I am always on the lookout for motivating items to help me stay on track during weight loss because no matter how high my motivation level may be, I invariably will go through slumps. In December 2006 I was having a hard time getting motivated and was searching for something that would actually get me excited about getting back on my weight loss program.

I was intrigued when I came across the book “YOU On A Diet” by Michael F. Roizen M.D., and Mehmet C. Oz M.D.

I personally don’t believe in “diets” (which will be a future post’s topic), however I flipped through the table of contents and the pages and what caught my eye were the illustrations. I also liked the line on the back cover that read “The only way that dieting can work — really work — is to make eating so easy and automatic that you never even realize that you’re dieting”. I bought the book and started reading.

I became enamored with “YOU On A Diet” and found that I didn’t want to put it down, almost as if I were reading a novel. In my opinion, most of us know more about how our car works than we do about how our body works, and this book clearly explains your body to you in a fun, entertaining manner. The illustrations by Gary Hallgren are wonderful, full of detail and simply delightful to explore.

There were two topics that were covered in the book that turned my thinking around and helped influence me to want to eat healthy foods: one was the topic of High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS), and the other was on the “omentum” organ, which I had never before heard of.

HFCS is found in most processed foods today. It is six times as sweet as cane sugar, very cheap to produce, and therefore very cheap to use in food manufacturing. It aids in shelf life so it is found in most convenience foods, frozen foods, processed foods, and is present in foods labeled as “low-fat”. It is especially prevalent in sodas and low-fat salad dressings. HFCS is not processed by the brain as regular food.

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What happens when you eat foods with this ingredient is since your body doesn’t “see” the fructose, you keep eating because your brain doesn’t get the signal that you’re full! The HFCS doesn’t turn off the hunger signals in your brain, therefore you can end up consuming large amounts of these low-fat labeled foods (or any food containing HFCS), while taking in a high amount of calories.

One step that you can take to aid your brain in telling you that you are full is to avoid eating foods that have High Fructose Corn Syrup, Corn Syrup, or Fructose listed as one of their top four ingredients. If you presently don’t read labels, you will be surprised to discover just how many foods contain these ingredients. If you make only this one change in your eating habits, you will be knocking out a large percentage of foods that are not only unhealthy for you, but that you will more than likely overeat since you will continue to feel hungry and want more and more.

The other topic covered in “YOU On A Diet” that really caught my attention was regarding the “omentum”. The omentum is an organ that resides next to your stomach and is the body’s primary storage area of fat. In a slender person, it looks rather like sheer curtains hanging from the stomach, however in an obese person, it is all clogged up and clumped with fat. The omentum’s size is an indicator of how well the person handles stress since this organ is the body’s main gauge of stress. A fat clogged omentum is indicative of poorly managed and chronic stress.

The main point that turned me off was that fact that I could basically have a big ball of fat hanging off my stomach inside my abdomen. A fat laden omentum will make a person look like they have a big belly, but instead of the fat being on the outside of the body, it is actually on the inside. That really got to me and I decided that I did not want to have a fat packed omentum hanging around.

There is much more material covered in “YOU On A Diet”, such as how the small intestine operates as the body’s second brain, that it processes emotions, and what inflammation does to the body. There is also a suggested meal plan included in the book, information on plastic surgery, clogged arteries, high blood pressure, and scads more.

All of these topics are handled in such an entertaining way, it really makes you want to keep reading; I think that is quite impressive for a book on health. I would highly recommend the book “YOU On A Diet” for a few different reasons:

  • If you are looking for motivation to change your lifestyle.
  • If you gain motivation to change by learning about health facts.
  • If you would simply like to learn more about how your body works.

You can find it here at Amazon if you would like to learn more:

You On A Diet