Be Your Own Guru

Gretel Hallet, is a Trained Chocolate Fairy and is running the Getting Started half day workshop in Norwich - perfect for beginners to experience the core principles of Beyond Chocolate and equally great as a refresher for any Beyond Chocolater. If you live in East Anglia and want to know more about Beyond Chocolate or her workshops, get in touch with Gretel.

Expert: Wouldn't it be great if you could eat all your favourite foods and still lose weight?

Me: Yes! Yes, it would!

Expert: Well now you can, with our guide to 'having your cake and eating it'!

Me: Actually, if you’ll forgive me a pedantic moment – anyone can have cake and eat it, that’s easy. Eating cake and having it too is much more difficult ... but yes, I’d like to eat cake and lose weight, please tell me how.

Expert: If you thought the best way to lose weight was to cut out eating chocolate, crisps and chips think again.

Me: Ok, keep talking, I’m interested.

Expert: Research shows that banning foods from your diet can be disastrous as it simply makes them even more irresistible than ever.

Me: Really? You surprise me (not). I think all dieters are very well aware of the deprivation-causes-bingeing scenario. But, go on ...

Expert: Not only that but when you do give in to a nibble of your favourite nosh you're far more likely to feel you've failed which can result in eating even more of it than you'd planned to.

Me: Oh, absolutely. Particularly last thing at night, or when out with friends, or during a ‘weekend off’, or because I just can't stop myself, or because it's there or needs finishing up, or when someone offers it to me and I don't want to offend them ...

Expert: This is why eating your favourite foods is not only desirable for long term weight loss, it's absolutely essential provided of course, you don't overdo the calories.

Me: I knew there’d be a catch ... You see, Mr or Ms Expert, I don't want to count calories. I don't want to substitute lower fat alternatives for my favourite foods, as you suggest in the rest of your article. I want to eat my cake and still have cake and I want to lose weight. I don't want much, really.

Expert: Ok, how about this? Many people think white bread is a 'no no' but in the UK it is fortified with calcium so it can help towards maintaining healthy bones and teeth. Just make sure you get your fibre and whole grains elsewhere such as in breakfast cereals, rice and oats.

Me: That sounds good, I like white bread and I'm quite happy to eat breakfast cereal, rice and oats (although not all at once!). The problem is Mr or Ms Expert, you can only offer dodges around the idea of 'Eat What You Want', you are too scared to come right out and say it. You are still hung up on the idea of calories in and calories out. I want to get away from all that.

Diet Experts abound on the internet and the messages are all the same - DIET! One way or the other, regardless of what they appear to be saying, their bottom line is always GO ON A DIET - NOW!

Beyond Chocolate encourages us to become Our Own Guru. To leave the experts where they are - to take their words with a pinch of salt, or not at all, and to realise that the only true expert on each of us is ourselves.