Simon Lovell - The Lunch Box Diet - Eat all day, lose weight, feel great. Lose up to a stone in 4 weeks.

I think it’s very important that professionals who set out to teach other people should base their teaching on personal experience. I haven’t been lean, strong and confident all my life – in fact, the contrary is true.

I was overweight in my early twenties and was easily a few jean sizes over what is classed as ‘normal’ these days. My average daily diet consisted of fried food, pizzas and microwave meals. My snacks were chocolate bars, my energy levels low and my confidence almost non-existent. When you’re down there, it’s hard to see out. I never thought that one day I would be writing a book about eating properly and spending most of my days teaching people how fitness and health can change their world. Hell, no!

But everyone has a turning point in their lives and mine came when I was bullied at school. Enough was enough. I joined a kung-fu class. At the class I met a guy called Tim. He took me under his wing, threw me into the gym and got me lifting weights. My body shape started to change and I got the buzz. I started attracting more girls – fantastic! As a guy who used to be the butt of everyone’s jokes, I loved it. Who wouldn’t? To Tim, who took me through those important first steps – thank you. I wouldn’t be writing this now and helping others if you hadn’t paid special attention to me.

Some of this back story may resonate with you because of experiences in your own life. It might not. But a lot of people who have problems with their weight have a story to tell. If I can connect with some of you in this way then we have a better chance of moving forward and developing together.

What I have found most satisfying about this project is that I never sat down and said, ‘I’m going to write a diet plan.’ It just snowballed from a simple three-page document I gave to my personal training clients. Those who followed my advice soon began to reap the rewards, and the feedback was excellent. Though I had believed it was a workable plan, I was still floored by the response. Everyone who tried it loved it. They passed it along to friends and family and before I knew it, people were asking me about my ‘diet’. That’s when I knew I had hit on something big.

The Lunch Box Diet was initially launched on the internet as an ebook, where it got rave reviews from top women’s magazines. They were saying things like ‘a way of life’ and ‘the best diet I’ve ever done’ ( Elle magazine, January 2008). I knew that the plan worked because I used it myself and my clients were telling me it worked for them, but it was an unbelievable feeling when top-rated women’s publications were shouting it out to hundreds of thousands of people. That’s what led us to where we are now – the printed book.

‘I don’t want to be remembered for helping people to lose weight by drinking liquid diets and eating only one type of food’

I don’t want to be remembered for helping people to lose weight by drinking liquid diets and eating only one type of food, leaving them with no energy or zest for life. Instead, I want to help people to gain increased energy, improved concentration, better skin, no hunger pangs at work and improved overall health – the list goes on.

The great thing about the Lunch Box Diet is that after just a few days, you start to learn more about your body and it all happens quite naturally. If you are too strict about dieting or healthy eating, you will rebel. Of course, we all need an element of willpower to succeed but because you’re reading this I assume you’re ready to give it a go – so again, well done!

‘Don’t run away! If you’re not a vegetable lover, I’m going to teach you how easy it is to retrain your taste buds so that you will no longer want to hide your veggies’

So what is this Lunch Box Diet? I’ll go into depth later but as a very quick summary, the Lunch Box Diet is a fantastic, easy way of eating that lets you eat a normal breakfast and dinner and shows you how to ‘graze’ your way through the rest of the day. ‘Grazing’ means nibbling small quantities of food all day long, whenever you’re hungry. The diet is based on some very simple principles, one of which you’ve known about since you were a child: eat your veggies. Don’t run away! If you’re not a vegetable lover, I’m going to teach you how easy it is to retrain your taste buds so that you will no longer want to hide your veggies in your napkin or feed them to the dog under the table.

I’ll explain the low-down on healthy, effective, lasting weight loss. I’ll guide you through the effect metabolism has on your ability to lose weight. I’ll show you why you are far better off eating little and often than starving yourself. All those girls who starve themselves down to size ‘negative-two’ thin are asking for a heap of trouble in the future. At the very least, they’ll simply gain the weight back (usually plus some) and find it more difficult to maintain an ideal body weight. In the worst case, they may end up with a serious, life-threatening eating disorder. I don’t want that for you. I want you to be healthy and vibrant…that’s what sexy is.

Speaking of which, we’re also going to look at the emotional aspects of eating. I’ve been in the personal training business long enough to know that issues surrounding weight gain go beyond what you put in your mouth. Sometimes it’s a lot about why.

Once we’re through all of the basics, I’m going to instruct you on how to follow the diet. I can’t wait to show you all of its wonderful components and start you on the path to looking and feeling fabulous. I’ll take you through the rainbow of vegetables and tell you all about the wonderful options when choosing lean protein (which go way beyond chicken). The Lunch Box Diet is easy to use if you don’t eat meat, because you’ll learn about other types of protein and how to incorporate them into your day.

I believe that ‘sauce’ should live up to its name by being ‘saucy’. I’ll show you how breaking up with those creamy dressings and heavy cheese sauces will be just as good for you as it was to dump that dreadful ex! Healthy sauce is anything but dull. My lunch boxes are delicious and yours will be too. I’ll give you plenty of fabulous recipes to get you started.

Many diets today are based on reducing your carbohydrate intake. We’ll talk about carbs and I’ll show you why the low-carb craze is neither completely wrong nor completely right.

You’ll be eating a normal breakfast and dinner in addition to the scrumptious contents of your lunch box – but what does ‘normal’ mean? I wish I could tell you that you can eat a monstrous stack of toast with bacon for breakfast and a 12-ounce T-bone steak, butter-stuffed baked potato and half a chocolate cake for dinner and still lose weight. Of course, I could say that – but then I’d be telling you a big fat lie! Don’t worry. Conversely, I’m not going to tell you that all you can have is a carrot stick and a cup of hot water. What I will do is talk a bit about portions and provide you with some healthy ideas so we can gradually build you up to a healthier new you, forever!

Don’t you just love it when you get an unexpected bonus on your salary? You may have bought this book because you want to lose weight, but there’s a hidden bonus because this diet goes way beyond weight loss. I didn’t even realise how much so until I did some research. I’d simply chosen what I believed to be a healthy way of losing weight. When I looked into the food choices more deeply, I found out all sorts of things about what they can do in terms of your general health and I’m going to share that knowledge with you in chapter 8.