The Juice Master: Turbo-charge Your Life in 14 Days

I was desperately trying to come up with another word to the one I’m going to use but there is simply no other word in the English language that captures what I want to say in response to this excuse – bollocks!

People who say, ‘I’ve tried it all before’ and ‘nothing works for me’ are basically talking rubbish. However, they’ve probably said it to so many people – and to themselves – so often that they have started to believe it.

What they really mean of course is, ‘I’ve failed to follow what was being suggested’, but of course you’ll never hear that. All you’ll hear is a load of excuses as to why that particular programme has failed them.

Just like the ‘but it’s in my genes’ excuse, this one doesn’t wash.

It doesn’t matter who you are, or how big or small you are. If you eat nature’s superfoods, move your body until you sweat on a regular basis, do some resistance training, think positively and get some fresh air – ‘IT’ will work.

The truth is there is no ‘IT’ – IT IS YOU! ‘It’ will work if you do ‘it’. If you fail to do it, then IT hasn’t failed – YOU HAVE! If you want success, if you really want to take charge of your health and your life, you must understand that you’ll never have the body or life of your dreams if you keep coming up with ‘but’, ‘but’, ‘but’.

‘But it’s hard for me because…I eat as a response to emotion’

So many people believe that they will never be able to change because they are ‘emotional eaters’, and as life will always be full of emotion, what’s the point of even trying to change? On the surface this may seem true – again, I would often use this as an excuse – but once looked at, it just doesn’t wash.

You may well think that you are one of those people who eat purely as a response to emotion, but I will tell you now that you eat certain things as a response to emotion. I’ve never heard anyone saying, ‘I’m really pissed off today. I need a grape’! People never turn to things like steamed fish and stir-fired veggies when they’re bored or upset. When people look to feed an emotion they always turn to ‘foods’ containing refined sugars, fats or a combination of the two, such as chocolate, fast food, muffins, bagels, cakes, breads and ice cream.

People ‘use’ refined fats and sugars in much the same way as people ‘use’ drugs, and the excuses for taking them are pretty much the same.

If you ask a smoker why they are smoking they may say it’s because they’re bored, stressed, relaxed, sad, happy, lonely, anxious, angry, excited, upset, nervous, and so on. In fact, there doesn’t seem to be an emotion which isn’t in some way linked to their smoking. If you ask a cocaine addict to come up with ‘reasons’ as to why they are taking that drug, you will hear the same list of emotional excuses and the same goes for heroin, crack and other drugs. The fact that most of the emotional excuses completely contradict one another doesn’t seem to occur to those trying to justify their actions. Equally, those getting their fixes from refined sugars and fats will also blame any number of emotions:

‘I ate the chocolate bar because I didn’t get the job and was consoling myself’

‘I ate the chocolate bar because I did get the job and was celebrating’

People eat rubbish food when they’re sad and when they’re happy, when they are stressed and when they are relaxed; when they’re bored and when they’re ‘on the run’. The sad truth is they have been saying how certain foods help certain emotions for so long that, like smokers and other drug takers, they have ended up believing what they’re saying; but it’s all nonsense. If you’re bored you can shove as many cakes in your face as you like but you’ll still be bored. If you’re upset, all the ice cream in the world will never console you. If you’re stressed, squashing a large piece of pizza in your mouth will not calm you down and if you’re feeling lonely, eating bucketloads of rubbish foods will not fill the gap in your life. In fact, not only will your emotions not be helped at all by eating drug-like refined sugars and fats, but on top of the boredom, stress, loneliness or whatever, you will now have to deal with feeling guilty, anxious and fat!

What would you think if you saw a monkey stuffing loads of rubbish food into its mouth and then trying to explain its actions by saying, ‘I’m a bit anxious today’? Yes, you’d think, ‘stone me, a talking monkey’! But seriously, wild animals have more stress and more anxiety on a daily basis than we are ever likely to experience. Now you may well argue with that, but often their lives are a 24/7 battle to find something to eat or to stop themselves being eaten. You may have to pay your bills, go to a job you don’t like, or have to put up with traffic for hours on end – but you probably know exactly where your next meal is coming from and you’re not about to be eaten! Imagine how much more stressful and anxious wild animals’ lives would be if they had substances entering their system which created additional feelings of stress and anxiety to the ones they are already experiencing.

People who consume rubbish foods and drinks all the time are more stressed and anxious than people who don’t.

This is because refined fats, sugars and drinks like caffeine all create empty withdrawal-type symptoms which are similar to normal emotions like anxiety, stress and boredom. Like drug addicts, people then try to deaden those feelings with more of the same. Initially, the refined junkie foods appear to help, but that’s only because they have taken the edge off a low caused by the last dose.

You cannot feed an emotional hunger with food – you can only feed a physical hunger. Anything you eat when not genuinely physically hungry will be stored as fat!

I will explain more about this in the Seven Deadly Dietary Sins, but for now, if you keep saying you are an ‘emotional eater’, please stop the bullshit and remove this ‘but’ from your life.

‘But, do you know what?…I’m “fine” as I am’

Fine, which of course stands for

Freaked-out Insecure Neurotic & Emotional

Most of the time when you ask people ‘How are you?’ and get the response ‘I’M FINE, thank you’, it usually means they’re feeling either ‘Freaked-out’, ‘Insecure’, ‘Neurotic’, ‘Emotional’ or a combination of the lot. ‘How’s your diet going?’ ‘Oh, fine’ – meaning ‘It’s making me feel insecure, I’m getting a touch neurotic about the whole thing, I’m a bit emotional and it’s beginning to freak me out – so as you can see, I’m fine!’

I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to spend my life feeling ‘fine’. I don’t even want to just feel ‘good’, although good is clearly better than fine. I want to feel pretty damn incredible most of the time, or as my good friend Martin says, ‘outstanding’.

The problem is most people settle for a life of ‘fine’ or ‘alright’. ‘How’s your relationship with your partner?’ – ‘Oh, fine.’ ‘How are your finances?’ – ‘Oh, fine.’ ‘How’s your health?’ – ‘Oh, fine.’ ‘How’s your job?’ – ‘Oh, fine’. ‘How’s your life?’ – ‘Oh you know, it’s OK, it’s alright…I’m FINE!’

The idea behind turbo-charging your life in 14 days is to move way beyond settling for a level of health and vitality and a body that’s simply ‘alright’ or ‘fine’ – it’s about setting ourselves new standards, raising our expectations of ourselves on a daily basis.

‘But it’s hard because…I have children’

It doesn’t matter if you have one child or a football team’s worth; there is no reason on the planet why having children should prevent you from eating well and exercising.

Why does having kids, even being a single parent, prevent you from eating some fruit, making a juice or doing some exercise? And why does having kids mean you have to stuff your face?

When you think about it, it surely takes longer to make toast and cereal than it does to prepare a delicious melon – there’s even less washing up!

But the minute you say something like that you get hit with another but; ‘But it’s difficult because you have to make food for the kids.’ Yes, and so what? It is true that you do have to make the kids’ food, but you don’t have to make them unhealthy food, and even if you have little terrorists who rule the roost in terms of what’s for dinner, why does this prevent you from making a healthy meal for yourself? In fact, having children gives you a reason to shop and prepare for mealtimes.

If you say you are unhealthy, overweight and lethargic because you have children, you are inadvertently blaming their being born for your health demise.

Yet, if you think back, your eating, drinking and exercise habits might not have been exactly fantastic before you gave birth. Whatever, you still need to understand that it’s not the children preventing you from getting the body you crave – it’s only you and your excuses!

‘But I can’t make it to the gym as I’m at home with the kids all day.’ Again, so what? This doesn’t stop you exercising or eating well. You can get some kind of home exercise equipment, take the kids to the park, go for a walk, etc.

There is always a way if you are committed, no matter how many children you are fortunate to have. If you really wanted to join a gym and make it there a few times a week – you could. If you really wanted to start eating well – you could. Children are a blessing; it’s time to stop blaming them for your bad habits.

‘But the kids like McDonald’s so it’s hard’

I was on the phone to a friend of a friend recently about a matter which had nothing to do with health. Because of what I do, however, health, and in particular his weight, soon came into the conversation. He said, ‘If you are what you eat, then I’m a Big Mac,’ and proceeded to tell me how his eating habits had gone pear-shaped (or burger-shaped) because of his son. I asked him how on earth he worked that out. His reply was one I’d heard a few times, ‘Well, he loves McDonald’s and I have to take him in there.” And?’ I replied. ‘And, you know, once you’re in there…’

Firstly, what does he mean, he has to take him there? Does his son have a gun to his head? Is his son in charge? Isn’t this man meant to be his child’s guardian? Isn’t he meant to be looking out for his child’s best interest even if that means having to be a strong parent and say no? After all, if your child wanted to go and play in quicksand because it looked fun, you’d shout, scream and do whatever it took to make sure they never went in: you certainly wouldn’t join them because they’re doing it. Why do so many people these days have such difficulty in saying a simple NO to their children? Some people see places like McDonald’s as a treat, but that’s hardly an argument.

If parents think a treat is to feed their loved ones a load of refined sugar and fat, then I’d hate to see what they do to punish them.

Secondly, even if he does see it as a treat and his son only has McDonald’s once a week, why on earth does that mean he has to join his son with a Big Mac and fries? I explained that McDonald’s now do salads, so he could always tuck into one of those. But of course the reason why he doesn’t is the same reason why he doesn’t say NO to his boy – he wants to go and he wants a McDonald’s; but boy, aren’t kids a great scapegoat for our failures?

Stop blaming the fact you’ve had kids or you’ve got kids; if you want a slim trim body you can get one. You don’t have to feed your kids junk; you don’t have to pander to their every terrorist tantrum for their next sugar fix and you can be strong and take control of at least their household’s dietary habits. I realize that some households are different and many ‘buts’ can come into play. ‘But I’m only the step-parent so I must feed them what their real parent wants’, ‘but my kids are teenagers and they are so set in their ways it would be wrong to change now’, or whatever. If that’s the case then it still doesn’t mean you have to eat stuff from their plates and it doesn’t mean because they eat junk food that it automatically means you have to.

You might see a great opportunity to add another but, something like ‘but I can’t make it to the gym as I’m at home with the kids all day’. Again so what? This doesn’t stop you exercising or eating well. You can get some kind of home exercise equipment; take the kids to the park; go for a walk; etc. etc. Remember the question should always be ‘What could I do in this situation to move more towards my goal?’ It’s a great question; it stops the ‘buts’ and your brain will always think of a solution. Ask the right questions and you get the right answers

There is always a way if you are committed. There is always a way if you really make it a priority – no matter how many children you are fortunate to have. If you really wanted to join a gym and make it there a few times a week – you could. If you really wanted to start eating well – you could; if you wanted to get the children involved in playing every night or joining some kind of active sports club – you could. Children are a blessing; it’s time to stop blaming them for your bad habits.

‘But it’s different for me because…I know it all already’

This is one ‘but’ I love. When it comes to the subject of health and fitness, because there have been so many ‘diet’ books, God knows how many TV shows about this subject and because food plays such a role in today’s Western world, everyone is an expert. The amount of people I see who at first say, ‘I know that’ or ‘tell me something I don’t know’ is amazing. What’s amazing is in many cases they do know it all (well, most of it anyway). They know that if they eat less junk, increase their intake of fruit and veg and take regular exercise they will change body shape, have more energy and be healthier. More and more people are also aware of the danger of refined sugar and fat; how too much alcohol can cause weight gain and speed up the aging process; how sitting around on furniture for hours on end can cause bone and back problems; and people are even becoming experts on how certain foods have a low or high ‘GI’ (Glycaemic Index) rating and what role that plays on fat levels in their body. In fact with more and more ‘health’ and ‘diet’ books hitting the shops and becoming number-one bestsellers throughout the western world, I think it’s safe to say more and more people aren’t just getting to know a little bit more about how certain foods act on the body – they really are becoming experts in this field.

I think it is almost undisputed that most people, even if they don’t know the exact science behind certain foods and drinks, have a pretty good idea of what’s best to eat for a healthy lifestyle. But just knowing it doesn’t mean anything. I know that if I actually listen to the Spanish course I paid good money for that sits with dust on my top shelf, I’ll be able to learn Spanish. But just knowing that doesn’t mean I’ll ever do it. Just knowing what to eat and what exercises you need to do to get the body of your dreams means jack unless you are going to actually get off your derri&re and do it.

Even the Experts have Buts!

Another problem for people is that many of the true diet experts aren’t exactly applying what they teach and often aren’t exactly the picture of health themselves. Many seem to have the old doctor adage of ‘do as I say not as I do’. It is amazing how many people seem happy to take health advice from unhealthy people. It is true that you don’t necessarily need to be the best football player in order to be a good football manager, but at the same time I personally would never take financial advice from a poor person and I wouldn’t go to a stop-smoking therapist who had a cigarette hanging out of their mouth. I think I make my point!

What I’m saying is, knowing what’s good and bad and being an ‘expert’ on the subject of health and fitness doesn’t mean anything unless you apply it to your own life. After all what’s the point of being the most knowledgeable health and fitness expert if you’re fat and ill yourself?

I’m not so much here to teach you what to eat, drink and how to exercise for optimum health and vitality – although clearly these nuggets are covered in depth in case of any doubt and you’ll have a step-by-step plan for the 14-day Turbo Charge Your Life programme – but it’s more to show you how to apply the knowledge which most of you already have. It’s designed to show exactly what is needed to get off of your butt and catapult your life to a new level. Remember, knowing what to do is one thing, but doing what you know is what makes the big difference between those who talk a good game and those who are actually in the game.