Fat Chance! The no-going-back Weight Loss Workbook, by Susan Maiava
Fat Chance! written by Susan Maiava,
is a wonderful workbook that we at Surgical Obesity Service really
encourage you to use. It covers all aspects that we believe are
important in your weight loss journey – once you have had the
surgery and are capable of following the guidelines – and provides
an opportunity to acquire personal accountability throughout the
journaling process this workbook encourages.
Fat Chance! is a practical book that the reader works through one day at a time over 12 weeks. It is a book designed to be used as a tool to help you lose weight or maintain your weight loss after surgery, by encouraging change in all areas of your life, but particularly in the emotional areas, and assist you to continue these changes for the rest of your life. It's like an interactive personal look at what you eat and helps you change the way you think about food.
Each day of the week has a theme - for example, establishing new habits and becoming more active.
First, readers must slow down and draw out of themselves the answers to the questions - and some of the questions are pretty deep. In doing this they can identify the changes they must make in their thinking and behaviour at a personal level and what works best for them individually.
Second, it allows change to become embedded over the 12 weeks as readers keep a journal of their progress. Habits take time and practice to change.
Third, the workbook becomes the encourager. The workbook itself - not the author - is the narrator, the friend who walks beside readers on their daily journeys. Fat Chance! is also very comprehensive, with six daily themes.
They are:
-
thinking like a slim person, - working with your body,
- establishing new habits,
- dealing with emotional hunger,
- getting active and
- enjoying a healthy balanced diet.
Day seven is for debriefing and reflection, and a day when groups can come together.
This means each day is interesting and new but the full picture layers and builds week-on-week.
The key change also starts on day one and will continue for the rest of your life. I think that is the key difference here and is why this is not a diet.
The principles in this workbook are extremely valuable and supportive, and will provide you with sound advice and practical strategies to give you every possibility to embrace the changes in thinking and behaviour that will enable you to be successful in lifelong weight loss.
[Please note: we recognise that this book was primarily written for those who haven’t had weight loss surgery, and therefore some of the dietary advice will be slightly different to that given by our practice. In particular, we discourage eating more than one piece of fruit a day, and also only want you to eat three small meals per day, with no snacks in between. After any form of weight loss surgery, you have a tool to manage hunger; therefore three small-portioned meals per day will be adequate to provide a sense of satiety (i.e. not hungry) and satiation (i.e. satisfied after eating). If you find the book occasionally seems to disagree with what you have been advised by the members of our team, always follow the nutritional advice given to you by the SOS team, and where necessary clarify any differences with us]