-Help books are working after all. Anyhow...your body has signals you can turn on and off to activate your hunger. When you know what they are and how they work, you can eat the right foods and do the right things to manipulate" them. Also, even though it's hard, the more you actually think about the diet you're on, the more likely you are to break it. So you have to simultaneously pay attention to what you're eating and NOT think about your diet. You can do this by eating the same foods over and over, every day. This is described in more detail later in the book, so I will not go any further into that aspect of this section.

There is a ton of information in this part of the book, and I'm not going to type it all out. However, I will include this one last bit of information: Fucking kills hunger. At least, it lowers your appetite. According to the book, "Sex and hunger are regulated through the brain chemical NPY. Some have observed that having healthy sex could help you control your food intake; by satisfying one appetite center, you seem to satisfy the other." So there you go...fuck for weight loss. Just make sure your partner's clean, because all the dieting in the world wont wipe away any greenish yellow pus or bugs that'll jump and create a home on your pee-pee.

Part three deals with how you mind effects your eating. Most interesting are the "mood foods," and they break down like this: If you're angry, you eat crunchy and/or tough foods; if you're depressed, you eat anything with sugar; if you're anxious, you'll eat soft and sweet foods, such as ice cream; if you're stressed, you're eat salty foods; if you're lonely and/or sexual frustrated, you'll eat bulky foods like crackers and pasta; and if you're jealous, you'll eat anything. Other good tips include getting your seven or eight hours of sleep, eating dark chocolate, and playing video games. The rational behind the last one is that if you're playing video games, both of your hands are on the controller, and you are less likely to be eating food while playing games. This is a much shorter section and not as interesting as the last one, but there was still some good stuff in it. Sadly, the lame jokes continued.

Part four is the diet and activity plan, and the main idea is to walk at least thirty minutes every day, and work out three times a week for twenty minutes each time. They even have an exercise plan that doesn't involve weights, so fuck your gym membership excuse. Also, building muscle makes you lose weight faster, so if you want quick results, you'll have to do some kind of work out that'll tighten you up, and I mean MORE than just doing Kegels. Another good work out is doing the Yoga "Sun Salutation," and it can be good for two things; One, it's a good way to get your body in top shape to start the day; and Two, if you take a Yoga class, the women outnumber the men, so the pussy-to-penis ratio works in favor of horny men who take these classes to pick up chicks.

The diet itself, which is what everyone will be buying it for in the first place, emphasizes eating the same foods over and over again. The reason is that if you make what you eat automatic, you won't deviate and eat random shit that'll fuck up your insides. Plus, even if you eat healthy, varying your foods drastically all the time hinders your weight-loss goals, because of the extra effort that it takes inside of you to sort all that shit out. A major point in this plan that I can vouch for is eating nuts as a snack throughout the day to manage your hunger. I've been using peanuts, and because it takes longer for your body to break them down and digest them, they prevent you from being hungry all day. So eat nuts as snacks. The foods they suggest you purchase are nice, but I suspect that if you live in a small town, they're completely unreasonable. Some of the recipes look alright, though. I'll let YOU be the guinea pig and tell me how they taste.

The book ends with a look at pills and medical procedures that can be used to lose weight. Biggest news to me: You can't lose cellulite, and liposuction only works to shape areas. Something which struck me as funny was that certain antidepressants cause weight gain, so if you're depressed about being fat and take these, you'll gain more weight, get more depressed about being fat, take some more, etc. Also mentioned are the three major surgeries for fucking with your innards in order to kill your appetite. I'd go into more detail, but I don't feel like it.

Overall, I think that for what it is, it's a good book. It's fucking annoying, and you won't be reading it for pleasure, but the advice inside is worth the time. There is one major problem with the book that needs to be addressed, and it's this: The book spends way too much time going into loving detail about foods that you can't eat. It mentions donuts, cookie dough, chips, french fries, etc., all the while trying to get you to forget about them. This is just as bad as those affirmations that Wayne Dyer has in his "Inspiration" book which will have the opposite effect on you. Instead of talking about how delicious carrots and other veggies and fruits taste, they constantly mention in a joking fashion junk food. Every fucking time I read this book I wanted to eat candy, and it pissed me off. To show you how bad it got, when I was reading this book at work I decided to eat a huge slice of ice cream pie in the freezer, and I wasn't even hungry. It's pretty goddamn astounding that, with as much time as they put into studying how the mind works with regard to hunger, they would disregard that crucial piece of information.

This book is a quick read, but I suspect that if you read it at all, it won't be cover-to-cover. That said, I strongly advise you to read parts two and three, which deal with the science of hunger. These parts are filled with good information, even if the pop culture references are as annoying as Simon Cowell and Paris Hilton running a Swiffer over your face while you're trying to prevent Eva Longoria from stealing your DVD collection of Friends, Season 2. So read it, but ideally get it for free at your local library. I say this because I think you should read it, but I don't think it's worth your money.