INTRODUCTION-STOP THE INSANITY IS THE ANSWER

Stopping the insanity in my life was more than a physical journey. It was an emotional journey.

I didn't always handle the process well. There was a lot of pain, anger, and frustration along the way.

I've written it all down, just the way it happened, and told you exactly how I handled it. Bear with me—if at times you think my anger is gonna jump off the page and move in with you, don't worry. A lot has been healed since then, and that's what this article is about.

STOP THE INSANITY IS THE ANSWER, the solution to the problem that faces millions of us: hating the way you look and feel; never-ending dieting, starvation, and deprivation, those

self-esteem beatings that we live with every day of our lives. This is a book for women, about women getting well. It's about the thousands of women who have stopped the insanity in their lives, and it can be about you stopping it in your life. How to stop dieting and why you should never diet again. How to get lean, strong, and healthy. How to like the way you look and feel again, how to build a foundation of wellness that can change the way you look and feel forever. What could possibly be more important than that?

I have been told over and over again: "Susan, nobody is going to listen to you. Number one, you are a woman. Number two, you are intelligent. Number three, you are opinionated. Number four, you are bucking the system. And number five—YOU ARE BALD." I was told that I would offend every woman in this country. I'm so glad I didn't listen.

During the past couple of years I've spoken all over the country to every group imaginable. These one-hour, four-hour, and half-day seminars have made it clear to me that we may have different life-styles, tastes, and opinions, but everybody wants to look and feel better. No one out there likes waking up every day feeling bad. Being so tired you can't get through the day. Squeezing into those large sizes and knowing that it's getting worse. Having every ache and pain in the article and trying every solution that's offered—and failing.

My seminars are not angry, male-bashing, bra-burning events.

That's not what I'm about.

These are very passionate, very precious hours spent sharing and solving the problems that have hurt so many of us. Solving the problems, not treating the symptoms.

I speak to women about women because I am a woman. Who better to understand what obese women are feeling than someone who has been there? I've worn the size 22, bought the baby powder by the case for the burning, chapped thighs and underarms, and felt the pain of not being able to ride the ride, run the race, play ball, swim (sheer embarrassment stopped me from that; Lord knows I could float better than the rest of the moms), and do all the things my children wanted their mom to do with them.

I can tell you that changing my life-style and improving my fitness level have given me more control and choices in my own life. I will share stories with you from some of the thousands of women who, like me, have been resurrected from the dead.

I will show you how to increase your cardio-endurance without those hateful exercise experiences; how to increase your upper body, abdominal, and lower body strength, no matter how long it's been since you've seen or felt a muscle; how to decrease your body fat, even if it's a whole other person you need to get rid of; and how to get well. How to live, eating more food than you can imagine. How never to diet again—it's over, no more starvation, deprivation, and killing yourself.

I have a lot to say about the diet industry. I know why all the calorie counting, weighing and scaling, shakes and powders, don't work. After you read this book, you will, too. All of us who have dieted, or those of you who still are, know what it feels like to starve to death. Because that's what diets are. Starvation and deprivation. They are impossible to live on—nobody can succeed living with starvation.

As for the fitness industry, I have been to the "best" exercise studios in the country, and I'm amazed that there are not a hundred deaths a day in some of these classes. A monkey could get "certified" to teach what's being taught in these classes: no modification, unsafe movements, assembly-line fitness, kicking, jumping, and hopping till you drop.

That's not fitness. That's insanity.

Fitness is, or should be, for everyone. Any age, any fitness level, any physical consideration. You can get fit." You can get well. You can change your body by increasing your

cardio-endurance, increasing muscular strength, decreasing body fat, increasing flexibility, and building a fitness level. This has nothing to do with willpower, behavior modification, control, or motivation. There is no magic or mystery involved, and it's got nothing to do with dieting.

Stop the Insanity! Is a process that is easy to understand and apply to your life. You will learn how important it is to EAT. Without food you can't function. How important it is to BREATHE. Without oxygen you die. How easy and important it is to MOVE. No more fast music, crazy choreography, and jumping up and down like a lunatic, all in the name of fitness. Eating, breathing, and moving within your life-style, fitness level, and physical considerations are the answer.

Forget your health. Don't do it for that reason. That was never my motivation. I didn't lose 133 pounds to have a healthy heart. My motivation was to look better than my ex-husband's

girlfriend, and my motivation now is to look and feel the way I want to look and feel. Getting healthy is a side effect of eating, breathing, and moving.

You may not be quite as superficial as I am, but don't be ashamed to admit it if you are. There are plenty of us out there. Don't do this for your health; do it to love the way you look and feel. Do it for your thighs. Do it to feel sexy and pretty. Do it to spite all the people who think you can't. Do it for whatever reasons, just do it.

We are on an interesting journey together. This self-help, how-to, motivational book is not a step-by-step tip sheet to the answer.

It's a story, a prescription, and a bit of a personal diary. I want to engage your heart and your mind in the process. Along the way, you may find yourself angry, sad, hopeful, and sometimes afraid. My process, which is what you are about to read, gave voice to feelings that I hadn't found a way to express. That may happen to you, too.

I need your help. I'm relying on your patience—stay with me, hear me through, because as you read, you may just hear your own story mixed in with mine.

We will get to the answers, because that's what Stop the Insanity! Is about—getting you the information you need to change your life. When we do, you'll have gotten there just like I got there. But I promise we'll make it less painful.

Knowledge is not power. Getting the right information and learning how to apply it to your life is power.

When we get to the prescriptions, they will be yours, because the only way to make the process yours is by understanding it ... so read on.

Stop the Insanity! Is not about perfection. Living in a perfect bubble of health and fitness is not for me, but I do make choices every day that make an enormous difference in my life. You may not be willing to change some things. It will be your choice. This is not an all-or-nothing deal. But there are some things we can no longer ignore.

We are not well. Most of us are the walking dead. We don't have enough oxygen in our bodies to get through the day. Our muscles have atrophied, our metabolic rates are in warp zone, we are lugging around tons of extra fat. We are physically ill. There's a lot on people's minds these days. The social and environmental issues that we spend millions of dollars trying to solve. We spend the cash, rally the rallies, talk and fight about it all—while individually we are dying. Dying of oxygen deprivation and lack of strength, and being crushed by fat.

Eighty-five percent of all disease can be directly attributed to life-style. Even if health is not your motivation or concern, this is important. Other than genetic inheritance, your life-style

determines the length and quality of your life more than anything else. Well, let's not eliminate fate—when that eighteen-wheeler comes around the corner with your name on it, there are other things involved besides genetics and what you've been eating. But other than that, we do have a lot more control than most of us realize.

Your life-style is determined by what you are eating, whether you are moving, exercising. Exercise, movement—has it been ten years since you've done anything? When was the last time you moved within your fitness level and gave your muscles and cells the one thing they need to live—oxygen? Where's that coming from in your life? And how are you feeling?

You have lots of choices. I had lots of choices. You may not understand what they are or how to apply them to. your life. I didn't understand my choices and had no clue how I was supposed to apply any of them to my life—but now I know. So will you. You will learn how to take the control back in your life, change the way you look and feel, and dramatically improve the quality of your life.

Or ... you can give up:

You can continue eating the way you're eating. Get fatter. Feel horrible. And live with all the symptoms of being unhealthy. Don't do that. You've had enough. It hurts. Please don't set yourself up for a heart attack, hypertension, cancer, diabetes, arteriosclerosis, or whatever may ruin your life. You are too valuable.

What I'm saying here is that we can no longer deny the connection—the connection between what you are living with daily, the way you look and feel, and what you are or are not putting in your mouth.

Let's look at some staggering facts. You should never make any decisions without the facts.

Do you know what the leading causes of death are? According to the National Center for Health Statistics, here they are:

Heart Disease

Cancer

Cardiovascular Disease

Accidents

Pulmonary Diseases

Pneumonia, Flu

Diabetes Mellitus

Suicide

Liver Disease and Cirrhosis

Arteriosclerosis

All other causes

36.4% 22.3% 7.1% 4.6% 3.6% 3.3% 1.8% 1.5% 1.2% 1.1% 3.4%

Heart disease, so the American Heart Association tells us, is the leader: 68,090,000 people in the United States have one or more forms of heart and blood vessel disease—often at the same time. Think about it. The number one killer, preventable and much easier to live without. Here are some numbers:

Hypertension Coronary Heart Disease Rheumatic Heart Disease Stroke 61,870,000 6,080,000 1,290,000 2,930,000

Heart attacks caused 511,050 deaths in 1988. This year, as I write this book, as many as 1,500,000 people will have a heart attack, and 500,000 will die from it. Strokes killed an estimated 150,300 people in 1988. Hypertension (high blood pressure) afflicts nearly one of every three adults in our country.

Mr. Surgeon General of the United States says that 1.5 million out of the 2.1 million deaths in 1987 were related to dietary factors; cholesterol and saturated fats were the big problems.

And to think that 85 percent of all of it can be slowed down, prevented, or stopped by eating, breathing, and moving daily!

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