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

‘But I don’t really need to change as…I’m only a little overweight’

Not everyone reading this book is overweight. Some are underweight and some are slim but have no energy and bad eating and drinking habits. However, for those who are overweight – and I mean overweight – but have for years been saying things like ‘I’m a little overweight’ or ‘I could do with losing a few pounds here and there’, please let me say what all those you come into contact with are thinking and saying behind your back – you are not a little overweight:

YOU ARE FAT!

Not only are you fat, but as is the way of the world, your character is also called into question, and you can add the words ‘git’ and ‘bastard’ after fat to get a true picture of what’s being said.

I realize that sounds harsh, but until you see things as they really are you will never make the change.

If you continue to make the situation seem better than it is then what possible motivation would you have for change?

I realize that in some cases people saying to you out loud ‘you fat bastard’ isn’t exactly useful, and could have you locking yourself in a room with half a hundred weight of cake and ice cream in order to ‘comfort’ yourself. However, if you are constantly being real about the situation, and if you no longer hide behind things like ‘I’m just a tad tubby’ or avoid looking in the mirror, then your brain will feel more and more frustrated about the current situation and try to do something about it.

When I was at school I was nicknamed ‘Fatty Vale’, and every day I would get picked on for being overweight. My mother and all the people who cared about me said things like, ‘It’s just a bit of puppy fat’, and ‘You’re not fat, just a little tubby’, but with children you get the truth. They tell it as it really is and, yes, I was indeed ‘Fatty Vale’. This constant barrage of verbal abuse led me to go from Fatty Vale who couldn’t run a bath and was always last at cross-country to a person who just 12 weeks later was Slim Vale who not only finished the cross-country course on time, but even broke the school record for that distance!

I was not willing to be called Fatty Vale again and from that point on (when I was 13) until I left school at 15 I was never fat again, and I never got detention for being late after cross-country. As soon as I left school, however, I discovered beer, bar snacks, the kebab shop and video games, and was Fatty Vale again before you knew it. Only this time I didn’t have people coming up to me everyday telling me so; they just did it behind my back.

So please, if you are very overweight – and I mean 20 pounds or more over what you should be – get real with your situation and understand fully what people are saying. You are not overweight, you are not a little ‘rotund’ and you are not ‘big boned’. Use the ‘F’ word – you are FAT! And as such you are at huge risk of developing heart disease, diabetes or one of the other major debilitating illnesses as well as having to live your daily life in a body with little energy that brings you down.

‘But I’m fed up with having to conform…big is beautiful and I’m fat and happy’

This is another excuse I hear over and over again. When all else fails, tell the world the reason why you don’t change is because you don’t actually want to. In reality, all women would love to be slim, and all men would love some definition and at least a four pack – that’s just how it is.

Women love to buy weekly magazines with picture after picture of celebrities with something wrong with them. If Britney gets a spot, or Cameron Diaz has some cellulite, then all of a sudden the world seems a brighter place. I know It’s hard for women to believe, but nowadays men do exactly the same. If David Beckham were to ever get a few spots or, heaven forbid, get fat, most of the men in the country would be jumping for joy. This is because it’s much easier to drag someone else down in order to try to make yourself look better than it is to put in the effort to lift your own world. Many people don’t even do this consciously and there’s no malice involved; it’s just they’ve done it for so long and, given we also have a culture that does it readily, it appears normal.

Fat is Not Attractive

People can say that many years ago, being fat was seen as a sign of wealth and regarded as sexy, and they can even harp on about how in many cultures it still is today, but that doesn’t change how it is in the West here and now. If we’re being frank, and I believe we are, someone who is fat is not as pleasing to the eye as someone who is slim.

In today’s politically correct world, that statement will have some people ranting and raving and reaching for the nearest cream bun, but if we cut through the crap – it’s true. If it wasn’t, then people like Dawn French would be used to advertise the latest Ferrari rather than chocolate! I don’t think anyone could look at Dawn French and say she isn’t a beautiful-looking woman. My point is that if she’s beautiful as she is, she would be stunning if she were slim.

‘But that’s shallow – beauty comes from within.’ Yes I agree, and in an ideal world people would be able to see the inner beauty in everyone. However, having been fat and suffered from severe psoriasis in the past, I know first hand that most of the world isn’t like that.

They say personality goes a long way, but in some cases it can never stretch that far!

And talking of personality, it’s not just coincidence that you often see ‘fat and jolly’ people. We have to make the best of what we’ve got, and if your external shell isn’t what the world likes to see, you tend to develop more of a personality. This is why some models seem to have had major personality bypasses. They haven’t had to develop that side of themselves to attract people; often they just need to walk into a room and people come running.

I know it’s not fair and I know it shouldn’t be this way – but it is! I didn’t make the rules and neither did you, but if you’re in this ‘game of life’ and you want to get the best out of it, we have to accept some of them. There is of course one huge advantage when you have been overweight and then lose it: you end up with a slim, trim body and a personality!

If people genuinely thought being overweight was a good thing then they would actively encourage their children to overeat and get fat, but if you ask any parent if they want their child to be slim or fat, they opt for slim every time.

This is not just for health reasons but also so that they’re not picked on by their peers and have the energy to really enjoy their life.

Those people who say, ‘I’m fat and happy’ may well be just that, fat and happy – but this doesn’t mean they’re happy because they’re fat. It also doesn’t mean they wouldn’t be a damn site happier if they were slim. If you feel there’s nothing you can do about a particular situation, like being fat in this case, you have no real alternative but to try and justify why you are the way you are. Because no one wants to look as though they are weak-willed jelly fish who cannot control their eating, it seems easier to say, ‘I’m happy the way I am, I don’t want to change.’ But the reality is that’s a load of old tosh as everyone who’s fat, regardless of what they say out loud, would love to wake up in a slim, trim, energy-driven body. It’s only when they have exhausted all other possible ‘excuses’ that they come out with the ‘I don’t want to change’ line; after all how can anyone possibly argue with that? If they don’t want to change and are happy as they are – good for them! But in truth they are not as happy as Larry as they are, despite what they say; they would love to change. The saddest part about the ‘I’m fat and happy line’ is that the person saying it has almost resigned themselves to a life of ‘fat’. They have no doubt already ‘tried’ God knows how many diets and are now convinced they’re beyond hope. This leads to a need to justify why they are not doing anything about their weight and health, ‘I’m fat and I’m happy’ usually being the outcome. If you are fat and genuinely think it’s beautiful and are genuinely happy, then I for one am happy for you –I don’t believe you, but I’m happy for you. The fact is, though, if all was well in fat land you wouldn’t be reading this book. I know what it’s like to be fat and I know what it’s like to be slim – and guess what? Give me slim any day!

‘But It’s All Down to the Magazines’

Some people even have the gall to blame the glossy magazines for being overweight and unhealthy. They claim if it wasn’t the pressure to conform they wouldn’t rebel and eat. What amazes me is the people who bitch about these magazines buy them all the time. I know this may sound stupidly easy but if you think the magazines are causing your problem – don’t buy them! But they do prove my theory that fat is not the new black. If it were, we wouldn’t have pictures of nice-looking bodies on the front covers of magazines, we would have fat people. People like to look at attractive people – that’s just how it is.

But the main reason why ‘big isn’t beautiful’ is because when you’re big you just don’t feel beautiful – you feel fat and bloated, you can’t move as you want; you can’t wear what you want and you don’t feel as sexy as you want. There is nothing beautiful about a life spent feeling that way and with disease hanging over your head.

‘But I have an injury so…I can’t exercise’

You must have heard them (you may even be one them) – people who say the reason they got overweight and unfit was because they sprained their foot, knackered their elbow, broke their leg or damaged their ligaments, and so the list goes on and on. However, in order to have an injury so severe that it stops you from doing any kind of exercise you would need to be in a Christopher Reeve situation. Actually, that’s not even true. One of the many things the truly remarkable Christopher Reeve did for the nine years of his life as a paraplegic was to make sure he exercised whenever he could. His exact words from his inspirational book Nothing Is Impossible are, ‘I’ve also found the self-discipline to exercise when I don’t feel like it…’ Remember these words if you’ve ever banged on about how you can’t exercise because of whatever.

If you have a leg injury, do some upper-body exercises. If you can’t move your arms, move your legs. If you can’t put pressure on your joints, go for a swim or jump on a trampoline. If you really can’t move anything without being in pain, do some deep-breathing exercises and cut down on your fuel consumption. After all, you wouldn’t put the same amount of fuel into your car if you weren’t using it as much as usual, would you?

There isn’t any reason on the planet why anyone should become unhealthy or overweight just because they have an injury. I’ve seen people in wheelchairs whacking tennis balls over nets and shooting basketballs into hoops, and I’ve seen people with no arms running marathons. In fact, I’ve seen people with no legs running marathons with prosthetic limbs.

Whatever the injury, it shouldn’t be an excuse for not achieving your health and body-shape goals. Look at someone like Tanni Gray Thompson, a truly remarkable and superb athlete. Losing the use of her legs didn’t stop her training and getting the rest of her body super-fit, so much so that she has, at the time of writing, won an incredible 11 gold medals for Great Britain at the Paralympics. What’s your excuse?

Then you have the, ‘But I used to…’ gang. You know, the people who tell you how much sport they used to play; how they used to run all the time and how they used to always be in the gym. But so what? Used to means Jack! You can spend your life living in the ‘what I used to be able to do’ world, but that’s not going to change how you look and feel today.

The truth is most people can usually exercise with an injury, no matter what the situation. There is always a way if the person is committed. Instead of looking at what isn’t possible because of the injury, people should focus on what can be done.

‘But you’ve got to live…you could get run over by a bus next week’

That’s true – but don’t you want the week to be nice before the bus comes along?

For every action there is always a reaction and every action you take today has a knock-on effect which will determine your tomorrow. People who are overweight didn’t get that way one day; it took many months and years of consuming too much of the wrong kinds of foods and drinks and not moving their bodies very much to get that way. It’s all very well and good living as if there’s no tomorrow and saying, ‘the bomb could go off tomorrow’ or ‘I could get run over by a bus tomorrow’, but what happens when it doesn’t and you don’t? What happens when you eat and drink junk every day, get fat, unhealthy and lethargic – or all three – only to wake up and find that tomorrow very much did happen and it’s here to face today? I used to make the excuse that ‘Anything could happen tomorrow, so why not just indulge’, only to find that ‘tomorrow’ always happened and I would still have to face it as a fat, unhealthy bastard!

Yes, you may get run over by a bus next week, but what about today? Don’t you want to feel good today? Don’t you want to be able to wear what you want today? Don’t you want to wake up with energy and vibrancy today? Don’t you want to feel light and slim today? Those people who say they are eating and drinking junk because they are ‘living for today’ or because the bomb could go off tomorrow seem to have missed the irony. It’s all about today, and the only way to create a much better today is by understanding that there is a tomorrow. Unless you keep an eye on tomorrow it’s going to come up and bite you on the bum, and that could be one hell of a bum!

This excuse, like all of the others, is total rubbish.

Nobody, when they are tucking into a cream bun and a large Coke, is ever thinking, ‘The only reason I’m doing this is in case something happens to me tomorrow.’ If you really thought tomorrow wasn’t coming, the last thing on your mind would be, ‘Yippee, how much junk food can I stuff down my gullet today?’ Your only focus would be on finding the people you love and telling them how you feel.

‘But Jason, life is too short.’ I agree, life is too short, and unless you change it will be even shorter! It’s also too short not to live your dreams; it’s too short to live feeling sluggish and overweight, hating the way you look and feel; it’s too short to be scared to get into a bathing costume; it’s too short to hit your head on the pillow every night hoping things will be different tomorrow; it’s too short to wake up every day with a junk-food hangover; it’s too short to collapse at the end of the working day with only enough energy to slump in front of the TV for hours on end – YES, LIFE IS TOO SHORT – so stop saying, ‘I could get run over by a bus tomorrow’ because that’s not why you eat and drink rubbish or don’t exercise – it’s just another excuse.

I suppose there is some argument on the other side though. I mean, if you keep eating and drinking rubbish and end up as big as a house, the chances of a bus actually being able to run you over would be pretty slim!

‘But I can’t because…I’m too old’

Too old for what exactly? Too old to buy some fruit and veg? Too old to peel a banana? Too old to go for a walk? Too old to push some vegetables through a juicer and drink it? Or too old to live?

The truth is that if you believe you’re too old then you’re right, and if you believe you’re not too old you’re also right.

I’m not saying that the years don’t take their toll. As we get older we often genuinely can’t do what we used to be capable of, but it doesn’t mean for a second we are washed up and on the scrapheap. Age is just another excuse, which once again is simply based on fear – the fear of taking the leap from settling for what we have to making life an unbelievable adventure.

Two ladies in their sixties attended one of our Ultimate Health Weekends. Having read my first book, Slim 4 Life, a few months earlier, they had decided to get up and, as one of the chapters suggests, Get Busy Living. In the time since they had read the book, and, more importantly, acted upon it, they experienced not only an increase in physical energy but found their worlds expanded by the day. On this particular weekend they played ‘net-football’ on the beach at 7am; swam in a cold, but beautiful lake first thing on a Sunday morning; climbed an enormous height up a pole onto a platform where they then attached themselves to a Zip-Slide and slid James Bond-style down a mountain; completed a 50ft high-ropes assault course; ate and drank pure live foods; and joined in with everything. I know people in their thirties who wouldn’t have the physical or mental energy to do that.

It’s not about your chronological age, it’s about your mental age, i.e. how youthful you are in the mind and how much zest and spirit you have for life.

I met a young man on holiday and asked if he wanted to come ‘wake-boarding’ with me (this is like snowboarding but on water with a boat pulling you along). He seemed unsure, so I told him that if he had done any snowboarding or skateboarding it would be an advantage. His eyes lit up and he explained that skateboarding was his passion. When I asked if he still did it, he said, ‘Oh not now, I gave it up as I’m getting too old to do that sort of thing.’ I asked him how old he was, and he was 29! He thought it looked silly for a 29-year-old to be on a skateboard. Who gives a flying 360-degree jump?

You cannot possibly let your thoughts of what other people may think of you dictate how you live your life.

If I want to skateboard at 99 let alone 29 then I will! Stopping physical passions cause people to ‘age’ before their time.