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

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.

‘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!