Tony Dean - The F.A.S.T. Diet

Contents

Introduction

I n November 2005, an Omaha, Nebraska, family was extremely overweight and unbelievably out of shape. Twelve months later, they had lost more than 500 pounds. They did not take diet pills, eat special foods, count points, or buy any fancy equipment. This familywho managed to overcome a lifetime of weight problems to achieve such remarkable resultsis my family.

Every day someone asks me, What is your familys secret? How did you do it? If I had to sum it up in one word, Id say teamwork! But theres a lot more to it. Let me tell you our amazing story so that you will not only learn how we did it but also be able to do it, too.

At the beginning of those twelve months, we were very short and very round: on average five feet four inches tall and 227.5 pounds. We were hardworking middle-class people just trying to make a living. None of us were ex-college athletes; in fact, none of us had even graduated from college.

The ages, weights, and heights of the eight participants were:

We were a family of fatties! Being the royal family of Fatland has always come easy for us. We live in a small town of about one million people called Omaha, Nebraska. Our city is one of the nicest places in the world if you like low crime, a moderate cost of living, and high taxes. But for some reason, the people of Omaha are consistently at the top of the charts for being overweight. I suppose were heavy because it gets so cold and we cant get outside as much as people in other cities do. Sounds like an excuse, doesnt it? It probably is, but it allowed our family to stay fat and unhealthy in the land of so many who were just like us.

Everyone in the Dean family had at one time or another tried to dietsome on our own, others by joining programsand every one of us had failed. There were a few temporary successes, but in three decades there had never been a single time when I could look at my family as a unit and think, We are healthy. Instead, I thought, Im scared. How are Mom and Dad going to live in their older years? I knew their lives would be filled with pain and suffering. Given the way they took care of their bodiesor, rather, didntthere was simply no other possibility.

You are probably reading this book because you want to get healthy. Perhaps you, too, have dieted and failed or worry about your quality of life as you get older. You may have concerns about the health of your spouse, your family, or a friend. Dont worrythis book can transform not only your health but also that of your friends and family. I will share my familys story and show you how we maintained our motivation to eat right and exercise every day. Thats right: I said every day.

Right now I am sure you are thinking, Every day! Are you kidding me? Im too busy to exercise every dayI have way too much going on. Did I keep the receipt for this book? Well, dont lose faith yet. Just to prove that almost anyone can lose weight successfully using this program, once we had achieved our goals, we decided to help one hundred random people do the same thing over the course of a year. All of them, like you, had way too much going on. But now, all of them are succeeding and getting healthy on our program. We can help you overcome the most common obstacles to weight loss. You will quickly realize that many of the problems we share are the same problems you have been battling for years.

I will show you not only how to make the right decisions about food and exercise but also how to stay motivated. There is so much bad information out there about food, and with one expert contradicting the next, how do we figure out the truth? I will share our eating plan and tell you what we did that works so that you can do it, too. With balance, you can eat healthy foods that you like, feel full, have more energy, look great, and build confidence in yourself that you never knew you had. And once you have this balance, exercise will be something you cannot live without, instead of something you dread.

But the most important thing youll learn is how to create a team that will keep you motivated and hold you accountable. On the F.A.S.T. diet, you will learn how to stay healthy once and for all and be a positive role model for those around you. Until you experience it, you cant imagine how good it feels to be a person who motivates someone else to get healthy. Many of the people my family has helped will tell you that their greatest joy is helping others succeed. This is exactly what happened to my family, once the word about what we were doing got out in our community.

Looking back, it seemed as if we blinked and a year had passed. My family of eight had lost 501 pounds, and we decided that we were going to try to share what we had learned with others. We figured that if we could do this, being the kings and queens of Fatland, others could, too. We called a few radio stations and our local news channels, but no one was interested.

Then, almost without warning, there was a media frenzy: every time my phone rang, it was someone new wanting to cover the story. Our local ABC affiliate, Channel 7, was the first to interview my family. None of my family members had ever been on TV before, so they were terribly nervous, but they did great. When our story, Family Loses 500 Pounds, ran the next night, we loved it. We really thought it sent the message we were trying to convey. Interviews with other local channels followed, and our story soon went national.

Then someone suggested that we call Good Morning America to see if they wanted to cover our story. It took a lot of effort, but I finally found GMAs general number and called it.

I had no idea what to do or what to say when someone answered, ABC News. Can I help you? I quickly blurted out, Hi. My name is Tony Dean. I am calling from Omaha, Nebraska, and my family lost five hundred pounds last year, and we want to get this story on GMA so we can help people get healthy. Who do I need to talk to? I caught my breath. There was a short pause before Gloria, the receptionist, said, You need to talk to me! I need to lose, like, thirty pounds. Then we both laughed.

For the next ten minutes we talked about her situation and her family; she had the same problems we all have: cash crunch, family conflicts, not enough time, and so on. I told her we would help her if she could connect me to someone who knew what to do with this story. Hold on a second, she said. I know who you need to talk to.

She put me through to the right person, and soon Good Morning America was interested in having us on the show. They flew my whole family to New York in January 2007 to shoot our story in front of a live audience.

Robin Roberts interviewed us; she was a pro and seemed to have a real soft spot for our story. Robin asked a lot of familiar questions: What is the secret? How did you stay motivated? How does this team concept work? She was amazed that a group of people who had failed at dieting their whole lives could suddenly all have success at the same time. The entire segment ran for a little more than six minutes.

When we were finished shooting at GMA,