I have done a lot of research, reading and studying over the last forty years into the matter of Dieting. Through my own experience with dieting and thus spanning the 6 decades of changes in ideas, beliefs and expertise, I thought that it would be interesting to find out just how long human beings have been concerned with body shape. To my surprise I found that body image has been in human awareness for 10,000 years. Starting with the finds of statuettes from Paleolithic times, depicting a well-rounded female image, we can see that being plump and firm was important in the days of the hunter gatherer to sustain people through times of famine. It was also seen as a sign of being fertile. In the last 10,000 years our diet has changed out of all proportion to the hunter gatherer days, but our bodies have not evolved along with it. The body still acts as if it is expecting a famine, and when we diet it will hold onto every last gram of fat, in order to preserve itself. As we come into the agricultural age and on into the early days of the Europeans it becomes clear that humans have started to take steps to lose the fat. I have looked at how food in general has evolved from different corners of our planet, and along with these changes it is not surprising that the more we came away from eating natural, real, unadulterated food, the more we found it necessary to find ways to combat putting on weight. Yet here in the 21st Century ideas abound with different opinions, diets and scientific research. Some of them pretty sound, some of them ridiculous. From taking pills, to drinking tea. From leaving out essential nutrients to eating far too much of any particular nutrient. But the only thing we know for sure that works when watching our health and weight, is to eat real food, organic where possible and watching our portions. The second most important thing to bear in mind is that the idea of being skinny must stop. Once we learn to eat what nature designed us to and getting our portions right to suit the individual, our body will find the right weight naturally, we will be as healthy as possible. It is obvious to me from the research, study and writing for this book and from my own experience in life of being a chronic dieter for over forty years, that being a healthy weight, with a moderate amount of fat, is the way to go! I have covered the last 100 years of the book, in decades and it is interesting to see that it is in this time span that we have turned to ever more faddy and often dangerous ways, to be not just slender, but skinny. It is an anomaly that although we have this mindset we have reached epidemic levels of obesity. Whether you are in a professional capacity, researcher or someone who thinks that dieting to lose weight is something new to this century, you will find the history of how we reached here with food, interesting and revealing.
About the Author: Patricia Cherry is a Life Coach specialising in helping people to change their thinking around Mind, Body and Spirit. It had been in Patricia's mind for many years to help people to overcome issues with weight, food and compulsive eating. In the 1980's she trained privately to become a counsellor for this, but life took over with other problems so it was shelved. Patricia believes that most people who are dieting are doing so unnecessarily and getting themselves into dieting hell, for the sake of a few pounds in weight. This makes the body go into famine mode and from there it is downhill all the way. For every diet that a person partakes in and loses weight, it has been found that 98% of people put the weight back on again and more besides. So that every diet becomes harder to sustain and harder to lose weight. It had been in Patricia's mind for many years to help people to overcome issues with weight, food and compulsive eating. As well as her Life Coach Training, she is a trained Assertiveness trainer, and because of her own experience of overcoming forty years of chronic dieting and an obsession with food and weight issues, her passion in life is to help people to learn their own value and believe that they have the ability to discover for themselves a way of eating and living that is healthy, happy and sustainable for them. She also coaches people who want to have a healthy and vital way of living in their advanced years, simply because she is a good example of obtaining her Life Coaching Diploma at University at the age of 68. Patricia's other books are; "How to Find the Best Diet", on Amazon Kindle. This one looks at 25 diets that she or friends have tried and helps the reader find the ones that are sustainable. These are based on eating real food, which is how she delivered herself out of diet bondage. "Design Your Own Diet" is a guide to the reader of how to find a way of eating that suits them as an individual. There is a look at body image, the reason why they want to lose and whether that reason is legitimate or just wishful thinking. She explains the nutrients needed for the body and looks at changing limiting beliefs that could be holding people back from healthy eating. Patricia has a family of three children and two step children, 8 grandchildren. The author loves to spend time with family and friends, especially those who take an interest in the same subjects. Interests are quilting, knitting and hand-sewing, walking and Pilates.