Read an Excerpt

Six Weeks to OMG

Grand Central Life & Style

CUT THE CRAP

The medical community think you shouldn’t read this book. Your parents might think you shouldn’t read this book. Perhaps even your friends think you shouldn’t read this book. And you’re still reading?

Good job! It’s your life. Only you walk around in your shoes. Only you wake up with your thoughts. And only you will fall asleep to them. Should and shouldn’t are useless words. Even reading them can make you feel under pressure. Trash them!

KNOWLEDGE IS GOLDEN

Before this book hit the mainstream, it came under lots of fire. With OMG and Skinny in the title, I suppose it was to be expected. What I didn’t expect, was criticism from those who hadn’t actually read it. That’s like criticizing your blind date before they show up!

Scientists are taught to not do that (in a metaphorical sense of course, as scientists don’t go on dates), but sometimes even they slip up. We live in a world full of information, and to prevent overload, we often dismiss huge chunks of it in a heartbeat.

When it comes to your health, I urge you to criticize nothing without good reason. There’s just a chance that beyond all the smiles, and jokey comments, there’s some jaw-dropping science waiting to help you. I didn’t invent it, or even discover it. I simply didn’t dismiss it. Be open, be open, be open.

The only way to truly silence people is to show them what you mean. If you live this book for 6 weeks, you’ll do that. And if you change as much as I know you can, they’ll be surprised enough to greet new you with those 3 magic letters, ‘O – M – G’!

Many industry people worried when they found out I was going to write this. Why? Because they knew I’d cut the crap. And they knew that if I did that, you’d probably stop buying their next diet, exercise ‘secret’, or food product.

I believe that if you simply get told to do something, you’ll stick to it for a while, and succeed, for a while. And that’s the problem. After you stop getting told, you just rebel and slowly go back to what you’re used to.

I also know that when you understand how stuff works, you’ll stick to it. In fact when you really understand, it won’t feel like you need to stick to it at all. You’ll simply stop thinking about those old habits and old beliefs, and you’ll have developed new mechanisms. Permanent success!

WHY ARE YOU READING THAT?

Many will say that you don’t need any help, including parents. They might state that, ‘you’re fine as you are’, ‘it’s unhealthy’, or repeat the classic, ‘it’s just puppy fat’. Guess what, YOU’RE NOT A PUPPY! Are they right about the other stuff?

No. Only you can ever decide if you’re fine. No one else. Even with serious eating disorders, bad habits only stop when a patient changes how they see themselves. As early as you can, develop the skill of seeing yourself accurately.

Is this book unhealthy? No. I can hear doctors muttering in the distance! If you’re young, they believe you should just let Mother Nature take care of things. If ‘Mom knows best’, Mom Nature can surely be left alone, and all be okay.

Yeah right! Allowed to be natural, we can order pizza at midnight or travel miles without hardly moving a muscle. We live in a world full of modern luxuries. Mother Nature left town 30 years ago and she’s not coming back!

Doctors are very aware of research that shows most adult diseases usually start when we’re young, and are linked to being too fat. They also know that if you stay skinny when you’re young, you’re less likely to be a fadult (a fat adult).

Despite knowing this, the medical community is always very sensible. They think it’s best to play it safe. It’s dangerous to play it safe! It’s much more sensible to start taking a big interest in yourself, by learning about what works today.

This book will also boost your mental health by helping you look good and feel more in control. Having confidence is crucial, and getting it today is tougher than at any time in human history. You deserve to walk with confidence now.

What about the media? They’re pretty hard on you. On the one hand, they fill pages and screens with beautiful people who look totally amazing all year round. It’s no surprise; beautiful people sell lots of magazines, TV shows and movies.

What is a surprise is when the same shows or magazines criticize you for trying to be the same. Talk about confusing. The media is in the business of selling stuff, so when it comes to their fast opinions and nasty news articles, forgetaboutit!

Now, this is a tough one. Friends. Maybe you’re secretly in competition with some? Hey, maybe they’re secretly in competition with you! I just want you to realize something about friends. It applies to people you might work with too.

They’re scared. Not jealous, scared. Applying this book could rocket you to happiness and they don’t want to be left behind. Of course they could do the same, but we humans seem to think that only one person can be successful at a time!

Because of that fear, don’t expect them to help you. Some might even go too far and discourage you. Now, I’m not telling you to ignore your friends completely. We need friends. I mean who else are we going to show off to!

“IT’S ALL ABOUT YOU, ISN’T IT?”

Yes it is, actually! And why not? If there’s one thing I’d love you to take away from reading this book, it’s a new found respect for you. Hold on for a second, don’t just skip past that sentence because your brain has heard it before.

Respect yourself. I mean it. I’m not heading down the cliché known as, “if you don’t respect yourself, who will?”. That’s not relevant! You need to respect yourself, fully and always make the smartest decisions.

Destiny sounds mystical and romantic, but it’s nothing more than a whole bunch of decisions made back to back. In an ideal world, you make brilliant decision after brilliant decision. Of course, sometimes it’s not an ideal world.

The great thing is, a few tiny wrong turns can be corrected. How? Shut your eyes (not recommended if you’re walking or driving), breathe normally, be honest, and wait for your heart to speak up. It’s always right. Always.

When you lose hope in this book, and feel like ripping it up, stop. Go to the store, and rip up other diet books! Seriously, take a moment, and ask yourself if you’ve been honest with your actions. If you really have, please rip this up too, and move on.

The take home message is this: be relentless in your pursuit of happy-ness. The quality of your life is simply down to what feelings you have most often throughout the moment, minute, hour, day, week, month, year, decade, ta-da, life.

No one cares more about you, than you. No one lives in your mind or body, but you. The person in the mirror, that’s you. Absolutely everything is down, to you. And, when those OMG reactions start flying your way, only you can say, I did that.

HOW TO GET THE SKINNY ON

To get the best out of this book, and that means to get the best out of you, it’s good to read it at a time when you can fully concentrate. You will boost your success when you really know how stuff works, instead of just doing what I say.

Take a few days to read it. If it’s not starting to click, find a different chair, bed or beanbag, and read it again! I want you to become an expert. Experts don’t just read a summary or listen to someone who ‘did that diet’. An expert gets it.

Each technique is written so that you can try it by itself and see what effect it has (and see if you can handle it!). But I can tell you now, when you use all the techniques at the same time, your progress will be become much faster.

This happens because even though your body appears as one object, it’s made up of a ridiculously huge amount of parts. The spares catalogue for one human body would fill an entire library! When all the parts talk to each other, we really fly.

At the end of each section, I’ll repeat 6 OMG-getting facts to help you get the skinny on whatever’s just been said (plus 1 simple bit of take-out advice). I may seem to repeat myself (it’s deliberate). Don’t rely on these sum-ups only!

And just one more thing; I’m assuming that you’re not suffering from a medical condition or need medication before you start. Being overweight is unhealthy, but for some, any change in routine could be unhealthy too. Be smart.

If you’re worried, ask your doctor or health professional to read this. Don’t let them make a snap judgment by skimming through it, or worse, getting you to explain it. Lots of doctors could actually learn something from reading it. Am I joking?

Nope. Medical students spend little time on diet or health, often less than 1 day from 5 years of studying. Doctors are trained to discover and treat disease, and not to improve health. And they know absolutely nothing about getting you OMGs!

This book uses very plain English, and paragraph spacing that annoys those who make formatting rules. I don’t care about rules. I care about you getting it, and that’s why you see what you see. Fancy graphics or pictures are for comics. You just need the truth.

Before we go further, I need you to do something for me. Keep an open mind. At one time, most people believed that the world was flat, and that if you went too far, you’d fall off. Be a brave captain, it’s time to set sail.

GET THE SKINNY ON…

• OMG 6 Only read when you can think straight

• OMG 5 Keep reading until it all clicks

• OMG 4 The key to success is understanding stuff

• OMG 3 If you don’t get it, keep going until you do

• OMG 2 If you see doctors or take meds, ask them about doing this diet

• OMG 1 Keep an open mind about what you’ll find in the book

• OMG ! Don’t just rely on these summaries!

HIGH FIVE

If you really want to know how-to-wow in a hurry, you’ve got to attack certain key problems. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but it seems that there are 5 main areas which most people want to focus on. These become our basic goals:

1 – LOSE FAT

I know, obvious. But it’s important to state it. More than anything, carrying too much fat is the thing that upsets most people in terms of appearance. It’s easy to get fat these days, but with modern fashion and pressures, it’s not easy to hide.

The majority of this book will focus on getting rid of this unwanted fat. From a scientific point of view, it makes sense. When you take care of what’s making you fat, your body starts improving all your other problem areas.

To make sure that you lose fat permanently, I’m going to tell you the truth like you’ve never heard it. Once you really understand how the body wants to play, you’ll keep it off easily. And best of all, you can start to stop thinking about this stuff!

2 – GET TONED

When you lose fat, your skin moves closer to your muscles, and in some ways you’ll appear more toned. Hold on though, that’s just how you look. To get properly toned, that’s throughout your whole body, you need to do something for it.

If you don’t do that, and someone gets close enough to touch test your success, you might still feel as soft as a marshmallow! Some people are naturally more toned than others, but even they would benefit from specific help.

Developing a firm feeling body will actually give you an inner confidence, one that’s just a squeeze away. How? Feeling your own toned muscles will remind you that there’s a body within, full of potential. It’s your built-in trainer!

The techniques used for getting toned will also benefit your general health. Being toned isn’t just for some people. We can all ‘be like that’. And when you are, you’ll have a body that doesn’t just look like it works, it really will work.

3 – SLIM DOWN YOUR THIGHS

Skirts, skinny jeans, hot pants, summer dresses. It seems that the fashion industry is obsessed with putting pins on show! With so much media and social emphasis put on female thighs, it’s no surprise that improving them comes high on your list.

Apparently, you want them thinner, firmer, smoother and without cellulite. Oh, and you also wouldn’t mind them being a bit longer! I can deal with pretty much all of those (yes even the last one, because slimmer legs always look longer).

Normally, I’d say run a mile if a health expert says that they’ve got a ‘secret’. But, I have something that’s so unusual, so rarely used, and so effective, that it actually deserves to be called a secret. Your thighs and eyes will love it.

4 – FLATTEN YOUR BELLY

Having a toned and flat middle never used to be that important. Then came belly rings, short tops, and modern fabrics so thin that nothing is left to the imagination! If you want to feel good today, it’s impossible to ignore the middle of your body.

Our middle is where we keep our feelings, it’s there when we stand, when we lie down, and it even says ‘HELLO’ when we sit down! You can hide your tummy from others, but it’s got a cheeky habit of following you around.

Scientists have discovered that a flatter belly isn’t just a sexy look. It’s proof that you’re getting lots of things right. This also means that even if you’re skillful at hiding a big belly in clothes, you can’t hide its affect on your health.

5 - KEEP YOUR SKIN, HAIR AND NAILS GLOWING

Although these areas weren’t my first thoughts when writing this book, it became obvious to me that you can’t get an OMG reaction if your skin and hair look awful. Many diet and health books don’t think about skin and hair. Do you?

Programs often work on some areas while skin, hair and nails slowly suffer in the background. Many assume that it’s a price we have to pay. Rubbish! Our skin is our largest organ, and if it’s suffering, something’s not right.

Our hair, like our skin, also gives us clues about how healthy we really are, i.e. on the inside. Expensive skin creams and hair products are fun, but they can’t fix deeper problems. Everything you get from me will benefit your beauty bits.

You can do this. All five. And when you do, I’m certain that you’ll feel amazing. Even better, you’ll be back in control.

Back in control? Yes, back in control. If you’re reading this, there’s probably a part of you that feels things have gotten out of control. When people feel powerless for too long, it can turn into ‘what’s the point?’. That’s a truly dangerous sentence.

I can’t tell you what your ultimate goal is. It’s personal. But I definitely know that when you get in control of your body and health, your mind becomes free to be brilliant in whatever way you want. Come on, let’s turn the page!

GET THE SKINNY ON…

• OMG 6 You will lose fat

• OMG 5 You will get toned all over

• OMG 4 You will slim down your thighs

• OMG 3 You will flatten your belly

• OMG 2 You will have lovely hair, skin and nails

• OMG 1 You will feel good about yourself

• OMG ! You will get back in control if you turn the page!

HOW, HOW, HOW

‘How fat do you think I am?’

‘How much do you think I can lose?’

‘How quickly do you think I could lose it?’

HOW FAT DO YOU THINK I AM?

Outside of a book, you might have asked this as ‘do you think I’m fat?’. Some of you have an answer already, and some of you could even be right. The majority won’t be. By the end of the section, you’ll have much more confidence in the truth.

For many, this question is important because it leads onto the next (‘how much do you think I can lose?’). You usually want an exact answer. Maybe you’ve already been given one from someone else. Here’s the news. Listen to no one!

Everyone has opinions. Friends offer advice in blocks of five, ‘you need to lose 10lbs / 15lbs / 20lbs’! A doctor will use charts, a formula, or technical sounding words. And a parent might just say ‘lots’!

FRIENDS AND FAMILY

The people you see often will definitely have strong opinions about how you look. But being close doesn’t automatically make them an expert. If anything, it makes them less likely to come up with an accurate answer.

Parents may negatively (or positively) compare you to a brother, sister, relation, or even themselves. This is wrong. Even within families, genetics and habits vary, making these opinions simplistic.

For the same reason, the viewpoint of a close friend may also not be of much use. And there’s always a chance they could feel threatened by giving you an honest answer, and watching your success as they feel left behind.

DOCTORS

Doctors are widely trusted to be experts on our health. As I’ve said already, they’re actually experts at disease. A doctor studies for 5 years or more, but they only spend a day on diet. Better hope they weren’t sick that day!

If you ask Doc for help, they’ll be limited to using a few standard techniques. Firstly, they’ll weigh you. I’ll talk about weighing later, but right now, the scales aren’t important. It’s how a doctor uses them.

After reading your weight, a doctor will usually do one or two things. They’ll get out a chart, they’ll ask you for your height, and finally, if they’re feeling very scientific, they’ll bring out their secret weapon: the calculator!

HEIGHT AND WEIGHT TABLES

If your doctor shows you one of these, it says they’re old school. Height and weight charts were designed in the 1950s to help a big insurance company decide if you were a health risk (to charge more money for their insurance).

They got updated in ‘83 and have since become full of color and funky graphics. Despite these changes, the basic idea is wrong. The length of your bones (your height) and the force you exert on Earth (your weight), don’t explain everything.

Even people of the same height or weight (or both), can vary massively in other ways. Some may carry more muscle, some might have short legs or long collar bones, and all these sorts of factors are things that charts can’t see. They’re blind to reality.

The point on the chart where height and weight meet, is a point compared to another Jane’s points, i.e. they’re averages. Averages are simply what’s common. And when it comes to health, common does not mean ideal. Think about it.

Today’s charts divide everyone into neat little groups. Underweight, normal, overweight, obese, and the scary sounding, morbidly obese. They’re just words! They simply make it easier for others to describe you.

Height and weight charts used to only be found in insurance company offices. Gradually they made their way into doctor’s surgeries, then gyms, and now they’re available everywhere. When you see one, don’t bother looking. You know better.

BODY MASS INDEX

It’s amazing, you just need to take three normal words, stick them together, and it all sounds so scientific! Body - Mass - Index, or BMI for short. This is where you or your doctor gets out a calculator.

BMI uses mathematics to work out how much mass you have compared to your height. Take your height in inches and multiply itself. Then divide your weight in pounds by that answer. Are you confused or bored? I’m both!

Just like the height and weight tables, there are charts which work out your BMI. As with all charts, this doesn’t make the figures any more useful. BMI also likes to divide itself into neat little groups.

Their categories sound like a mixture of the classics, underweight, normal, overweight, and types of space ship, Obese Class I, Obese Class II and Obese Class III. You can see why they never became high school insults!

I now suggest that you forget all those categories, forever. What’s strange, is that we had forgotten them for years, over 150 in fact. BMI was actually invented in the 1830s by a Belgian mathematician. He sounded fun!

When people started to question the accuracy of height and weight tables, BMI made a comeback. It may sound complicated, but it’s not different than what we’ve seen before. And like height and weight tables, BMI is everywhere.

The formula only works in the extremely under or overweight, although by that point, it’s kind of obvious! Annoyingly, in the commonest BMI group of normal, there’s the smallest amount of accuracy. Doh!

The reason its accuracy is so poor, is back to an old friend, Average Jane. BMI figures came from studying all the data from lots of Janes. By now you can see that if Jane wasn’t ideal, and we measured lots of Janes, we could be very lost!

It’s time to add three letters, and say goodbye: RIP – BMI. It’s too mechanical, and not personal enough to tell you anything worthwhile. So, we’ve ditched tables and statistics, and now you’re still thinking, ‘just tell me how fat I am’!

BODY FAT PERCENTAGE

I promise, it’s the last method to ignore! In the quest for more knowledge about our bodies, science has apparently delivered the ultimate statistic, your percent body fat. Sometimes it’s called your body composition.

Now out of all the measures we’ve discussed, your percentage of body fat deserves credit for trying. I’ll give it an A+ for effort. Knowing how much of your body is fat and how much isn’t, is a logical place to start.

To find this figure out, you can either pinch yourself (with giant plastic tweezers), get dunked under water, have your breathing analyzed, let electricity pass through you, or even get scanned by a huge X-ray type machine.

These methods vary in their accuracy. They all give you a number explaining how much of you is made from fat. The left-over percentage is the combined total of your water, muscle, organs and bone.

Let’s assume that you got your body fat percentage measured accurately. The results are in, and now what? Time for another table, chart or opinion! Oh yes, they’ll always find a way back to haunt you!

All these are also made up by analyzing results from more people. Depending on where you look, you will find different meanings for your body fat percentage tests. There’s a big problem. These meanings are meaningless!

Scientific research can tell you lots about body fat levels. Olympic male athletes are less than 10% fat, women with 15% or less stop having periods, and if you get below 3%, you’ll probably never get out of bed again.

Surprisingly, even body fat percentage has problems. Say you have two people with 20% fat. They could even be the same height. One might still have a big tummy or thighs, and the other might appear to have a balanced body.

This happens because of differences in muscle and fat cell location, bone length and water content. Your body fat percentage is like knowing the ingredient list for a cake recipe. It can’t tell you how the cake will turn out.

The problem with body fat percentage is the same as all the other methods we’ve looked at. They’re rarely accurate, they only compare you to others, and they create numbers which just scare you or give you false hope.

From a purely visual point of view, they’re almost laughable. When was the last time you walked down the street, saw someone who impressed or shocked you, and thought, ‘wow, they must have a BMI of 19’ or be ‘obese class III’!

So, I think by now you realize that modern measuring techniques can be fun at most, but definitely a distraction from what we all go back to in the end: how we see ourselves, how we see others, and how we compare what we see.

The scientists who just read that are now pulling their hair out in rage. They prefer to live in a world of exact data, research and theory. That’s really not a world that most of us live in. I’ve got a theory. We don’t do theory!

So, what’s left? Oh, that big question, ‘how fat do you think I am?’. Can you see the answer yet? I just gave you a big hint. The answer has the same number of letters as fat. No? It’s about what you see.

Don’t tear up the page or throw your phone! I’m simply recommending that you rely on the most powerful, personal and instinctive method of judgment available. Your brain. You’re probably shaking it right now!

The purpose of this section is to hit home how important it is to trust yourself, and to compare yourself to yourself. Okay, I can’t stop you making comparisons with your friends. And besides, just read the subtitle of the book!

But it’s crucial that you develop trust in what’s physical, i.e. real. Doing this will encourage self-honesty. Once you get that and stop relying on others, you’ll know exactly when it’s right for you to carry on as normal, or to push harder.

Some of you may have a habit of relying on what others believe, either by asking friends, family or even online strangers what they think of your body. I hereby give you official permission to stop that! Right now! I said NOW!

And by the way, I’m not suggesting that you never weigh yourself again. Used right, weighing scales are still a reliable and motivational tool. There are other things that you can use, and I’m sure that some of you already do.

THE MIRROR

Looking in this is probably the closest thing you can get to an honest opinion from an outsider! If you use one, make sure it’s neutral (doesn’t make you look skinnier or fatter than you really are). And of course, always use the same one.

If you really want to get a good opinion of your body, don’t just look at your front or side view. Get another mirror to see what’s behind you. This isn’t encouraging you to become obsessed. It’s simply inaccurate to ignore half your image!

If you can’t do that, visit a clothing store’s changing room. The lighting’s often nasty, but it allows you to get detailed info on your body’s overall look. Keep visiting the same store. And no, you don’t have to buy anything!

CLOTHES

This isn’t as simple as it sounds. There’s probably nothing better than being able to fit snuggly into your favorite pair of jeans, especially if you’ve been struggling for a while. If you’re using one pair for this comparison, it’s a great tool.

Unfortunately, those sneaky numbers have made their way back into town: clothing sizes. They can be very misleading. Fashion designers realize that we all like to fit the smallest size possible.

Because of this, some will size their clothes large. Imagine you’re facing a close call between two similar but different brands of jeans. One’s a size 8 and the other is a 6. Wouldn’t you be tempted to buy the feel-good size 6?

You can also make it more difficult for yourself by using an item of clothing that changes size. Natural fabrics like cotton can shrink dramatically, especially if you dry them artificially. Some items can also dramatically loosen too!

So, to use clothes as a guide, keep some items aside that stay constant. And don’t panic if you fit easily in one store’s jeans, but really struggle into some from another. No one gains weight that quickly! It’s just numbers.

PHOTOS

Digital photography using a phone or camera makes keeping track of your progress easy. You don’t even require anyone’s help. Just a clever place to position a camera or tripod. Photos in front of a full-length mirror work well too.

To use photos, you need to be consistent. That means taking them from the same spot, having the same lighting (important) and using the same camera. If you’re wearing a swimsuit or shorts, keep those the same too.

So, you’re going to rely on yourself, the mirror, your clothes, and maybe take some photos. As I mentioned before, weighing scales are useful too. They get their own section. But for now, I can hear you shouting another question!

HOW MUCH DO YOU THINK I CAN LOSE?

For some, this might be the second most important question you want answered. And in fact, it’s the easiest one to answer. But it will also be the most difficult truth to accept from the whole book. Are you ready? Take a deep breath.

There’s no limit on how much fat you can lose. If you’re very fat, you can lose a bigger total compared to those who have less fat to start with. But everyone, and that means e-v-e-r-y-o-n-e, can be skinny. Yes, skinny.

Scientists and psychologists probably find that irresponsible. I don’t care. I just want you to find it inspiring. If it’s making you angry, I understand. We’ve all overheard conversations and absorbed stuff that suggests being skinny isn’t for everyone.

‘You really must realize that you’re not made like her’

‘I guess I just have a super fast metabolism’

‘Genes are the most important thing’

‘Come on, look at your ankles’

If you hear something enough, you’ll start to believe it, make it a fact, and finally you’ll live up to it. It’s wrong that so many people do this and give up their dream of being skinny. It’s time to wipe the hard drive!

Being skinny is for everyone. It’s healthy, it’s possible, and importantly, it’s how the human body loves to be.

While scientists and diet gurus have been studying the differences between human beings, they’ve forgotten to spend more time looking at similarities. And as it turns out, there’s quite a lot.

We already have enough knowledge, which if properly understood and used, can keep us skinny and healthy. This will work for at least 99% of the population. Even those in the other 1% can improve beyond their dreams.

You might be wondering how this can be true, especially as skinny success seems quite rare. Human beings are part of the universe. And that’s full of laws. The laws of physics, chemistry and biology are three well-known ones.

You have never ‘failed’ on any diet. Never! The diet has failed to be properly designed and apply these basic laws.

Big difference. You’ve got to delete any sense of failu… Or you’ll believe that you’re special in the wrong way and be ‘one of those’ who can’t be skinny. Don’t become another amateur expert on genetics, i.e. don’t blame your genes!

HOW QUICKLY DO YOU THINK I COULD LOSE IT?

No one can deny that some people lose fat quicker than others, and with less effort. This difference in speed causes people to give up. The crucial thing to realize is that eventually, you can look as skinny as you like.

I sense that was too wishy washy an answer for you! Of all the questions, it’s the speed issue that excites most. Maybe it’s the reason you chose Six Weeks To OMG. I’m going to give you the best, honest answer I can.

In a way, I could have answered this via the previous question, ‘how much do you think I could lose?’. But it needed a time frame to be more accurate. In 6 weeks, you can lose between 10 and 20 pounds of fat. Not weight.

That means, if you apply the ideas of the book, you will lose fat at the rate of up to 3.5 pounds every week. If this disappoints you, hold up. Many diets promise faster weight loss. And they do. But it’s weight, not fat.

Many people, assume that fast weight loss is water loss. Nope. When calories are slashed ultra low (or food choices become really limited), most of the weight is muscle loss. And that’s a natural disaster!

Water loss is easy to fix. The body has built-in mechanisms to keep you interested in water or watery foods. Even if you keep ignoring your thirst, your body will make you think again by slowing you down and making you physically weak.

In fact, room temperature water can go from mouth to muscles in under 10 minutes. But muscles themselves takes weeks, months and sometimes even years to rebuild and recover from a sudden loss. And during that time, you will suffer.

Some of you might be thinking, ‘so what, no one can see it, and anyway I look skinny!’. Shrinking your muscles isn’t really a yay moment. You can hide it from others, but your body always knows what’s going on.

Losing muscle is never a good idea. In a cosmetic sense, you’ll have a slightly softer body. Maybe you can deal with that. Next up, is the development of a reduced metabolism. Finally, something to blame being fat on!

Muscle is where most of our food is ‘burned’. Think of muscle as an oven. Shrink your oven, and you shrink your ability to burn calories. And a smaller oven equals less slices of pizza for you!

So, back to those 10 to 20 pounds. That works out to be a weekly fat loss rate of roughly 1.5 to 3.5 pounds. Can you lose it faster? Yes. I’ve seen faster fat loss in about 10% of people. And, I’ve seen slower.

What causes this variation? The truthful answer is that I don’t know. There are so many factors at play, many of which we haven’t discovered yet. And because we don’t know what we’re looking for, I can’t suggest how to improve them.

10 to 20 pounds of fat loss in 6 weeks is fast. It happens when you get lots of things right. If up to 3.5 pounds per week sounds slow, think how losing that week after week soon adds up. I bet you didn’t even gain that fast!

When people lose more weight than this, they usually don’t look better. When you get 10 to 20 pounds of fat loss in 6 weeks (even if you’re 250 to start), the changes you have made will be obvious to anyone. As in, ‘OMG’ obvious!

Your clothes will fit better, with especially good slimming around your waist (where fat can sit deep inside you). Your face, neck and jawline will be less puffy. And you’ll feel lighter, a feeling that’s so refreshing.

Okay, take a few moments to think about what you’ve read in this section. It’s probably been thought changing, confusing and even tiring. Be honest with yourself, and move to the next section when you’re ready. That’s decision time!

GET THE SKINNY ON…

• OMG 6 Everyone has an opinion but yours is always best

• OMG 5 Forget about tables, charts, percentages or BMI

• OMG 4 Weighing scales, the mirror and clothes are good motivators

• OMG 3 You can lose between 10 and 20 pounds of fat in 6 weeks

• OMG 2 Going faster could mean losing too much muscle (bad)

• OMG 1 Everyone can get super skinny despite what others say

• OMG ! Start to trust in yourself and you’ll be rewarded!

BIG PLANS

We all have different goals, so we need different plans. Choosing the right one is simple, just be honest. And by that, I mean be accurate about how much and how fast you need to lose fat. I’m not asking you to be easy on yourself either!

I realize that for some, even 6 weeks is just too long. Maybe you’ve got a big party coming up, or it’s holidays, or you just want to hurry. If your target is 15 pounds or less, you could choose the hardest plan, and lose it sooner than 6 weeks.

There is a limit to this high-speed approach though, and certain amounts of fat loss are not likely, no matter what other books, trainers or gurus say. The truth is, most diets or health programs simply pick numbers out of thin air.

You’re better than that. The amounts I’ve targeted are not based on guess work. They’re from experiments. And I mean, experiments officially tested on humans! They’re pretty much the average upper limit for fat loss in 6 weeks.

Like all averages, some people will lose less, and some people will lose more. Stop it! ‘Stop what?’, you’re thinking. Well, at this point many people lose confidence. They decide that they’ll be the one person who loses less. Repeat after me:

I don’t know who I really am, until I’ve really tried!

I don’t know who I really am, until I’ve really tried!

I don’t know who I really am, until I’ve really tried!

If you’re struggling, you might want to shift down a level, and go back up when you can. Try not to mix and match all the time, as this could get you into a habit of wishy washy discipline.

To be clear, the basic ideas of the book are very similar for all of you. Only in a few areas are there differences, and this is where you’ll see a variation written. If there’s no mention of a plan variation, it means do it all! Think of video game levels:

WAVE

LOSE 10 POUNDS OF FAT IN 6 WEEKS

This is the easiest level. Being the easiest doesn’t mean it’s easy! Many ideas in this book will be new and controversial, and if you’re worried about adjusting your brain and lifestyle to the shock, this could be the one for you.

On Wave, you’ll be waking up your body and mind to a new way of working. If 10 pounds of fat loss happens to be your target, but you want to lose it quicker than 6 weeks, you could try the next level of intensity, Blaze.

BLAZE

LOSE 15 POUNDS OF FAT IN 6 WEEKS

This plan is tougher than Wave. It needs more discipline and mental strength from you. But by using more movement, plus smarter food choices with better biochemistry and physics, Blaze will generate about 50% more fat burning than Wave.

If you really want to go for the maximum amount of fat loss in 6 weeks, or lose less but do it at warp speed, then you could try the final level, Quake. It’s not easy, but in return, your body will simply have to start looking exactly as you want.

QUAKE

LOSE 20 POUNDS OF FAT IN 6 WEEKS

Make no mistake, this level requires a real shift in beliefs and effort compared to most things you may have tried before. Your friends will think you’re crazy, and you might say to yourself at times, ‘what am I doing?’!

But the results will speak for themselves. Quake requires even smarter choices than Blaze, and even more dedication. If you’re still not sure, sit down, re-read the previous chapter, sleep on it, and decide in the morning.

To repeat, though there are 3 levels, the principles stay the same. To lose more, some things obviously need to be tougher. Think of Wave, Blaze and Quake as easy, normal and hard. Or hard, harder and ‘are you serious?’. I’m joking. Not!

SOME NOTES FOR NON-BELIEVERS

Critics could suggest that these plans aren’t practical for constant use. And you know what, if you were to feel like you were constantly on a plan, any plan, they’d be right. But they’re not right about everything. Critics never are!

I want you to feel like you’re on a plan in the beginning, as this will excite and energize you. But after a while, you’ll start to understand how stuff works, and these techniques will gradually melt their way into your life. Plan? What plan!

Carrying extra fat is massively unhealthy, linked to lots of diseases, makes you feel miserable, and only happens because of extra-ordinary behaviors. To fight back, we need an extra-ordinary plan.

What about those who say that the fat loss targets are too low? Perhaps you agree with them. There’s no such thing as too little fat loss. Yes, we all want things faster, but every ounce of fat that you lose is progress in the right direction.

Experts who claim that you can lose fat faster than 20 pounds in 6 weeks are not experts. They’re just random number generators! But maybe you remember a time when someone you knew lost more. Maybe it was you. Here’s how it happens.

SUCCESS BY WEIGHT ONLY

This often means losing more than fat. As I mentioned before, assuming ‘it’s just water weight’ is wrong. Losing extreme amounts of weight quickly means losing extreme amounts of muscle. You’ve got to love your muscles! Why?

They contain our big well of water, they get us out of bed, look after our immune system, and they use up the energy in that sneaky second bar of chocolate! For those just interested in appearance, losing muscle will make you squishy to touch.

In the past few years, many diets have caused massive weight loss. Their inventors have claimed that some of this is water, and that it can be made safe by just drinking more. This is either stupidity or lies. Massive weight loss always involves losing muscle.

EXCESSIVE EXERCISE

Being physical is great. In fact, it’s how we’re meant to be. But even cavemen would have rested from time to time. Why? Because our ancestors had real experience of experiencing exhaustion.

Muscle cells develop very small tears when used. This is completely normal, and up to a point, our body can easily fix them. Go beyond this, and it starts to go wrong. And it’s not just muscles that suffer if you over-exercise.

First to go is your immunity, so you get coughs and colds. Next to go are your joints. You could find yourself twisting an ankle too often, or even tearing an entire muscle, tendon or ligament. Trust me, sitting injured makes it easy to get fat!

Eventually, the body’s chemical system has problems. Men lose testosterone, and women lose estrogen. Apart from making guys more like girls, and girls more like guys, this all leads to the final problem. Feeling sad.

Physical activity is great for the mind, but when you rely on it too much, the body simply can’t recover and does anything to stop you hurting it. And what’s the easiest way for it to do this? It depresses you! That’s exactly what nature does.

How much is too much? For most people, doing more than 2 hours per day will cause problems. Our plans use physical activity, but it’s more about timing and combining it with other principles, instead of just doing lots.

CONSTANTLY BAD FOOD CHOICES

If a diet tells you to live on a limited number of foods, you’re in trouble from the start. I don’t care how good it is, no human can just live on chocolate! Diet recipes may look interesting, but subconsciously they limit you.

Many diets are designed knowing that we understand the dangers of being fat. And with that, they have the perfect excuse to persuade you to live on just a few foods. Skinnier is healthier, but you must get the basics right.

Nature doesn’t want us to get serious disease, so it gives us nutrients to prevent it. Trouble is, it scatters them in a wide variety of foods. Eat just a few, and you might not get enough of the magical mix to protect you.

SUPER COMPLICATED DESIGN

Many diets are designed by those who realize, if something doesn’t look complicated, people won’t believe it. It’s crazy, but many of us have a natural habit of assuming that simple things can’t be useful. You know, ‘it can’t be that easy’.

So, diets got complicated. Your body isn’t impressed by complication or simplicity. It just knows what works, and what doesn’t. Many diets are so complicated that they never let you forget that you’re on one!

This book may appear complex to start with. But once you understand it, everything will become very simple. And if you’ve been on a diet before, this new knowledge will help you spot the reasons why they didn’t work.

DRUGS

Okay, here’s the truth. There are drugs that speed up weight loss, fat loss, or any kind of loss you want. Some are street drugs, some are medical, but what they all have in common, is that eventually, they will stop working.

Either that, or they’ll stop you working. Governments in a panic have tried to use many of these drugs to reduce the levels of obesity, but even they know that it’s a shortcut that often goes wrong. All drugs have some kind of side-effect.

Some side-effects can’t be lived with, and others can. In fact, I’ll encourage you to use a drug later. But it’s not one that’s smuggled into the country. You can buy it from a grocery store, it’s safe, and it helps.

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Excerpted from Six Weeks to OMG by Venice A. Fulton Copyright © 2012 by Venice A. Fulton. Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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