Your Body Your life

BY MARIA DEVESON CRABBE
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 14, 2002

It takes patience, motivation and, as I always insist, fun, to manage your weight successfully. It has taken all of this – and then some - for me to complete my first book, Your Body Your Life.

I've long had the desire to put everything I've learned about health and dieting on paper, but I never would have thought I would have the patience let alone the time to sit down and build this huge volume in between running a health and nutrition company. But with the help of some great friends and colleagues, along with the encouragement of many of our Life customers, I can happily say I have finally completed Your Body Your Life.

Putting this book together has been a lot of fun, I have to say, but it has also been a catharsis in some ways. Your Body Your Life has given me the opportunity to voice my concerns regarding the health food industry. One issue I've had right from the beginning is the promotion of the fat myth – that the fat you eat becomes the fat you wear, and that by simply cutting out dietary fats you will achieve sustained weight loss. My other concern is the industry practice of cramming sugar into "health food" products to cut costs. The women who fall prey to these manufacturers are sabotaging their health and putting their bodies on a one-way track to long-term weight gain.

Your Body Your Life will help you see through the claims and promises of many of these products targeted to women, and teach you how to drink wine and still look good! It's a do-it-yourself health manual with some autobiographical glimpses (where I've been brave enough to reveal them!) It will surprise you with some of its facts about the weight loss and beauty benefits of protein, and shatter some myths and fallacies long touted by the so-called experts. It is rich with engaging, easy-to-follow information garnered from my 15 years' experience in the health and nutrition industry: from formulating and marketing products to incorporating them in my own diet and health regime.

My strategy in the book, as reflected here on the Life site, is a unique combination of ancient ayurvedic wisdom, modern science and testimonial experience. Yes, I am out to challenge the traditional approach to dieting, but more importantly I want to give you the tools to make your body the expert when it comes to knowing what to eat, how much and when. It all comes down to how well you balance the three food groups - protein, carbohydrate and fat (PCF).

We all know there's a plethora of diet books saturating the market, some of them confusing, many of them extreme and unforgiving. Many girls DEVOUR these books in the desperate hope they will offer something new, at least some inspiration to get them committed to a program. But rather than come out with yet another quick-fix diet, Your Body Your Life gives you the tools you need to better understand and appreciate your body and to make choices based on the unique requirements of your body.

I guarantee that Your Body Your Life will give you an appreciation of your body you never had before. At the end of the day, if you look in the mirror and like what you see then this book has fulfilled its purpose.

Enjoy the following excerpt from the book's introduction. Drop me a line in the Ask Maria section of this site or visit our store if you would like to order a copy.

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This book is about you, not me.

One of the reasons I have written this book is in answer to the hundreds of despairing women who have asked me "What shall I do?" Generally, these girls are serial dieters who have tried every crazy, health compromising option they can get their hands on.

Now let me be clear from the outset: I can provide some of the insights but you have to drive the solutions.

I'm not about to offer generic advice like some "one-scenario fits all" horoscope writer. I have enough trouble working out my own life crises without buying into yours. Each of us has to tread our own rocky road toward personal enlightenment and deal with the blisters on the way.

But while we're on that road to Damascus, it often helps to stop and reflect on the accumulated experiences of others. So this book comprises both personal and professional vignettes from my own journey. I make no excuses for the fact that I am an evangelist when it comes to women's health issues and, in particular, protein nutrition. The message I have about protein is very important to me and it motivates me every day.

But the last thing I want is to become one more expert telling you how to live your life. You get to pick and choose whatever you think you can usefully apply to your own situation from this book and hopefully the rest of it will at least entertain you.

Having said that, forgive me if I lapse into the occasional lecture. My normal inclination to promote personal empowerment is sometimes overwhelmed by my instinct to bully.

I promise you, however, that if you follow the strategies outlined in this book you will be fitter and healthier, you will sleep better, you will like your own reflection and so will those around you. You will learn how to access inner health and wellbeing, by starting the journey from the outside. A wise man once said beauty comes from within, but a wise woman knows how to take vanity and turn it into a virtue.

This book is about reflection - YOUR reflection

One other thing I'd like to make clear, although this is a book about nutrition, fitness and well being, it's not about how to become a super-model. I loathe the snake-oil merchants who peddle miracle diets that promise to transform you into size eight overnight. They can't, and even if they could, I don't subscribe to the notion that we are better off if we become someone else.

Part of the purpose of this book is to challenge our perceptions of self and worth so that we might re-evaluate our goals in that light. None of us are immune to imposed standards of how we should look and behave, but we become resistant to inappropriate expectations once we understand what drives them and us.

My young brother's girlfriend Jackie recently asked me to help her lose a couple of kilos quickly. I was pretty shocked by her request given that she has an absolutely gorgeous (size 12) body surpassed only by her stunning personality. "Why?" was my response.

Jackie had been recently employed by an airline. When she went for her uniform fitting she was given the choice of size eight or size 10. She put on the size 10 blouse which she told me was very tight and in which she couldn't move her arms very well but was told that was the largest size on issue (who cares if she needs to execute an emergency procedure?).

She squeezed into the size 10 pants and just felt too embarrassed and uncomfortable in them.

Jackie told me this story in the context of feeling ashamed and embarrassed that unlike all the other girls present, she didn't fit into the 8s or 10s and could I please help her to do so? I spent the next two hours counselling her to see that the shame belonged to her employer for imposing such ridiculous guidelines and that it was even more ridiculous for her to consider herself to be overweight on that basis.

It is unfortunate, but self-image becomes a matter for anxiety early in a woman's life.

REPRODUCED WITH PERMISSION FROM HODDER HEADLINE AUSTRALIA

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