Diary of a Dieting Madhouse: The Diet
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About this ebook
Diary of a Dieting Madhouse—The Diet takes you on a journey of a lifetime with four formerly fat women, author Paige Singleton and her friends, Susan, Kenzy and Sharon. Join them on their journey and you will—
1. Lose weight naturally and be thin for the rest of your life, without hunger and without cravings. Have you lost weight only to gain it back again? Once we lose weight with most diets, our bodies become our enemies. They use calories more efficiently and we feel hungrier than ever before. Whole vegan foods help us to maintain weight loss easily because they are high in fiber and bulk and low in calories. We feel fuller.
2. Find that change is not only much easier than you expected, but the foods are delicious and a lot of fun—NO WILLPOWER NEEDED! We are told that we are fat because we have no willpower. That a tweak here and there is all we need to achieve our weight loss goals. Unfortunately, those tweaks often fail because we are powerless over food. The “just say no” approach doesn’t work for food addiction. Diary—the Diet will help you leave the madness of food addiction behind forever.
3. Take an incredible journey out of the crazy world of ignorance and misinformation, even from so-called authorities, doctors and nutritionists, into healthy weight loss, sanity and freedom from fear of common diseases like cancer, heart disease, diabetes, stroke and Alzheimer’s. “Experts” beware. Contributor Sharon favors real life success, not advice from those who have never spent a day of their lives fat.
4. Learn how, why and what foods to eat with a 10-day meal planner and delicious recipes.
The book is the companion diet to a contemporary romance loosely based on Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. Rowan Faine, the novel’s overweight, sassy and sexy heroine, loses weight, gains confidence and finids love in a mad world of wacky lawyers, crazy co-workers and dysfunctional families. When a friend recommends she use Diary-the Diet to lose weight, her world changes forever!
Paige Singleton
Paige Singleton, a legal secretary and photographer in a former life, has written a number of award-winning short stories, but her first love is novel-length fiction. Diary of a Dieting Madhouse is her first novel, and her second, Stealing Light from Shooting Stars, will be available in the fall. She has been described as having "a fun and consistent authorial voice," and readers say she had them "laughing out loud" at her "wonderful dialog and really terrific similes." She specializes in characters who overcome tremendous obstacles and make drastic changes in order to obtain their deepest desires. They are the people we all recognize and love to read about.
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Reviews for Diary of a Dieting Madhouse
1 rating1 review
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Interesting book. Well written. My belief is there are only 2 healthy diets- keto and vegan. A Vegan high starch no fat diet or a ketogenic high fat no starch diet. Starch and fat make up the average American diet which cause health problems because together they cause damage.
Unfortunately I'm intolerant of wheat and legumes give me gas and reflux. The vegan diet also requires major supplementation of B vitamins. I also live on a dairy farm so fresh milk, beef and vegetables make up the bulk of our diets. So keto it is.
Book preview
Diary of a Dieting Madhouse - Paige Singleton
Chapter 1 From the Beginning
Dallas, Texas—July
MAKE A DECISION (Paige)
I often pull out the photograph of me and my friends—Susan, Sharon and Kenzy—and study it. We looked, in equal parts, fearful and hopeful. I stare at our faces and wonder what happened, how it all changed and why.
The summer sun of 2007 parched Dallas, the steam rising from the baked sidewalks to coat our skins with a film of perspiration. The girls and I met for lunch at the El Fenix near downtown. It seemed appropriate. Lots of fattening Tex-Mex food at low prices. Sharon brought her camera and, after snapping a few pictures, caught another customer and asked him to photograph the four of us together.
You can’t live in Texas during the middle of the summer without complaining about the heat. It was worse than we remembered it, but of course, we said that every year. Finally, we worked around to sharing non-events from our daily lives. Somewhere along the way, however, the topic of weight loss came up.
All you had to do was look at us to realize that we were constantly thwarted and discouraged. All but one of us was overweight to varying degrees. What began as a brief mention turned into a conversation that lasted several hours. We had been living for years in insanity, that is, doing the same things over and over but expecting different results. After many years of being overweight, trying and failing at frustrating new diets and often giving up, each of us knew deep down that we needed an overhaul. None of us, however, knew exactly how to go about it. Together, we discussed the need for change and our good intentions of doing so. We vowed to begin as soon as we cleaned our plates of the last refried bean and devoured the tortilla chips to the bottom of the bowl.
Of the four women, Kenzy was the only one who didn’t have a weight problem. We were a little acquainted with her eating patterns and observed them again at El Fenix. She skipped the cheesy enchiladas for a tostada made of beans, lettuce and tomatoes, a dish none of us would have considered for ourselves. Because it was obvious whatever she was doing worked, we gradually became convinced to try it her way. Kenzy became the mentor of the group.
We decided that we were stronger as a group because we could support and defend each other. More than mad
at the time, we were angry mad, crazy mad and (on a positive note, said Sharon) mad with excitement and enthusiasm.
This is a diary of our stories. We chronicle where we were, what we did and how we arrived where we are now. Our hope is to inform others and encourage them to take the same journey. If you have a sincere desire to change and are, at the very least, willing to give it a try, we’re ready to help navigate you through the hills and valleys of diet craziness. This is what worked for us.
Susan, Sharon and I adopted Kenzy’s vegan diet. By adopted,
I mean we accepted it in different ways, at different levels and at a varying pace.
If someone sat down with you, convinced you that you could lose weight naturally and be thin for the rest of your life, without hunger and without cravings, what would you do? If you learned you could save the lives of your family, your friends and yourself; that you could avoid the diseases that plague most of us, like cancer, heart disease, diabetes, stroke and Alzheimer’s; if the changes would not only be much easier than expected, but would be delicious and a lot of fun, what would you do? If you knew that your death of a painful, debilitating disease was just around the corner, would you be able to make the changes needed to save your life? Would you seize the opportunity to be thin and healthy and happy and feel fantastic in your skin?
What could possibly stop you?
Out of a complicated phenomenon, we can isolate three of the big issues that we have to deal with when we begin to make a lifestyle change.
ROADBLOCKS TO SUCCESS
The first roadblock to success is ignorance. Many of us believe what we are already doing is okay. That if we could slow down or eat less, we would be okay. NOT TRUE. In her section, Susan gives you the information you need to turn your ignorance into knowledge. With the right set of facts (and I warn you, you aren’t going to like some of it), many of you can succeed where formerly you failed.
Let’s face it. Old habits die hard. You are probably practicing behaviors that were learned from your parents which they learned from their parents. We continue down the same blind alleys that led us to the problem in the first place. We are eating, exercising and practicing the same toxic lifestyles that our parents lived.
We are taught to believe authority figures, like doctors, scientists and nutritionists, but they are doing the same things the professionals before them did. They are rarely any help. They might even hurt. A definition of insanity is doing the same things over and over and expecting different results. That’s where many of us are trapped. In Sharon’s Story, she deals at length with habits, lies and the myths that keep us fat.
What if we have learned for ourselves what we need to do, are gradually replacing old habits with good new ones, but, in spite of all our efforts, are failing?
Another major roadblock to success is addiction. Most of us don’t like to admit that we are addicted
to anything. When it comes to change, however, the same fears and insecurities plague us as those of an alcoholic who can’t give up booze and the heroin addict who can’t give up his fix. This phenomenon needs to be faced.
We are told that we are fat because we have no willpower. We are told that with a tweak here and there we can achieve the goals mentioned above. Unfortunately, those tweaks are rare and usually fail. If you eat compulsively, for more than simple hunger, you are a compulsive overeater. For a compulsive overeater, willpower is not in the equation at all. In some instances, we are simply powerless over food. Although it may take a little longer to manifest itself, the end results are the same. Like most addicts, if we don’t change, we are going to end up fat, sick and dead.
We are encouraged by the government and food industry to take personal responsibility
to battle obesity and the diseases that come with it. We are told to exercise more self-control, make better choices, avoid over-eating and reduce our intake of sugary drinks and processed food. We are led to believe that balance
is the answer—there is no good or bad foods. Unfortunately, this is not true. New discoveries prove that industrial processed foods loaded with sugar, fat and salt, foods
that are made in a manufacturing facility rather than grown on a plant, i.e., processed foods, are biologically addictive. Telling us to exercise self control when dealing with these so-called foods is like telling a drug addict to just say no.
It’s impossible.(1)
My personal story is about dealing with addictions, especially the addictive nature of certain foods. You will learn how to be free, psychologically and physically, from those addictions.
Our mentor and model, Kenzy, realized early in life that animal suffering is very much a part of the foods we eat. Their suffering served as the catalyst for her change. She takes on animal welfare, which may give many of you the motivation you need to alter and stick with your new eating plan. This is one area where, by helping others, you are saving yourself as well. It’s a win-win situation.
At the end of the book, I will give you the tools you’ll need to prepare and stick with your new choices.
Remember, there is hope, and that’s what this book is about. There’s madness everywhere, but we can take a sane course to health and happiness. Ultimately, this diary traces the ascent from madness into sanity for the four of us. It was an amazing journey, and we hope you enjoy it along with us.
Chapter 2 What is a Vegan and Why the F@#! Would I Want to Be One?
A vegan is a person who follows a vegetarian diet that doesn’t use any animal products like diary or eggs. There is some disagree as to whether a person who merely does not eat animal products can truly be called a vegan. Ethical
vegans not only abstain from eating animal products, they also do not wear products made from animals, i.e., leather, wool or silk, nor do they use personal and household products that are tested on animals. For our purposes, however, we are sticking to food choices only.
Why go on a vegan diet? There are four basic reasons for adopting a vegan plan of eating: weight loss, overall health, animals and the environment. If you picked out this book, you are probably most interested in weight loss, although we hope the other benefits will be important to you as well.
What are the benefits? You probably have heard some statistics. Vegetarians are thinner, healthier and live longer than meat eaters. There have been few studies on vegans, but of those studies performed, the results are leaning heavily in favor of the health and weight loss benefits of veganism. As an extra, added bonus, a vegan diet eliminates animals from our diet, thus saving them from mutilation, torture and death at the hands of the meat industry.
Finally, the environment benefits from humans eating a plant-based diet. Becoming a vegan does more for the environment than all other ecological efforts put together.
The real question is: Why NOT a vegan?
Chapter 3 Make a change
SUSAN’S STORY
Insanity
perfectly described my life during what I now think of as the Fat Years. My madness most often took the form of inertia and the inability to break away from the old, unfruitful ways of doing things.
It’s scary what life can do to us before we even realize what’s going on. While never beautiful, I used to be pretty in an all-American sort of way. Not exactly glamorous, but I had little trouble attracting men or making friends. It never once occurred to me during the first 35 years of my life that this might change. Well, sure, when I was 80, maybe. But gradually, so I’d have time to get used to it, learn to accept it.
One day I was thin, 35 and pretty. The next day, it seemed, I was fat, 40 and faceless.
One day I had long wavy hair, a shapely body, a job I liked and a strong, virile boyfriend. Marriage and a couple of kids later, I suddenly morphed into an overweight, middle-aged woman with short helmet-hair, generally ignored by everyone except my female acquaintances who were in the same predicament. Overnight, I had become invisible. People looked through me. I ceased to exist. I was faceless.
I called it the Invisible Woman Syndrome.
And, I had a husband who could no longer get it up.
I was cooking and eating the same way my parents did, and