Here is the draft preface to the GigaLiving book to give you some idea about the content. I first published it
on the GigaLiving website.
Preface
When I was being brought up I was exceedingly lucky in having parents who took diet very seriously indeed and who cooked everything from the base ingredients. A large variety of fresh vegetables were sourced from our garden, picked just before cooking. They were grown with absolutely the minimum chemical input possible, using traditional techniques to control pests. We ate a lot of fish, not just on Fridays and our meat was lean cuts bought from a traditional butcher. Very rarely did we have something as manufactured as a sausage and we certainly didn’t eat pizzas.
At school I studied the sciences so learned much basic nutritional theory and then when, after leaving school, I started playing club rugby I also started weight training and did much research into the nutritional needs for the science of maximising the benefit of such training.
All my life I have remained active and so have continued to take very good nutritional care. One small problem is that a liking for beer creates a constant tendency to put on weight. Something that requires extra discipline to counter.
Through all this I have cooked my own food and food for others. I started cooking as a toddler in my mother’s kitchen and cannot remember not being able to cook. Unless eating out I cook every meal that I eat and have done for decades. With a keen interest in food I am constantly experimenting with ingredients and techniques. And all through this I have studied to ensure that what I was making was as healthy as possible.
My sister is a doctor, my brother in law is a doctor, my wife is a doctor, several of my friends are doctors. So I have had a steady supply of very well informed people to debate my ideas with and who could bring practical, real world experience to the discussion.
For 30 years my parents lived on a Mediterranean island and I spent much time there. This gave me a thorough understanding of a different kind of cuisine and a different lifestyle. There is no doubt that a diet centred on seafood, olive oil, tomatoes, onion and garlic with plentiful salads is about as healthy as it is possible to get.
Over time I formed my own nutritional guidelines and constantly tested them against known science. As more knowledge became available these ideas were progressively reinforced and vindicated. Occasionally there was a change of emphasis as science came up with new evidence. But mostly the ideas stood the test of time because they are pragmatic and based on the underlying reality of what the human machine is, where it came from and how it works.
Over time a succession of diets has become fashionable, all of which work, one way or another. Each time I was able to see the good points of what they were offering and also their weaknesses
So, several years ago I started to put the idea together with a book, so all the concepts I have worked with could be put in one place. Gradually, in my head, I worked on the ideas and how to express them. Then as it took further shape I started to tell people about it and every time I did so they showed interest and said that they would read it. Some urging me to get on with the job and one in particular reminding me constantly that she was waiting to read it.
In the end my wife convinced me to get on with the job. Putting down the basic ideas and concepts stored in my brain was easy, fleshing this out with the detail and the scientific facts was a more drawn out process. So a lot of reading and researching went into making the content as close to a gold mine of essential knowledge as possible.
There is no other book like this, not even remotely. It treats readers as intelligent people seeking knowledge and lays out very clearly the logic and much of the science behind the recommendations. Once someone has read this they will know what their lifestyle choices are and the consequences of making them. Use this knowledge well and the average reader will be able to lead a longer, healthier and happier life. Of this there is no doubt.
When I am queuing at the till at supermarkets I look in people’s trolleys to see what is there and form an idea in my brain of what the person who eats that food must look like. Then I look up and, sure enough, there is the product of the diet. Most of what most people buy is utter garbage that I wouldn’t put inside my body. Pizzas, pastries, starches and sugars, usually accompanied by high fat sources of meat like sausages and burgers. These people are self inflicting severe long term harm on their bodies and the only reason they do so is out of ignorance. Nobody has ever educated them about what food is.
