The Psychiatrist’s Weight Loss Program
(or The Shrink’s Guide to Shrinking)

Do you have high blood pressure?
Do you have high cholesterol?
Do you suffer from sleep apnea?
Do you have type 2 diabetes?
Has your doctor said you are too short for your weight?
Has your doctor told you to lose weight to help your arthritis and joint pain?
Have you tried to diet and exercise to lose weight, and failed?

Then this free Weight Loss Program will probably work for you.

Introduction
A psychiatrist colleague of my daughters treats patients with sleep disorders such as sleep apnea. He found that most of the sleep apnea was caused by patients being overweight. He tried to get his patients to lose weight through dieting and exercise. However most of his patients, after some initial success, fell off the diet after various periods of time. No matter what diet was tried, the new approach could not change the patterns of a lifetime.
So he developed an approach that would minimize any lifestyle changes.

The Weight Loss Program

1. Do not change your activity level. Continue to do everything the same as before.

2. Do not change what you eat. Continue to eat exactly the same foods as before including the chocolate bars and french fries if they were part of your previous diet.

3. Throw away 20% of everything you were going to eat BEFORE you eat it. Yes you read that correctly. Prepare your meal exactly as before but put 20% in the garbage before you put it on your plate, Yes – in the garbage – don’t try and leave 20% on your plate – you can not do it. If you are eating at a fast food restaurant, cut 20% off your hamburger before eating. If you are eating at a restaurant, put 20% of your meal aside on another plate.

4. Do not try and throw away more than 20%. If you try and reduce your food intake by more than 20%, you will lose weight too quickly and your body will go into starvation mode and slow down your metabolism levels. Remember when you tried other diets and your weight loss stopped, even when you were eating very few calories. Your goal is to lose weight so slowly that your metabolism rate will stay at the same level as now.

5. Weigh yourself regularly every 2 weeks. You should be comparing your current weight to 8 weeks previously and trying to lose 6 pounds every 8 weeks. Again to repeat the caution, if you start to lose more than 3 pounds a month you run the risk of lowering your metabolism levels so that your body goes into starvation mode.

6. After you have been on the program for 2 years you will be able to adjust your portions yourself without throwing away 20%.
    

Frequently asked questions

1. What about all the starving people in the world? How can you waste food?

   Think about this for a minute. Do you think it helped the starving people when you ate it or it wasn’t wasted when you overate? By the year 2000 we had reached the point where there were more over-nourished people than under-nourished people in the world. I don’t think the fact that you throw away 20% of your food for 2 years is going to make a major impact on world starvation.
   
   

2. Can I just reduce my portion size or save the 20% for another day?

It won’t work. You can’t rely on yourself to cut your portion size by 20% and you certainly can’t save 20% for tomorrow because you may not have eaten that food again. Lets say you save 20% of your chocolate bar or peanuts for tomorrow. You might not have had those snacks the next day – so you really haven’t reduced your intake by 20%



3. Can I still eat fast food and chocolate bars?

   Yes, if they constituted part of your normal food intake before. You cannot add any new foods. Remember to break off 20% of that chocolate bar and throw it in the garbage - do not save it for another day.
   
   

4. Aren’t low fat or low carb diets better for me?

No, simply because they aren’t sustainable for most people. 96% of traditional diets fail. However when you think about it, you are reducing your fats and carbs by 20%.



5. Why does this diet work?

A psychiatrist who tried to get his patients to use traditional diet and exercise programs found that they failed because human nature dictates that over time people will revert to pre-existing behaviors. This program is only a slight modification to those pre-existing behaviors.



6. How much weight will I lose?

If you have that weight to lose – you could potentially lose 36 pounds in a year.