Janice Asher - The Doctors Permanent Weight Loss Plan: Ten Steps to Ending Yo-Yo Dieting Forever

Copyright 2020 by Janice Asher, MD, and Jae Rivera

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Asher, Janice, author. | Rivera, Jae, author.

Title: The permanent weight loss plan: a 10 step approach to ending yo-yo dieting / Janice Asher, MD, and Jae Rivera.

Description: New York, NY: Skyhorse Publishing, [2020] | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2019038932 (print) | LCCN 2019038933 (ebook) | ISBN 9781510751484 (trade paperback) | ISBN 9781510751491 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Weight loss.

Classification: LCC RM222.2 .A832 2020 (print) | LCC RM222.2 (ebook) | DDC 613.2/5dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019038932

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019038933

Cover design by Laura Klynstra

Printed in the United States of America

I dedicate this book to my patients who courageously shared their stories with me and who allowed me to help them create new ones.

Janice

For everyone who needs proof that they are not an exceptionits absolutely possible for you, too.

Jae

Contents

Preface

W e are an older gynecologist and a younger badass anthropology PhD student who each lost a lot of weight in a healthy way and never gained it back. Thats an achievement, and well show you what we learned in order to make that a reality.

But theres something even more important that we discovered and want to share with you in this book. We each learned, in our own ways, that self-loathing is a dead end and that kindness toward oneself is the starting point, not just the endpoint, of changing your relationship with food.

Please believe in yourself. Believe that you can do this, and believe that you deserve to do this.

You are not a happy, thin person stuck inside a sad, fat person. You are a person of value already. You will enhance your happiness by taking care of yourself physically and mentally. And when you do that, the weight loss will follow. We can help.

Jae, before

Jae, after Tim Lee

Janice, before

Janice, after Tim Lee

INTRODUCTION

Hitting Bottom

Tim Lee

I am Jae .

It is the summer after my high school graduation, and Im working at the local Pizza Hut. Im physically exhausted, even though Ive done very little physically. Its time to go, and I start to head out the door, but the manager stops me. Someone named Karen had ordered six pizzas, two orders of breadsticks, and a dessert stick, but she never bothered to show up, and theyre mine if I want them. Ive never met Karen, but at this moment, she is my new favorite person. I cant wait to drive home, descend to the basement, turn on Netflix, and eat myself happy.

I get home and check the freezer in the mudroom before entering the house. Theres a half-gallon of ice cream, and better yet its mint chocolate chip. Ive just hit the trifectacarbs, melted cheese, and ice cream. I stop only to tell my mom that I am home, avoiding the concern in her eyes. I imagine that shes holding herself back from saying anything. I know she wants whats best for me, but I wonder if maybe she thinks Im just a lost cause. I go down the stairs and turn on the next episode of Americas Next Top Model . The irony is completely lost on me as I open the containers and start eating mindlessly. In the next two hours, I consume ten breadsticks, four slices of pizza, and half of a half-gallon of ice cream. I see nothing wrong with this.

When I started college, I weighed 270 pounds. In my sophomore and junior years of college, I lost 142 pounds52 percent of my body weightthrough uncomplicated diet and exercise. I have successfully kept the weight off for over four years by evaluating and reevaluating my relationship with food and my body every day. If freshman Jae could see college graduate Jae today, she wouldnt believe her eyes.

I want to preface the rest of my experience by telling you that I am a scientist and an academic. It is my dream to become an expert in the field of human skeletal analysis. I want to be defined by my research and my friendships and relationships. I recognize that its important for me to share my story so that you will know you are not alone and that you are capable of what you may think is impossible. Writing this book has been challenging for me, in that I learned its hard for me to talk about my weight loss; not because Im ashamed or embarrassed of myself or my body, but because it is not the focus of my life or a defining characteristic of my identity. I hope my experiences inspire you to make the choice to take care of your body and to love yourself.

Tim Lee

I am Janice .

I am on a stepladder, trying to reach into the back of the cabinet over the refrigerator. I am foraging for some old Halloween candy or anything else thats chocolate. I know that it will be uncomfortable coming down off the ladder because my knees hurt. I know that my knees hurt in part because I have gained weighta lot of weightand now weigh exactly what I had weighed when I was nine months pregnant. Just baby fat, right? Except that the baby is now twenty-three years old.

A single thought floats into my mind: You are pathetic. And then, thank goodness, another thought replaces it: This stops now. And it did. Thats the story I want to share with you.

I am a gynecologist who lost 30 pounds. Thirty poundsbig deal, you say. Well, it is a big deal. Its a big deal because Im in my sixties and had flunked every diet Id ever been on. Its a big deal because Ive kept the weight off for more than five years, which is something only a small fraction of people who lose weight can say.

Its a big deal because even though poor nutrition is the major cause of so many preventable diseases, I never learned much at all about healthy eating in medical school. So I had to develop my own strategies by reading all the recent medical research and by personal trial and error. The strategies I usedand continue to usehave been helpful to many of my patients, and thats incredibly gratifying to me. Most of all, its a big deal because Im really proud of myself and happy to be living a life with less pain and more joy.