CHAPTER 1
A Different Kind of Diet
How many times have you tried to lose weight? Ten times? Twenty times? Maybe even a hundred times? Each of those times, you struggled, you starved, and you ended up right back where you started. You may have even ended up heavier than you were when you began. Why? Because diets based on deprivation don't work and, let's face it, most diets are all about deprivation. They've got boring and denial built right into them. They take away your freedom of choice—a recipe for disaster.
Even if you do manage to stay with carrot sticks and celery stalks for a while, you'll eventually end up taking a few spoonfuls of Ben & Jerry's. Then you'll feel guilty and ashamed and probably end up devouring the entire pint. And then you'll go back to deprivation and end up hungry and miserable.
Drastically reducing the amount of food you take in while cutting out all your favorite treats simply isn't sustainable for most people. You cannot eat that way for any length of time. Sooner or later, you go right back to eating exactly the way you did before. Even worse, you'll eat more, because you've been missing all your favorite foods for the time you were on that diet.
Now, what if we said you could lose weight without feeling deprived? Yes, it sounds too good to be true, but according to research published in a respected scientific journal, it's 100 percent genuine. We'll go into the research in more detail later, but to give you a taste (pun intended): a breakthrough study found that participants who took a supplement containing green coffee bean extract lost an average of 17 pounds in twenty-two weeks. Without changing the way they ate.
Researchers attribute the result to a plant compound found in the unroasted coffee bean called chlorogenic acid. This phytonutrient may have some effect on reducing blood glucose absorption, which in turn helps keep weight down. Even better news: you don't have to be part of a research study in order to get the benefits of green coffee bean extract. The supplement is available in stores nationwide.
If you want to duplicate the results of this study, you can do so simply by reading and following the instructions in chapters 2 and 3 in this book. In those chapters we'll explain the science of why and how the supplement works, and we'll give you all the information you need to know about buying and taking a supplement. According to the study, you don't have to change your diet in order to lose weight slowly with the green coffee bean extract. By tamping down the insulin response, the supplement, all by itself, will do the work for you.
However, that's not what makes this book special and not what we'd recommend. We're going to do one better and provide you with an eating and exercise plan that's based not on deprivation but actually on the exact opposite. Our diet is based on gratification. You will be able to eat plenty of food—enough so that you'll never feel hungry and grouchy. Plus, you'll be able to treat yourself to your favorite foods—and still lose weight. This nondeprivation diet will set you on the road to lifelong slimness and health. Since you'll never feel like you're missing anything, this is a diet you can stay on for good. No yo-yoing back and forth between dress sizes. This time when you lose the weight, it will stay off.
But before we tell you more about why this diet will work for you, let's take a moment to see why so many of us struggle to reach our ideal weight.
A WIDESPREAD (AHEM) PROBLEM
If you're trying to lose weight, and have been for a while, you're not alone in your plight. During the past twenty years, the scales in this country have been tipping, and not in our favor. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), a staggering one third of the adults in the United States are overweight.
DANGEROUS DEVELOPMENTS
Sure, we want to lose weight to look good. But being overweight is more than just a matter of aesthetics. Obesity-related conditions include some of the leading causes of preventable death. They include:
• Heart disease
• Stroke
• Type 2 diabetes
• Certain types of cancers
Being overweight also increases your risk for high blood pressure, high blood cholesterol, gallbladder disease, sleep apnea, and osteoarthritis.
But there is good news: with even a small amount of weight loss, blood cholesterol will come down, blood pressure will begin to normalize, and blood sugar will improve. Your risk of having a heart attack or a stroke will decrease and you'll reduce your risk of developing type 2 diabetes. Not only will you look better when you take off the weight, you'll feel better, and you'll be healthier.
HOW DID WE GET HERE?
Our weight is climbing steadily, and right now there's no end in sight. Unfortunately, our modern culture seems to be working against us. Technology has made our lives infinitely easier, and also easier for us to get fat. We've engineered almost all physical activity out of our lives; we no longer have to hunt for our food—it's delivered right to our cars at a very affordable price. The food we eat is highly processed and full of sugar, salt, and fat. We spend hours in front of screens—computer, television, and handheld—never having to get up to change a channel or even deliver a fax. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, less than half of all adults meet the Physical Activity Guidelines set by the government. No wonder we're a nation of fatties.
WHY THE GREEN COFFEE BEAN EXTRACT DIET?
You may be thinking to yourself, Why another diet book? You've tried every diet under the sun, and you've been here many times. Why should this diet be any different?
What you haven't had is the help of a supplement called green coffee bean extract. As we mentioned earlier, a study found that people who took a supplement containing green coffee bean extract lost an average of 17 pounds in twenty-two weeks without changing the way they ate. So you can lose weight without doing anything differently. That's great news, but we are going to offer you so much more.
As we've already mentioned, the problem with so many diets is that they're all about deprivation—what you can't eat. What's different about the green coffee bean extract diet is it's about what you can eat. Instead of focusing on the foods to take out of your diet, this meal plan focuses on what you can add in. This diet is all about being healthy—adding in plenty of good-for-you foods that fill you up without adding extra empty calories. Foods high in fiber, protein, vitamins and minerals, and low in saturated fat. When eating in this nutritionally balanced way, you'll feel more energetic, so you'll want to continue to eat this way even without seeing the numbers on the scale drop. But don't worry—you will see those numbers go down. And when you do, you'll want to keep going with our healthy weight-loss plan.
On this diet, we focus on:
• VOLUME: The core concept of the green coffee bean extract diet is that you get to eat a lot of food without gaining weight. We'll show you how to choose the right foods—foods that are known as high-volume foods, foods that take up a lot of room on the plate, but have very few calories; foods that have a lot of air and water, which tricks your senses into thinking you've eaten more than you actually have; and foods that are high in fiber, which add a lot of heft and health to food. We'll show you that when you eat foods that have fewer calories per bite, your portion size grows but your overall calorie count stays the same.
• SATISFACTION: Our meal plans, should you choose to follow them, provide three meals and two snacks per day. We'll show you how to always make sure you eat enough healthy, high-volume, low-calorie foods to avoid hunger. You'll be given tons of food choices that you can add to your diet so you'll never ever feel your stomach growling. On this diet you won't have to starve yourself to lose weight. In fact, if you feel a rumble in your stomach, that's a sign that you're not eating enough.
• TREATING YOURSELF: On our diet you'll learn the difference between a snack and a treat. A snack is a small amount of food to satisfy your hunger in between meals. A treat is something a bit more indulgent—a small scoop of frozen yogurt, a few cookies, a piece of dark chocolate—that you might enjoy once in a while. On this diet you're allowed to have treats, which will help to keep you on track.
Stella, forty-one years old, tall, brunette, with big blue eyes, and a dazzling grin, came from a family of overeaters. In her home growing up, there was always a ton of food on the table. Steaks, chicken, and pork chops were accompanied by thick sauces and carbohydrates piled high. Potatoes with butter and sour cream, pasta with Alfredo sauce, and French fries were staples in Stella's house. And although her mother usually made some sort of vegetable to go with dinner—broccoli, carrots, or cauliflower—Stella and her brother and sister would pour heaps of cheese sauce on top. So it's no surprise that Stella overate and became overweight.
PROCESSED VERSUS WHOLE FOODS
It's important to know the difference between a product derived from many ingredients to look and taste like food … and real food. When you eat one-ingredient whole foods you're feeding your body health-supporting nutrition that makes you feel satisfied without those awful cravings. (Think fruits, vegetables, nuts, lean proteins—how many ingredients? Just one!) Processed foods, one the other hand, may provide instant gratification, but they don't give your body sustenance, are loaded with chemicals and preservatives, and in the end, make you feel pretty lousy. A simple trick: look at the label and pay attention to the number of ingredients. If there's a long list of words you can't pronounce, better to stay away.
After her father died of a heart attack in his fifties, Stella's weight ballooned even more. "I was so depressed about my dad, and it didn't even occur to me that I could be on the same path—to an early death," she says. "Or, maybe I was just in complete denial." By her thirtieth birthday, Stella's weight topped 175 pounds. It wasn't until her mother died of complications due to type 2 diabetes that Stella realized she needed to lose the weight. "It finally hit me. I was going to die unless I did something. And fast," Stella says.
Stella went to her doctor, who pointed her to a local diet center that sold packaged meals. Stella signed up, and although she was hungry and cranky every day, within two weeks she'd dropped six pounds. She was so thrilled to see the numbers on that scale drop, she almost didn't even mind the tasteless food and the constant empty pit in her stomach.
That is, until the scale slowed down. By week five, she began to really miss her favorite foods. She couldn't get the image of a juicy steak and fries out of her mind, and by the sixth week of starvation, she'd had enough. She had to find a different way.
She knew the packaged-food diet wouldn't work for her because she felt so deprived. She'd heard about the green coffee bean extract diet, so she decided to give it a try. She was skeptical, but invested in a month's supply of green coffee extract. At first, she didn't change anything in her diet, yet she managed to take off two pounds in three weeks. "Hey, maybe there is something to this," she thought, and she headed to the store to fill her cart with high-volume fruits and vegetables, lots of fiber-filled foods, and lean cuts of meat. "I figured if the supplement could help me lose weight slowly, maybe if I actually followed the diet, I'd lose weight quicker."
And lose weight quickly she did—without feeling even one hunger pang. "I learned that for the same number of calories in a measly little portion of broccoli with cheese sauce, I could eat a whole huge plate of broccoli, which actually, if you put a little olive oil, lemon juice, and ginger on it, tasted delicious. I knew that pouring the cheese sauce on the broccoli wouldn't give me enough to fill me up, so I didn't bother with it anymore." Well, most of the time. Two meals a week, Stella allowed herself license to eat whatever she wanted … without binge eating of course. Then she'd go back to following the healthy menu plan she'd read in the book.
She started experimenting with foreign foods and spices, and she continued to slim down until she reached her goal weight, without feeling the least bit deprived. "The diet was easy because I got to eat all my favorite foods, and I never felt hungry." The best part? Stella shared her diet secrets with her brother and sister. Now they're on the green coffee bean extract diet, on their way to healthier lives, too!
Quiz: Do You Need This Diet?
Even if your weight is within the normal range, you may still want to think about following this plan. Take this quiz to see if you may be on your way to weighing too much.
Answer yes or no to the following questions:
If you answered yes to more than two of these questions, you might want to think about your eating habits. Even if you're not overweight now, your routines make it likely that you'll get there.
In this chapter we've given you a glimpse of how our high-volume, nondeprivation diet can help you lose weight … and we hope you are intrigued enough to read on. In the next chapter we're going to explain how the chlorogenic acid in the supplement we've been talking about—green coffee bean extract—works in scientific terms to become your partner in weight loss. As many women and men have already discovered, green coffee bean extract can help you achieve the weight-loss goal you've wanted for years, the one that has eluded you until now.
Then, after you learn about the supplement, you'll be given the tools you need to lose the weight. You'll find tips and tricks on how to get and stay motivated. You'll get a detailed eating plan so you'll know exactly what to eat and how. You'll get recipes so you can eat according to our plan and you'll be given some exercise ideas to help you boost your weight loss even more. We'll also give you tools and techniques to help you through any setbacks you may experience along the way.
Nothing good in life comes with zero effort. But you'll be pleasantly surprised at how easy this weight-loss plan can be. This book and lifestyle plan will support you every step of this very important journey.
Copyright © 2013 by Leslie Pepper
Foreword copyright © 2013 by Steven V. Joyal, M.D.
