Books

Have you ever wondered why most people fail to stick to a diet to lose unwanted body fat? In a Harvard Medical School blog post published in May 2020, Dr. Robert H. Shmerling MD, Senior Faculty Editor, Harvard Health Publishing, stated that, “According to a new study, popular diets simply don’t work for the vast majority of people. Or more accurately, they are moderately effective for a while, but after a year or so, the benefits are largely gone.”

I was one of that majority that Dr. Shmerling wrote about. I started dieting to lose body fat when I decided to enter bodybuilding competitions. A few weeks into the diet, I broke the diet because I couldn’t adhere to the stringent food deprivation. This resulted in binge eating of junk food, followed by a bout of guilt.

Over the last 30 years of owning three chains of fitness clubs, with my Dr. Weight loss Clinics operating in each location, I have had firsthand experience counseling people who struggled to lose weight. I have heard every story imaginable about why individuals believed they couldn’t lose weight. Through it all, I patiently and with a great deal of sensitivity listened to them and at the same time gained their trust and eased them into following my diet/nutrition program. Instantly they started losing weight and feeling better. After two weeks on my program, the story is always the same—they start to feel rejuvenated Without fail, my Transformation Diet lifestyle program has changed thousands of lives over the course of my career. I have personally worked with clients who have lost from 20 pounds to 280 pounds.

During my preoccupation with overseeing my fitness clubs and Dr. Weight loss Clinics, I watched the diet/weight loss industry explode with many experts pushing their diet ideas in books or nutritional supplements targeting overweight people. Over the course of the last 3 decades two aspects of dieting became apparent to me; I realized that these authors of these diets had little understanding of human biology and metabolism; therefore, their advice had no chance of success in the long term. Second, they ALL missed the real reasons why people gained weight, why they had difficulty losing weight, or keeping it off. In my opinion most of these authors wrote books based on the latest nutrition trend and totally disregarded body biochemistry which controls behaviour while on a diet. That being the situation, I concluded that because of all the misinformation and baseless diets, the public was now more confused about what works than ever before. This is easily demonstrated by looking at what has happened to the population over the last 30. North Americans have become more fat than ever before, and obesity has been classified as a major disease.

This Book

I decided to write this book because I know that my diet program will help you lose excess fat without the negative feelings associated with dieting. My program has already helped thousands of people lose weight. It is a unique program that you can use to shed unwanted body fat and you can continue to follow it to easily maintain a lean fat free physique for the rest of your life, without ever thinking that you are on a diet! My program is a lifestyle, because it is scientifically sound and 100% full of health benefits! I assure you: IT IS THAT GOOD!

My Personal Dieting Experience

Preparing for bodybuilding competitions meant going on a competition prep fat-loss diet for 12 to 16 weeks at a time, which felt like torture to me. For some competitions, the dieting was bearable because I was super motivated to win, so I stuck it out even though I was miserable and on edge throughout the whole prep period. I always had the work ethic to train hard to get in the best shape possible; however, as a competition approached, I dreaded the prep diet because it felt like mental agony and emotional turmoil.

I was following the typical bodybuilder’s competition-prep diet, eating six small meals a day. Every meal was approximately 350 calories, consisting of 40 grams of protein, 25 grams of carbohydrates and 10 grams of fats. Even though the eating periods were every three hours, I experienced hunger pangs, and my energy was always low, even though my macronutrient ratios were balanced. So why was I hitting the wall every three or four days and resorting to binging on junk food? As the competition got closer, it was harder for me to persevere with dieting. I was experiencing the same yo-yo dieting situation I had heard was a problem with other people trying to stick to fat-loss diets.

To make matters worse, after every competition, I couldn’t stop eating. I would routinely gain 20 to 30 pounds in a couple weeks. My body felt so deprived that I continually craved junk food. This was very unusual; normally I was a healthy eater, and I had never experienced such a desire to eat unhealthy foods.

I endured this situation for three years, from the age of 16, when I dieted to enter my first competition, to the age of 18, when I won the Ontario Bodybuilding Championship. At that point, frustrated with dieting, I put bodybuilding prep and competitions out of my mind. I had just turned 19, finished my first year at the University of Western Ontario, and I decided to take a year off to open a small workout gym. Since I didn’t have much start-up capital, I did a lot of the manual construction labour myself along with my training partner. From welding my own gym equipment, to painting, installing rubber flooring and setting up the workout floor, I was busy seven days a week, from 7:00 AM till at least 9:00 PM. I was so focused and determined for the gym to be ready by my grand opening target date (which I had optimistically announced prematurely), that I took no time to eat during the day.

I would get home after 9:00 PM and have one good, healthy meal. I would wake up at 5:00 AM and start my workout at 6:00 AM. I did not like to eat breakfast, so I would only drink strong coffee before my morning workouts. I found that because of the late evening meal, my energy was at its peak for the early morning workouts, and the rest of the day flew by because of my preoccupation with my gym project. By the time my gym was ready for the grand opening three months later, to my surprise, I had lost 22 pounds of body fat and was in the best shape of my life following my one-meal-a-day regimen. I was fat free and the leanest in my life.

At the grand opening, friends asked me if I was getting ready for competition because of the great shape I was in. I realized that the previous three months of training and the new eating regimen had, in fact, resulted in my making extraordinary fat loss. I had not been hungry during the days, regardless of how hard my early morning workouts were or how laborious the construction work was. This made me re-evaluate what I had been doing in my previous diet competition preps.

Previously, like most people, I had grown to hate any thought of going on a regiment diet. Dieting had become a negative part of my daily existence. I often questioned myself. Why did I find it so hard to follow a fat-loss diet? Did I lack the willpower and motivation to become a professional bodybuilder, the next Arnold Schwarzenegger? All these doubts and questions had negatively affected me to the point that the thought of competitions had lost its appeal.

Back to Science

When I attended the University of Western Ontario, I took a biochemistry course taught by a professor who worked out at the YMCA gym where I also worked out. On many occasions, we happened to be there at the same time and would train together. I gave him a call to discuss my dieting quandary—told him that I was taking a year off university to concentrate on my new gym.

During the conversation, I told him that I was unsure whether I would compete again, because of the mental struggle I’d experienced with dieting. I also told him about my frustration, and that maybe I didn’t have the willpower to go any further in bodybuilding because I dreaded putting myself through the typical torturous eating regimen. I also told him about the three months of eating one meal a day while I was working on opening my gym and the fat loss I had achieved.

He said, “Maybe it’s not your willpower that’s the problem.” I asked him what he meant, and he continued, “Hormones control your energy level, your emotions, and your behaviour. A hormonal imbalance would make it very hard for you to maintain certain diets.” He recommended several books on the metabolic effects of food groups on hormones.

At the University of Western Library and Brock University Library, I researched how each macronutrient affected mood, hunger, and energy. The medical journals’ studies were somewhat complicated to read; however, it was clear that they concluded that carbohydrates (to the highest degree of the three macronutrients) were responsible for triggering the release of various hormones (insulin, serotonin, dopamine, ghrelin and cortisol) that specifically cause hunger.

The rationale that was advocated by the bodybuilding world at the time—and still is today—was that a bodybuilder should not overwhelm the metabolism by eating three typical large meals per day but should rather take in protein to feed the muscles six smaller meals per day at regular intervals. This thinking also advocates the inclusion of complex carbohydrates for energy at each meal. After spending many weeks reading these studies, it became obvious to me that the six-meals-a-day “prep diet” I had been following for my competitions had played havoc with my hormones and caused my dieting dilemma.

Venturing Down a New Road

With this new information in hand and the experience of the fat loss phenomenon I experienced during the three months while I was building my gym, I decided to resume serious competition training with my new diet.

Still continuing with my hi-intensity workouts four times a week, I ventured on a radical new path. Had I told any one of my bodybuilder friends, they would no doubt have responded that I was crazy and predicted that I would suffer muscle loss. However, that was not the case.

As the months went by, I maintained a lean, fat-free physique and at the same time increased my muscle size. My physique was improving, and I was getting more conditioned than at any previous time in my life. Dieting for a competition was no longer a negative ordeal or psychological drain.

Over the next three years, using my new diet, I transformed my physique to create a new level of leanness unseen before in bodybuilding. I went on to win the Overall Ontario Bodybuilding Championship three more times, as well as the Junior Canadian Bodybuilding Championship and other competitions in the United States.

My new eating regimen helped me create a lean physique that allowed me to stay in shape all year long, because it was easy to maintain. To this day, I still follow this same eating program, and my weight rarely fluctuates more than two to five pounds. I still weigh 185 pounds, and I have a 32-inch waist and very low body fat.

The Transformation Diet was Born

Over the years, I introduced my diet to thousands of my gym members and clients in my Dr. Weight Loss Clinics. Those who followed it experienced incredible results and continued my diet program as a lifestyle. This book, which explains my program in detail, is a compilation of three decades of personal experience.

By following my program and changing your paradigm about eating and fat loss, I guarantee that you will achieve fat loss results you never thought possible.

It will help you achieve and maintain a lean, fat-free physique for life. You will experience a transformation unlike anything you have ever undergone before, including more energy, better sleep, mental clarity and overall improved health.