The 6-Week Cure or how I changed my mind about rapid weight loss

The day after Labor Day (six days from today) our new book comes out, and our publisher finally gave us permission to excerpt it. I’m going to post the entire introduction so you’ll know why we came to write this particular book.
The story you will read will be true and the names won’t be changed to protect the ‘innocent.’ Until the events transpired that you will soon be reading about, I was not especially a proponent of fast weight loss. I mean a low-carb diet will make people lose weight quickly, but that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about the people who used to come into my office saying, “I’ve got my high school reunion in a month. How much weight can I lose by then?’ I always considered these as fairly ludicrous requests because the requesters clearly weren’t concerned about health issues, but simply about how they would look in the short run, without an eye to maintaining their lifestyle.
As a consequence of dealing with so many of these patients, I really developed an aversion to the notion of quick weight loss to meet some sort of deadline where appearance counted. But, as with so many things in life, it’s easy to pontificate until you find yourself in the same position as the people to whom you’re pontificating.
While looking for an old post for a reader, I came upon one of the bestseller lists I did last year, which reminded me that I hadn’t posted one of these in a while. I had been trying to keep them up quarterly so that readers of this blog could see the books other readers were buying, but, what with all the links required, these posts are a real hassle to put up. So, since I, like most everyone else, gravitate toward pleasure and away from pain, I’ve not kept up with my quarterly timetable.


