What would you do if you had 30 days to live?

There are a lot of self-help books out there at moment. I may be a bit behind the times, but this one came to my attention recently; 'One Month to Live: Thirty Days to a No-regrets Life'. I noticed it in the editorial comment of one of the big women's magazines as I was sitting in the Dentist's waiting room. The staff on the magazine were asked by the editor what they would do if they only had a month left. This what some of the women said; “Stop worrying about my weight and get on a plane to the nearest beach.” “I'd fly all my family and friends to Ibiza and get married. Sod the diet and the stress.” “Stop worrying about the way I look, what I eat, how much I weigh ...” I found that rather shocking. All these successful and beautiful women were putting their precious lives on hold until they had lost weight! Most sad was the woman who was delaying her wedding, putting herself under huge stress to lose weight before she felt she could get married. Having only a month left concentrated their minds on what was truly important and every one of them realised that their weight/shape/size wasn't all that important. I hope that these women learned something from their responses to the question they were asked and that they will now take their lives off hold and do the things they want to do instead. So the question to you is, what would you do if you had a month left? Would the size of your hips suddenly seem unimportant? Why not start today as if you only had a month left and start doing the things you've been putting on hold?

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.

Weight Watchers admits that dieting doesn't work

A few weeks ago I attended the DitchDieting protest with the lovely ladies from AnyBody, Adios Barbie and the inspirational Susie Orbach (author of Fat Is A Feminist Issue) amongst others. After standing in front of parliament chanting out our anti-diet slogans we went inside to hear a panel of industry representatives give evidence to the Parliamentary Body Image  Enquiry. The panel included Susie herself (representing the no-diet/intuitive eating approach), and spokespersons from Weight Watchers, Slimming World and Holland & Barrett. The enquiry was chaired by Jo Swinson and Caroline Nokes, two pretty clued up MPs who gave the WW and SW people quite a grilling (frankly I'm not sure what the Holland & Barett guy was there for - and it didn't look like he did either!).   


It was fascinating to listen to. Fascinating to witness the tactics the diet industry giants are adopting first hand. I could write thousands of words, ranting and raving and tearing my hair out about what was said (and, just as importantly, what wasn't) but I'll keep my observations brief...and as objective as possible!


When asked about the negative impact of dieting on body image, the Weight Watchers and Slimming World spokeswomen went to great pains to distance themselves from the diet industry. They kept on insisting that they were not the same as all the other dieting outfits out there and that it was important to understand that they were offering something quite different. They kept talking about 'healthy' lifestyle changes and a 'responsible approach to weight loss'. What they were effectively saying was that dieting doesn't work. Have a look on the Slimming World website to see how they do this for yourself. One article says: "In stark contrast to these restrictive, quick-fix diets, at Slimming World we provide our members with a healthy eating plan that's flexible, generous and sustainable so it’s a new way of eating that they can enjoy for the rest of their lives."


Of course, nobody is disputing the fact that crazy fad diets and quick weight loss schemes are dangerous and guaranteed to fail and that WW and SW are selling their customers more reasonable eating plans. But they're still eating plans - and that's just another word for diet isn't it?  The definition of dieting is: "to restrict oneself to small amounts or special kind of foods in order to lose weight" (Oxford Dictionary) and whether you're subsisting entirely on acai berries, calculating ProPoints or Syns - it's a diet. What's interesting here is that by focusing repeatedly on something as indisputable as the idea that fad dieting is dangerous and ineffective, they distracted the panel's attention from talking about the real issue: that dieting and restricted eating - in any shape or form - doesn't ever work in the long term. 


However, Jo Swinson and Caroline Nokes are smart women and they refused to be distracted by this mutton dressing itself up as lamb. So they changed tack and grilled them about their members, asking how many of them were repeat customers. Interestingly, the Weight Watchers lady, who until then had had no trouble reciting figures to back up her claims about the number of members and target weights reached and percentages of body weight lost thanks to the WW programme, suddenly got a bit tongue tied and mumbled something about it being difficult to know exactly how many members were not first timers. She knew her numbers back to front for everything, except for this. Mmmmmh. The MP expressed surprise at this and grilled her a little more on the subject: she was concerned, she said, that the diet industry was roping people into a vicious cycle of yo-yo dieting.


This was when the Weight Watchers representative dropped her bombshell. She said: "Well we know that being overweight is a chronic condition" and went on to explain that weight regain was an inevitable part of dieting and that it was a fact that most dieters put any weight they lose back on eventually. She then went on to say that Weight Watchers' aim was to support women to lose weight when they needed it, even if that was several times over, or something to that effect. 


[Edit: what she actually said was " "People have to get over the idea that you just diet once and that is it. It is a life-long commitment." Many thanks to Ninabeenaribeena for providing the exact words in her comment below]


Extraordinary! I had just heard the Weight Watchers official spokesperson explicitly admit that dieting doesn't work, for the second time in an hour!


Sadly the meagre hour dedicated to the enquiry was soon over and I returned home feeling both hopeful and despondent. Hopeful because there are women out there like Caroline Nokes and Jo Swinson who are willing to challenge the status quo and take on corporations like Weight Watchers and Slimming World. Despondent because these corporations have huge financial resources and smart people working for them which means they can continuously shift the goal posts and adapt their marketing to get desperate people to buy their products. Despondent because I see hundreds of women each year who have spent years trapped in an endless cycle of weight loss and weight gain and wasted time and money on diet club memberships. Despondent because these women feel like failures and hate their bodies. Dieting doesn't work because it teaches women not to trust themselves. It doesn't work because it reinforces the fallacy that overweight = unhealthy and that thin = happy. It does't work because it doesn't address the real reasons why women overeat and offers no viable solutions for having a balanced relationship with food.


Have your say. The Body Image Enquiry is inviting people to take part and give evidence by completing a questionnaire about the causes and consequences of body image anxiety in the UK and what practical steps can be taken to address this. Lets give women like Jo Swinson and Caroline Nokes who have the power to bring about change some ammunition. The more we speak up about our experience of dieting, the more we have a chance of seeing something change.

Part 2 - New Year Resolutions Post Beyond Chocolate

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.

My New Year Resolutions since discovering Beyond Chocolate:
(have a look at my Before Beyond Chocolate Resolutions blog, posted here couple of weeks ago if you haven't already).

1st January 2008
Well, this year really will be different. In September last year, I found something that’s not a diet but I can lose weight anyway if I follow it. I’m only really starting to get to grips with the ideas in it, but this Christmas, for the first time, I didn’t worry about what I was eating and I’m not going to go on a diet now it’s January!
So, My New Year’s Resolutions this year are:
1. Get to grips with the Beyond Chocolate ideas
2. Exercise and tone up
3. Buy some clothes that fit me now and that I like

1st January 2009
2008 was an interesting year – I stuck to Beyond Chocolate for the whole year and it’s been so easy compared with all those abortive diets. I finally feel positive that I can change and for the better – I really am ready to deal with my issues around food. I didn’t even realise I had an issue with food until this year!
New Year’s Resolutions for 2009:
1. Continue working with Beyond Chocolate
2. Exercise and tone up
3. Get rid of my ‘skinny clothes’ and buy some that fit and that I like

1st January 2010
What a great year 2009 was! I really got to grips with my food issues last year and I feel so much better about myself and my future now. It’s been 2 years since I last put myself on a diet and I’m really grateful to Beyond Chocolate for my new found freedom.

Resolution for 2010:
1. Continue working with Beyond Chocolate and my relationship with food and myself; which includes Moving instead of Exercising and continuing to wear clothes that fit and that I like, getting rid of any that don’t.

1st January 2011
I’ve decided to do away with resolutions now – looking back over the last 11 years, they haven’t been particularly helpful. Until I found Beyond Chocolate, all the resolutions have done is made me focus on my failures. All those wasted years failing on diets and exercise programmes year after year. I am so glad all that is behind me now and I can move forward with confidence in myself and my ability to manage my own issues around food and my body.

Are you tough enough to stop?

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. 


I love those men’s tee-shirts with ‘Tough enough to wear pink’, written on them. I wonder if I could get a Beyond Chocolate tee-shirt with ‘Tough enough to stop?’ written on it along with the Beyond Chocolate logo – it might encourage other women to ask me what it means.


And what do I mean by 'tough enough to stop'?


Well, several things actually. Firstly, are you tough enough to stop dieting? It’s not as easy as it sounds. We are surrounded by messages coming at us from all angles, official and word of mouth, telling us that as a nation we’re too fat, we need to lose weight and the way we do that is to diet. Successful celeb diets abound in the media – most recently Jennifer Hudson – and women’s magazines EVERY ISSUE feature a diet, always claimed to be easy and effective. How hard is it to stop in the face of all this pressure? How hard is it to stand up and say, ‘no, I’m not doing this any more, it doesn’t work for me’? How hard is it to go against society’s ‘norms’ and stop dieting? It’s hard, it’s tough, but boy is it worth it!


Secondly, are you tough enough to take a really good look at yourself and your eating? Survey after survey proves that people don’t actually have a very good grasp of how much they are eating and dieters are worse than non-dieters. Many of us are deluded about our own and other people’s eating – I have been in conversation with people who can’t understand why they (or a friend) is gaining weight, ‘I/They hardly eat anything,’ will be the bewildered refrain. Yet, if we kept an honest tally, even just for one day, we might be surprised by how much we were eating and how unconscious a lot of that eating actually is. Really looking at what, when, why and how much we eat and making a conscious choice to change that [if we want to] is tough. But it’s worth it.


Thirdly, are you tough enough to say, ‘no thank you’, when food is offered and you know you’re not hungry? Even if someone has made it specially for you? Are you tough enough to only eat half a restaurant meal and ask for the rest in a doggy-bag, or even [gasp!] leave it on the plate?! There are a lot of members of the ‘clean plate club’ out there. There are a lot of people who don’t like to see food ‘wasted’. There are people who resent paying for food that isn’t eaten. Leaving food, not finishing meals, accepting that we’ve been given too much by someone who doesn’t know what our appetite is like, is tough. It can be very uncomfortable, it can be flying in the face of what you were taught as a child. But it’s worth it.


Fourthly, are you tough enough to sit with the sheer discomfort of not eating when every cell in your body is crying out for food, but you know you’re not hungry? That’s very tough. We are used to 24/7 access to food in this country. For many of us, food is a friend, a comforter, a way of filling in gaps in our lives, something socially acceptable we can do (even in public!) at any time. Not eating when we really want to (but don’t need to) is tough – but it’s one of the ways to stop overeating and can help us to lose weight (if that’s what we want to do). Deliberately not eating is tough, but it’s worth it.


Following the Beyond Chocolate principles isn’t a soft option. It can be very difficult as we confront many years of destructive behaviour around food – but I can say absolutely that it is worth it.

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.