Introduction

This book is the result of over 28 years of research including interviews and discussions with thousands of overweight men and women, the review of countless books and articles and a number of different approaches to dealing with obesity. But the story really begins many years earlier. I was the youngest child in an otherwise all female household.

Our house was the sanctuary where my sister, mother, aunts, cousins and many women friends talked freely without the restraint of having men around. During my childhood in the 1950s I heard how women struggled with lower wages, second-class treatment and weight loss. My mother was chubby, not obese. She was always on a diet, trying to lose those last 10 pounds. With several obese relatives and friends Weight- Watchers was a household name in our home.

You will learn many things in this book, some that will ring very true for you some that may be completely new. Please understand that what you read here and what you learn here is not medical advice. I am not a medical doctor nor am I a licensed counselor, psychiatrist or psychologist.
Before you start this or any mental or physical program you should consult your doctor before beginning.

My first intellectual interest in finding the cause of long term overweight and obesity began in the late 1970s while a student in college. As an Army veteran with some transition years behind me, I was an older student in my late 20s when I began looking into the causes of obesity. At that time the internet was not yet built so all real research was done either in the library or in the field. Being quite poor at library research and strongly preferring to deal with living interactive people, field research was a natural for me.

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Based on the theories of the time, I developed a working hypothesis of why people became and remained obese and set out to prove it. After placing ads in local papers and getting obese women volunteers to talk to me, I was all set to prove my hypothesis. The only problem was that the women did not cooperate with my theories. Their stories were different than what the scientists and I suggested. Since there turned out to be a significant difference between the real world and the theoretical world, I figured some adjustments were required.

I did more reading, thought things through and developed a new working hypothesis of why people were obese. Again I set out to prove it by interviewing volunteers. Again the real life histories of these women simply did not fit with the prevailing scientific social literature of the day or with my conclusions from reviewing that literature. Clearly something was wrong. The information the women gave me was obviously true, after all it was their own personal history and habits that they were telling about. The problem was obviously with the theories.

In the middle of one of the last interviews of the second study, a woman made a comment that changed the direction of everything. When I asked her about the eating habits of her father her response was a string of invectives interlaced with obscenities that told volumes. I learned that she had suffered a very difficult childhood and her father was central to the difficulties. We all owe much to this woman. It was her ability to put aside the “correct” answer of facts and answer with her heart about the pain and anger of her childhood that triggered the search for the Food Monster as a subconscious compulsion.

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When I went out with the third study program, again interviewing obese women, I was looking for childhood stress and sanctuary from that stress while eating. What I found was astounding. After the first ten or so interviews the data was striking.

Every participant had a similar pattern. Their childhoods were as different as can be imagined, but all of them had come from an obviously high stressed childhood. Also all of them had had a consistent reliable time that while eating they were safe from the everyday stress. I remember how excited I was at that point. In that study of 40 adult women every one of them fit the model.

The theory of obesity caused by a subconscious compulsion, now called the Food Monster, was born. That was in 1980. My first article on the compulsive nature of overeating leading to obesity was published in a local newspaper in 1981.

The exceptionally strong results proved to me that the Food Monster was a real and recognizable syndrome of high stress childhood in concert with stress relief associated with eating. Since then three other methods of developing a Food Monster have been uncovered. All four paths to developing the Food Monster always result in developing the same syndrome. The syndrome of a subconsciously motivated compulsion to eat that the adult is powerless to control over time.

Knowing what the Food Monster was, and what set it up was only half of the battle. It made many things clear such as why diets and exercise programs ultimately fail and why it is so unbelievably hard to keep the weight off after losing it. It made it clear why it was not a lack of will power, or something wrong with the character of those who fought a personal war with weight.

I already knew it was not a lack of will power, being lazy or character flaws. I knew this because of my childhood where I watched strong women like my mother fight with their weight. As a group they worked hard, harder than most of the men of their era. They had great character and in the case of my mother she certainly had an iron will. But yet they consistently lost the weight war.

After doing the research the reaming problem was that while I understood what the Food Monster really was and what caused it, I had no idea of how to cure it. Born partly of desperation, I developed a cognitive therapy approach to curing the Food Monster in 2000. We learned a lot from that work, but ultimately it was not successful.

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In early 2006 I was again actively searching for tools to work with the subconscious because I believed in my heart that there had to be a way to tame the Food Monster. While learning about EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization Rebuilding), a friend introduced me to energy work (EFT, TFT, BSFF™, MET, etcetera).

I immediately recognized that energy work was the tool I had spent 26 years looking for. There was a perfect fit with the Food Monster and energy work. Even more, energy work is something that the average person can do whereas it requires a licensed psychotherapist to practice EMDR. The die was cast and the next step was to take it to the public with clinical trials.
My excitement and those who worked with me on this phase of the project equaled the excitement of those early times when I knew that I was onto the real cause of obesity. Our clinical studies were an unmitigated success. Now we know that we have the real cure and are bringing it to you.

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One of the first people to do the new program was P. Jae, my wife of 23 years. She has suffered from her own Food Monster and has yo-yoed up and down from slim to medical obesity all of her adult life. With her deep understanding of the Food Monster and keen insights, she greatly helped with the development of the existing program and creation of this book.

It is pretty common for a husband or wife to thank their spouse for editing and patience when writing a book. In the case of Taming the Food Monster and the Food Monster Program, P. Jae has been more than a passive assistant; she has been a moving force. Because of her this book is in your hands and the Food Monster Program is available to you.

It was P. Jae’s suggestion and guidance that we chose to segregate the Food Monster Weight Loss Program by gender. It was a suggestion that proved to be extremely insightful. Our early work has shown that segregating by gender is as beneficial as moving from working with individuals to working in small groups.

Like all authors writing in the States today I was faced with the issue of pronoun use. As a very modest thank you to the thousands of women who have been so generous with their life stories and insights I chose the feminine.

To the grammarians who are offended by this, I apologize. To the men who find this uncomfortable; you should have stepped up to the plate. To the ladies… hugs and gratitude.

It is my honor as CEO and founder of the Food Monster to be a part of your life with this book and perhaps at some future date with the Food Monster Program.

Thank you and blessings in all ways.
Dr. Jason

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Chapter 1 - What’s In It For Me?
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What is in it for you?

Permanent, stress-free, worry-free, weight loss.

Is this book for you?

If you have battled weight gain/loss, succeeded at diets but gained it back, failed at diets, been frustrated by exercise programs, been disappointed by or afraid of drugs and supplements, and don’t want surgery, this book is for you.

The Food Monster Program is the first program that fully understands and addresses the real reason you are overweight. As you will learn, being chronically overweight is not your fault. You will also learn that not being able to win the weight war is not because you are weak willed or otherwise somehow deficient. You will learn why diets, exercise, drugs and supplements have not given you the permanent results you wanted and deserved and why they never can.

The program has been researched in the U.S.A. and Asia, with American, European and Asian cultures. It has proven to be exceptionally successful.
The Food Monster Program addresses emotional health at the conscious and subconscious levels through ground-breaking understanding and processes that get at the underlying reason you have suffered from the constant nagging urges to eat and overeat.

Let me stop right here and make it perfectly clear in the Food Monster Program there are:

• No diets
• No required exercise
• No drugs, vitamins or other supplements
• No surgery
• No lifestyle changes
• No belts, weights, shoes, suits, wraps, etc.

The Food Monster Program eliminates:

• Unwanted pounds
• Weight gain
• Eating urges
• Endless maintenance programs
• Fear of failure about losing weight
• Dieting stress
• Worrying about eating in public
• Always thinking about food
• Wanting to sneak food
• Counting every calorie you eat
• That constant gnawing anxiety about eating
• And much, much more.

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Will it work for you? Yes. I have 100% faith in the process and the program. The one thing I have found is that I can not have 100% faith in is your participation in the program. That dear reader, is entirely up to you. If you do the whole program it will work.

I can tell you this: I have worked with many people who groaned at the thought of attempting yet another weight loss program. I know how hard it is to consider this one. Yet once in the program it was unanimous that doing it was much easier than anyone had imagined possible. However difficult it may feel to start a new program, you can begin knowing that this is the last one you will ever do.

Also, I believe that once you read this book, you too will agree that the Food Monster is the new permanent weight loss paradigm that finally makes sense of the whole problem. And in making sense it is actually reasonable to start your program.

I am honored that you have chosen to give Taming the Food Monster the opportunity to help you understand your Food Monster.

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Chapter 2 - Is This You?

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This is an important chapter in your personal path toward freedom from the battles of weight gain / loss. We will look at those indications of whether you have a Food Monster or not. It is quite useful to know if you do have a Food Monster because now, for the first time, it really can be tamed. With the Food Monster Program you can successfully and permanently win your weight war.

In the past the cause of obesity was misdiagnosed. This is why success has been amazingly limited in finding a way to permanent weight loss. Some believe that obesity or excess weight is caused by laziness, bad diet, poor character, or an addiction to food. All of those reasons are wrong. The cause is the Food Monster, a subconscious compulsion that makes you always feel like eating. With the correct diagnosis, a correct understanding of what causes the weight gain and an effective program, it can be conquered. You can be successful.

Look over the list below. These are just some of the things that many overweight people with Food Monsters have reflected on. You may think of other items that could, perhaps should, be added to the list. You may notice that a few are pretty accurate for you. No one person will recognize themselves in all of the items. However, if you see yourself in several then the probability that you have a Food Monster is high.

Is there anything familiar here?

• Have you been on more than one diet?
• Have you lost weight then gained it back—and then some?
• Do you know how to lose the weight, but not how to keep it off?
• Do you feel hungry all the time?
• Do you have cravings for certain foods?
• Do you snack, looking for the right thing to satisfy you and just can’t find it?
• Do you eat when you’re not hungry?
• Find that you can’t stop eating once you start?
• Do you eat when upset or stressed?
• Is food comforting to you?
• Do you find you can’t resist certain foods?
• Are you still looking for the “right diet”?
• Do you feel that you can’t eat what you want without gaining weight?
• Do you feel out of control with food?
• Do you binge?
• Do you snack all evening after promising yourself that you wouldn’t?
• Do you sometimes or often feel too full after meals?
• Do you continue “picking” after you are full?
• Do you always feel you need to clean your plate?
• Are you tired of worrying about your weight?

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How many of the above points did you say yes to? If you answered yes to two, three or more you probably have a Food Monster. If you answered yes to most of them you do have a Food Monster.

Is there an “average person” with the Food Monster? Not really. People from all walks of life have Food Monsters. There are some things that many people have in common, but there are no hard rules. It is a combination of things that come together to identify if you have a Food Monster or not. While reading this section to see if you have a Food Monster, keep in mind that not all Food Monsters are the same size. There is a continuum with some Food Monsters at one end being very large and voracious and some at the other end being pretty minor and tame.

However difficult it may be to identify the average person, it is really pretty easy to see if any one person does have a Food Monster.

At what point in your life you began to be overweight is often an indicator of a Food Monster.

There is a difference in the way young men and young women begin showing the effects of their Food Monsters. Many women with a Food Monster began gaining significant weight around 12 or 13 or around 19 to 21. A few men follow the same path and are overweight throughout their teen years. However, many men with a Food Monster began overeating as young teenagers but turn the calories into muscle through sports or other activities. Part of that is because they burn an excess of calories at that age and activity level, and part of it is simply that young males are building muscle as their bodies mature.

While that may seem an unfair advantage it actually is not. For those guys, they grow up through their teen years believing they really do need that much food and are surprised, even dismayed later to find that their “appetite” has betrayed them. Instead of helping them to be the strong powerful man they want to be, they become the doughboy they always abhorred.

If you began gaining significant weight at middle age or later, it doesn’t mean that you don’t have a Food Monster. It just means that it was not apparent at an earlier age. But make no doubt about it, at any age it is still the monster you experience it to be.

How much overweight you are is often an indicator of a Food Monster.

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Obesity is defined by the medical industry as 30% above normal weight. By today’s body standards that is not all that much. A 5’ 3” woman should weigh around 125 pounds. If she weighs 162 or more she is obese. A 5’ 9” man should weigh around 155 pounds. If he weights 197 or more he is obese.

If a person has been obese at any time in their adult life, they probably have a Food Monster. If they have been obese, lost some or all of the weight and then gained it back they certainly have a Food Monster. If they have been obese, or very close to it and have fought to keep their weight down for a number of years then they have a Food Monster.

If a person has been, or is 50% or more above their normal weight then they have a Food Monster. That would make our 5’3” woman weigh 187 or more pounds, and our 5’9” man weigh 232 or more pounds.

How often or long you have been overweight is often an indicator of a Food Monster.

If a person has been significantly overweight for 5 or more years, she probably has a Food Monster. That does not count for the normally thin person who at age 45 is now 5 to 10 pounds heavier than she was at age 20.

People generally become somewhat heavier as they age. Their metabolism slows down a little, and more importantly they slow down a lot. They also have years of habits of eating to support their earlier activity levels.

If a person has been obese for 2 or more years, she has a Food Monster. If a person has been obese more than once, she has a Food Monster.

How much you struggle with weight is often an indicator of a Food Monster.

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Some people, mostly women, are very aware of their weight from an early age and take steps to insure that they never get fat. If a person has struggled with maintaining a strict diet for years to keep her weight down to normal, but has been overweight anyway, she has a Food Monster. That is not to be confused with someone who struggles to remain underweight. That is a different eating disorder. That person does not have a Food Monster and should seek professional help.

If a person gains weight when stressed it is often an indicator of a Food Monster

If a person normally does okay, but when under stress gains weight that is later hard to get rid of, she probably has a Food Monster. If she only gains weight when highly stressed and can later lose the weight, her Food Monster is probably pretty small, but if she gains weight when moderately stressed and has a hard time losing the weight even after the stress is gone, that is a bigger Food Monster. If a person is overweight and gains even more when stressed, she has a Food Monster.

If you binge and purge on a regular basis it is often an indicator of a Food Monster.

Just because a person is thin, does not mean that she doesn’t have a Food Monster. If a person is a chronic binger, she has a Food Monster. If she purges after binging then there are added issues, but that does not eliminate the reason she binges. Though sometimes it is different, binging is most often caused by the urge to eat which is of course the Food Monster.

If you binge and purge and would become significantly overweight or obese if you stopped purging, you probably have a Food Monster.

Lastly, and from the opposite direction, if you can’t gain weight or lose weight when stressed, it is highly likely you have an Avoidance Food Monster.

The same process that caused the Food Monster in many people is the process that causes the Avoidance Food Monster. The specifics in the situations are opposite, but the process is the same. This phenomenon is generally outside the scope of this book and is only mentioned in a few places.

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However, if you or someone you know suffers form this problem you or she will benefit greatly from understanding how the Food Monster works. Though a simplistic answer to a complex issue, just substitute the comments about overeating to undereating and you should get some insights into your issues.

Some examples:

Following is a short profile of a woman in one of our early Food Monster study programs. Other than her name which is changed, it is all true and not exaggerated. Following that is my weight history. These examples are written from very different perspective in the hopes of showing different sides of the Food Monster.

Irene

Irene is an attractive, sparkly, articulate, educated woman in her mid 50s who is generally happy with life. Her childhood story (told later) is probably the worst that is reported in this book. How she came out intact is a wonder, but she did and is in pretty good shape emotionally and mentally. Irene and her two sisters all suffer from Food Monsters. They all became noticeably heavy in their early teens and have remained so throughout adulthood.

As an adult she is the most successful of the three sisters. Irene has three grown children who are educated and successful with bright futures. She and her husband actively enjoy each others’ company and he treats her with respect. He is a successful business man making a good living. Irene fills her days with a professional job that is rewarding in many ways. She drives a new and large luxury car that she loves and lives in her large dream home on top of a hill with a breathtaking view.

Irene's life has not always been so good. In the early years, her husband was very abusive to her due to heavy alcohol use and was anything but faithful. Fortunately all of that is behind them and life is generally pretty good now. Even though life's difficult situations had been resolved, Irene remained more than 100% over her ideal weight.

She is a “successful” veteran of all of the most popular weight loss programs, several not so well-known programs and several high dollar programs which focus on negative emotions. On many occasions she had varying degrees of temporary success at losing large to modest amounts of weight.

Ultimately, it has not mattered that she exercised an iron will to control her diet and exercised every day to lose the weight. Also, in the long run, it has not mattered that she faced the highly stressful situation in her very troubled marriage and dealt with the difficult emotional issues of infidelity, abuse, emotional and financial threats and insecurity.

Weight-wise it has not permanently mattered that she got her professional and personal life in order and lives a happy, relatively low-stress life. In the end, even though she did everything right, she gained everything back.

Irene has a Food Monster. Losing the weight, improving her adult living situations and addressing her adult emotional issues ultimately meant nothing toward permanently eliminating her weight gain.

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My Food Monster

I was a thin child and thin through high school. I joined the Army at 18 and became a little heavy but lost it when I got out at 21. I remained thin through my 20s.

Throughout my 30s things changed. I gradually got better jobs that paid more. At the same time, I gradually gained weight. Every couple of years I had been forced to replace my entire wardrobe. It was easy to miss the significance of replacing my clothes. During those years, as my circumstances and attitudes changed I “naturally” changed what I wore.

First my clothing went from casual to business dress. Next it went from very cheap suits to a little better quality. Since I grew up very poor and on the wrong side of the tracks so to speak, I had no idea of what correct business attire was. The first few rounds of suits and ties were a reflection of my roots and rebellion.

As time passed my dress became more business conservative – all of the normal things a young man would experience through those years in America. While I experienced those normal things, the weight just sort of crept up. If, in those years I had made zero life changes, I still would have outgrown my clothes because I had a small Food Monster.

In my early 40s I had a very stressful time. I suffered a back injury. It was very painful at the time and I was told I would be in pain the rest of my life. As a direct result of the injury I was unemployed and had no idea of what I would do for an income. I lived in a remote area requiring long commutes that would no longer be possible because of my injury. I would have to move. But without an income or immediate prospects I had no idea of where to go or how to make that happen.

At the same time there were a number of great things going on. I was, and remain, married to a wonderful woman who supported me unconditionally. I had good insurance and medical coverage. But never-the-less, I experienced this period as terribly stressful.

During the first few months I jumped up to the magic 30% overweight mark. Yup, I was obese. It scared the devil out of me. What scared me more was how hard it was to get the weight off. It took a couple of years before I was back to something close to what I felt I should weigh.

In the following 10 years I slimmed down to my target weight 3 or 4 times only to immediately spring back up 20 to 25 pounds and then another 10 or more pounds crept up.

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This is especially significant because since 1981 I have known exactly what the Food Monster is, how it is developed and how it works. What I did not know was what to do about it. Even in the face of my personal desire to be thin, with all of my knowledge, my Food Monster ruled.

In 2000 I developed the first Food Monster Program. It worked, I lost the weight and have kept if off. But the program was very difficult, requiring a lot of up front personal discipline. Even though it worked for me, it was not successful as a popular program.

In 2006 I developed the current Food Monster Program; the one this book is about. It works very well. In fact it works significantly better and at greater depth than the first program. It is quite easy to do. Of course, I tested it on myself and now no longer struggle with any control issues at all concerning over eating. I am totally relaxed about my eating and I am at my target weight.

Did I have a Food Monster? Yes I did. It was developed when I was a child at the ages of 6, 7 & 8. I can actually pinpoint the primary situations that caused it.

If I had a Food Monster from childhood, why was I thin earlier? On a scale of 1 to 10, my Food Monster was in the modest range of a 1 to a 2. So as long as other factors were present that masked it, and my stress levels were low, it was essentially hidden. When my stress was high it became active and quite effective.

Do I have a Food Monster now? Not one that can be effective. Through the Food Monster Programs I have permanently tamed my Food Monster so that it can not ever can make me fat again.

Do you have a Food Monster?

What do you think? Do you see aspects of your history repeated at all in either Irene’s or my stories? How many of the bulleted items rang true for you? How much does your history match the other items listed and explained? If you match, even just a little, then chances are that you have a Food Monster. The more you match, the greater the chances are that you have a Food Monster. Also, the more you match, the greater the probable size of your Food Monster. If it is really big or just a little bitty thing, the Food Monster Program can tame it.

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Chapter 3 - What is the FoodMonster?

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The Food Monster is a subconscious compulsion to eat.

It’s critical to understand that the Food Monster is a compulsion. It’s not just an addiction nor is it only a habit. Let’s look at some differences between the three to help understand the distinctions.

Habits

A habit is an activity that is performed on an unthinking, automatic basis but can be changed without emotional or physical pain. For example, a person is in the habit of throwing the trash into the can at the right side of their desk. If the can is moved to the left side they will have to think about throwing it in the correct place. In most cases, when people make such a change, they find that for the first day or two they throw the occasional paper on the floor where the can used to be. Within a couple of weeks the old habit is completely changed. The paper is thrown unthinkingly into the new correct spot. The entire process is relatively painless.

It does not matter if the habit is relatively short-lived or lifelong.
A man grows up living in one city and for his entire life, riding or driving the same way to church every week. The city puts in a new safer road going a different route. The old road remains. The first couple of times he takes the new road he is uncomfortable with the route. Within just two or three trips he becomes comfortable with the new road. A lifelong habit is changed with little discomfort.

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Addictions

To eliminate an addiction substantially more effort is required and will involve either emotional or physical pain, often both. The long-term use of tobacco, caffeine, mood-altering drugs etcetera are examples of addictions. Typically it takes two steps to eliminate an addiction: physical withdrawal and emotional withdrawal. When a person goes through withdrawal from an addictive substance, physical symptoms can persist for a period of time, often a couple of weeks or months. The symptoms can be mild, dramatic, or even debilitating.

After the physical withdrawal, a strong emotional urge to continue the substance remains. In the worst cases, such as heroin addiction, the emotional connection may be active for two or more years. However, eventually with abstinence the emotional desire for the substance abates to where it is, at best, very minimal or, at worst, manageable. Usually while there may be memories of the high or pleasure derived from the substance, the actual desire is gone.

Addictions are developed through the use of and built up tolerance to a substance until a need for the substance is developed in the body. In some cases the chemistry of the substance causes physiological changes in the brain which are experienced as psychological changes. When this occurs there must be enough time allowed in abstinence to purge the brain of its chemical dependence. A key factor is that with abstinence alone the brain will purge the chemicals of the substance and the individual will return to a normal non-addicted state.

How successful are people at quitting addictions? Thousands of people permanently quit smoking every year. Many people successfully beat drugs of all kinds as well as alcohol every day. Addictions are tough to beat, but they can be, and are conquered by regular folk just like us.

I grew up personally developing two common addictions—smoking cigarettes and drinking coffee. After 11 years I gave up smoking. There were a number of issues that surprised me. I did not realize that I had set up a number of habits supporting my smoking addictin. I had to learn some new supporting habits when I quit. I did not know how to take a break from work. Stopping for a cigarette was always my cue to take a short break.

The weekend that I quit I painted our kitchen. At the end of the first day I was surprised at how completely exhausted I was. Then I realized that I had worked from early morning on into the night without any breaks except to eat. I didn’t know how to take a break without a cigarette.

I kept on drinking coffee for another 30 years. When I quit it, the caffeine withdrawal was amazingly strong. I didn’t even know what was happening until I went on the web and found out that there was such a thing as caffeine withdrawal. It was physically difficult with emotional side effects. I honestly tried to be a nice guy, but am sure those who love me are only being kind when they say that I wasn’t that bad to be around.

Addictions are difficult, even very difficult to quit, but the average person can conquer them.

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Compulsions

A compulsion is based on a neurological pathway, typically developed during childhood that is physically connected to the subconscious emotional center of the brain and experienced as a strong urge to act with a specific behavior. A compulsion is a neurosis. With a compulsion comes a strong emotional urge to act. If a person quits responding to a compulsion, they have only controlled their behavior, but the compulsion remains and so does the urge. The urge does not go away or even lessen over time.

We see this with overeaters who have mastered their eating, lost the weight and been in a maintenance program like Weight Watchers for ten years or more. Then, at some point, they lose control and gain the weight back. If it were a single incident it could be considered anecdotal, but it isn’t just one person. It is thousands who have succumbed after years of struggle and maintenance. It is millions who have succumbed after a year or two. It is tens of millions who have lost and regained weight many times over while never ever losing the urge to overeat.

Compulsions are extremely difficult to eliminate without the precise assistance and tools to do so. With a 90+% failure rate using traditional therapy methods even professional psychologists were horribly inefficient at helping others eliminate compulsions.

The Food Monster is a compulsion, a subconscious drive that is experienced as an unrelenting urge to eat. It is not an addiction to food. Overweight and obese people have a psychological compulsion to the activity of eating. They do not have a psychological or physiological addiction to the substance of food.

Obesity is strictly a symptom of the underlying subconscious urges.

To deal with the compulsion to overeat, the Food Monster, the subconscious connections in the emotional center, must be neutralized. The Food Monster Program is the only program that does that. When it is accomplished, the individual will naturally become a normal eater. The weight loss begins as the issues are addressed. Once a person eliminates his or her Food Monster, she will naturally lose the excess weight and keep it off permanently! This occurs because overweight is strictly a symptom of the underlying subconscious urges.

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Just because a compulsion is, in fact, a neurosis or a subconsciously motivated behavior does not make it bad or unusual. Compulsions are much more common than most of us think. In fact we all have many quite functional compulsions.

A common compulsion in the USA is to shower daily. The average American is extremely uncomfortable without a daily shower. Ask the average American woman to imagine going without a shower for a week and how do you think she would feel? The response is usually quite dramatic. Ask her why and she will tell you that it is because she smells bad, feels dirty, and that it is simply unhealthy.

But the fact is, for most of history, most Americans bathed once a week. The farmers and ranchers of just 50 years ago, and then on back into the depths of history, at most bathed once a week. The same went for city dwellers. They felt quite fine going days at a time without a bath. Today the unfortunate people who are deeply impoverished in the Middle East, Asia, and Africa will often go many weeks, even months, without a bath and think little of it.

If an American is placed in a situation where she cannot bathe or shower for an extended period of time, say a week or two, her urge to shower will not magically go disappear; she will not get over the urge. When she does finally have access to a shower, she luxuriates in it way past the physical requirements of cleanliness. If the average American were to be marooned for six months with only enough drinking water to barely survive, one of the first things she would want upon rescue would be a long bath or shower. Why? It is a compulsion. This is a compulsion most modern adults share. It is essentially harmless, and can be argued to be healthy.

How strong is this compulsion? It is very strong. Once we took a rather long motorcycle trip over the mountains in Central Vietnam on a very remote road under construction. The construction crews lived on-site in temporary, tent type structures, in camps along the way.
The mountains were dramatically rugged and beautiful. There were many waterfalls flowing down right beside the road. Since it was Sunday, most of the construction had halted for the day. All along the way we saw men in their shorts standing in waterfalls taking showers. It was quite a picturesque setting for a shower.

However, it was in the middle of January. The ambient temperature was near freezing in the evenings and only slightly warm during the day. The water which had been running down steep mountains was very cold. There was no way that the experience of showering in this environment could be remotely comfortable. However, as we traveled, all bundled up against the cold, at almost every waterfall there were men taking their showers.

If you can imagine yourself going a week or two without a shower and not being bothered, then you don’t share this particular compulsion. However, if the thought of going several days without a shower gives you the willies, then you do share it along with the rest of us. You have a Shower Monster and it is okay.

If you recognized yourself in the preceding chapter then you probably have a Food Monster urging you in a compulsive manner to eat. That means that a compulsion is at the root of your excess weight or obesity. What does that mean to the people who have failed so many times? Everything! We have been beating ourselves up for failures that were not ours.

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Chapter 4 - It is NOT Your Fault!

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Are you the victim of a Food Monster? If so then you need to know that all of the weight, all of the failures, all of the stresses, all of the blame, shame and guilt—all of it—is not your fault.

It is not your fault. It is not your fault. It is not your fault. IT IS NOT YOUR FAULT!

It is not a lack of will
It is not a lack of dedication
It is not a lack of knowledge

These and many other very negative things have been slung at the obese. Without any real understanding of the underlying cause the overweight have accepted it as their fault.

The Food Monster is not a lack of will

The Food Monster is not a lack of will. The fact that many have had the will to seriously diet has been proven over and over and over again. Diets that are big, diets that are small, diets that are boring, diets that are distasteful, fasts and even starvation diets have all been done. Willpower to diet? Absolutely! But then the overeating always returns.

Cynthia, a 43 year old librarian told this story. She had battled weight all of her adult life. She had been on so many diets that she could not remember them all. Eventually she went to the doctor for a controlled liquid fast. Over a period of a year, she lost almost 200 pounds going from slightly over 350 pounds to slightly over 150 pounds. Two years later she was at 300+. She went on another liquid fast and lost the 150 pounds she had regained. Three years later she was again over 350 pounds.

Not to be a quitter, Cynthia went on another doctor controlled diet. A little over a year later, with a daily, moment-by-moment monitoring and recording of her calories, going to water aerobics three times a week plus weekly doctor visits, she was again approaching 150 pounds. She had lost almost 200 pounds once again! Then she hit the wall. For several months she continued to count calories and exercise but could not seem to lose any more. Absolutely nothing worked; she did not lose another pound. In fact she gained a few pounds (seems she was cheating a little on the calorie count of her desserts).

Cynthia then gave up and started gaining back the pounds she’d lost. Why did she begin to gain? Because she began to overeat, and even to binge. Why? Clearly she had an iron will and could diet. So why did she go back to overeating as soon as the diet was over? The Food Monster—that's why!

When Sam, a man in his early 50's, heard Cynthia's story during a Food Monster group meeting one evening, he gave a sigh and said he had similar stories. Everyone around the room nodded knowingly. However, he continued, he now cycled almost on a daily basis. He would start each day with the idea that today would be his day to really diet. Then when he found he had already blown it with a bag of chips while getting ready for his afternoon dispatch job, he would then simply give up for the day and allow himself to eat whatever he wanted. Again, everyone around the room nodded knowingly.

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The Food Monster is not a lack of dedication

The Food Monster is not a lack of dedication. You have attended difficult meetings, acted excited when someone lost a pound that you knew they would gain right back, bought special meals, exercised till the average person would drop, done yoga, done Tai-chi, prayed and meditated and still you have over-eaten. Clearly, as the lady introduced in the next paragraph demonstrates, the Food Monster is not a lack of dedication.

Susan, a 21-year-old college junior, ran a minimum of 3 miles every day. She had the stamina of all the cross-country runners she trained with. With a slight, even petite frame, Susan stood 5' 1/2" and at 185 pounds carried an extra 70 pounds every mile she ran. She had been a long distance runner since she was a 14-year-old sophomore in high school. When I first heard Susan's story I was skeptical, but she assured me that she did run at least 3 miles and often as much as five miles daily. Overweight? Yes. Plenty of willpower? Also, yes.

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The Food Monster is not a lack of dietary knowledge

The Food Monster is also not a lack of knowledge about good foods or bad foods or balanced diets versus junk food diets. Even though some of you might say in conversation that healthy food makes the difference (and even say it with conviction) you know in your heart that it is not so much what you eat as how much of it you eat (more on this in the next chapter). We all know people who have decided to go on a health food diet thinking that it would be the answer. A year or two later, they may still be eating all natural health food or eating what they always ate before, but either way the weight has not changed over the long term.

Overeaters as a group own and have read libraries of diet books with volumes of information on what is good and not so good. No, the Food Monster is not a lack of knowledge about food. At a recent trip to Barnes & Noble, I counted 12 full shelves of weight-control related books. Each shelf was at least 5 feet long, making for 60 feet of shelving dedicated to weight loss!

As you might guess, most of the books dealt with finding the correct mix of nutrition (fat vs. carbs. vs. sugar vs. anything else) to more efficiently burn the calories eaten. All of them also said some version of, "By the way, don't overeat or you'll still gain weight".

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Recap

• It is not your fault.
• You do not lack willpower.
• You do not lack dedication.
• You do not lack dietary knowledge.
• Overeating is not just a habit. Habits are pretty easy to change.
• Overeating is not just an addiction. Addictions are tough, but can be conquered.
• Overeating is a compulsion. The real reason for overweight is a subconscious urge to overeat. It is a compulsion to eat, not an addiction to food.
• Compulsions can never be changed by abstinence alone—they must be addressed at the subconscious emotional level.

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