About the Book

If I could communicate just a single message to you it is that
obesity, and the misery attached to it, need not be for life.

Thirty years ago obesity was a rarity amongst children, and adults, and the related health problems were restricted to a small proportion of the population. Today, it is an epidemic and as we expand our waistbands we are forced into increasing our financial responsibilities for the resulting medical problems that can be life threatening.

Size Matters is the story of a woman who had an appalling lifestyle and although intelligent and successful did nothing constructive to change the situation. It took a death sentence to motivate her to making some vital decisions. The first place to start was to find out the reasons for her obesity and then learn how to fix the problem. Sally Georgina studied nutrition and health whilst taking back control of her diet and lifestyle. Three years later, when fit and well she opened her diet advisory centre in Ireland where she worked with 1,000 clients over a five-year period.

Size Matters explores the emotional, mental and physical reasons for obesity and offers strategies that empowers any one who is overweight or suffering ill health to change their lifestyles successfully. The second part of the book details the programme that can be personalised to suit readers’ individual needs for diet and exercise including healthy food options and nutritional information.

Since I wrote this book I have continued my research and discovered that this common sense approach to dieting has become the new fad diet. Amazing to think that after 100,000 years of evolution that we should suddenly discover the power of food!

 

Excerpt

Introduction

This is the fourth edition of Size Matters and although I have continued my nutritional studies and developed new programmes for healthy eating, I still believe that this basic weight loss programme works. Even when I work with clients who have arthritis or diabetes I still approach their programmes from the three dimensions that I outline in this book. Our emotions, mental attitude and our physical health are all factors in how we overcome disease and obesity and should all be addressed when looking for the right programme that will work for each individual.

I used to be 330 lbs and was given a death sentence eighteen years ago. I had very high blood pressure, cholesterol levels through the roof and my blood was awash with sugar. I took this swift kick up the backside to heart and did something about it, losing 154 lbs and regaining my health in the process.

I am now 60 years old, have an active and busy lifestyle and, thankfully, do not need medication other than the odd supplement when required. I still continue to write books, radio programming and a daily health blog. Most mornings I get a couple of miles under my belt on my treadmill outside overlooking the garden. Mid stride, whilst listening to a bit of Status Quo, I think about those days 18 years ago, when even climbing the stairs to bed were a challenge and left me breathless. My story, and the programme that I have adapted over the years, is still relevant today, as we face a massive increase in obesity and in the associated health problems – Cardiovascular disease, Diabetes and Dementia.

I hope that you will find the following chapters of help to you as you take back control and responsibility for your weight and your health.

As you read this book you will realise that I am very anti crash and fad dieting. I starved my body into submission for over thirty years and my body responded by storing everything I ate. I will explain this process in more detail later in the book but for the moment I just want to reassure you that this programme is about eating and not starving. You need to provide your body with the nutrients and energy it needs to function and be healthy. This means eating the right food, and plenty of it.

My journey began in despair, with a long road stretching ahead of me. Luckily I had a wonderful team to support me and I would have achieved very little in those first few months without my husband’s love and support. My family, friends and my dog loved me whatever weight I have been but I know that they were tremendously relieved when I gave up my self-destructive behaviour and changed my life so drastically.

I now communicate with people around the world who have severe obesity problems as well as those people who want to improve the standard of their health or support their body as it deals with certain medical problems. I believe passionately in the power of food to help you lose weight and regain health and I am on a constant mission to learn more about all the wonderful varieties that are available to us.

This book is not just about promoting a healthier lifestyle. It is a personal story that I hope will inspire other people who are desperate to find a solution to their weight or health problem.

This was my journey and I hope that after reading the first few chapters you will relate how I felt to your own story and be motivated to take control of your weight and health. Whether you need to lose 14 lbs (6 kg), 50 lbs (23 kg) or 150 lbs (68 kg), it is still necessary to understand how you managed to become overweight in the first place.

There are mental, physical and emotional reasons that affect our lifestyle and remembering those difficult, formative times in our lives can sometimes be painful. I was lucky, in that I had many happy memories too. When you finally succeed in making all the jigsaw pieces fit it gives you an amazing buzz and that feeling persists for me today.

Along the way I have climbed a very steep learning curve. For instance, I came to appreciate the power of that little word NO. Instinctively we want to fit in, to have people like and accept us, and so we say YES, but trying to please everyone is stressful and unrewarding.

The satisfaction of eating a bar of chocolate is nothing compared to the satisfaction I feel now when I say NO to eating one. I can now say NO to many things that have caused me harm, though I have had to learn to say it graciously without offending well meaning family and friends.

My reason for sharing some of the most challenging and also the brightest moments of my life, is to show others who have a self-destructive problem such as obesity that you can say NO and transform your life. Furthermore, saying NO to dieting and YES to eating is a lot more fun!

I believe in working with people on a one-to-one basis, rather than in a group, helping them to achieve their desired weight loss. In a way that is also achieved as you read this book or follow my daily health blog. The program that many now follow forms the second part of this book. Everything is there for you to design your own healthy eating program around your personal likes, dislikes and lifestyle.

If you are overweight, you need to take back control of your life and your eating habits, and this program is a tool to do just that. No gimmicks, pills or special diet foods, just good healthy eating, six times a day, with some walks thrown in. Nothing hard about that. We all possess the ingredients to ensure the success of this program – determination, willpower and patience. All that remains is to discover how to activate those particular skills and start using them.

My life has been transformed, and there is no way in the world that I will go back to the old life. The new life is too exciting and rewarding. If this book makes a similar difference for just one person, then it will have been worth it.

If I can communicate a single message to you it is that obesity, and the misery attached to it, need not be for life.