Fascinating Authors

FASCINATING AUTHORS: Tell us a little bit about your book.

Author:  The Structure House Weight Loss Plan is a guide to lifelong weight loss based on my residential weight loss program, Structure House, in Durham, N.C. It explains how to handle the typical difficult situations we all face everyday like restaurant eating, managing social overeating, cooking healthy meals at home and eating better while traveling. More importantly the book exposes the reasons for unhealthy eating behaviors such as habit, boredom, and stress and show why these causes are at the core of how people make bad eating decisions. I wanted to provide readers with sensible strategies and tools to understand these difficulties and to maintain a healthy weight, permanently.

FASCINATING AUTHORS: What inspired you to create a work of non-fiction?

Author:  I have had the opportunity to work with more people with this problem in a more intensive way than probably anyone else ever has. As a result, I have come to know what people must do to successfully conquer this problem. While I have long wanted to write a book that I thought could be of help to many, I believed that our society was not tuned into a serious discussion of the problem. Our country is now keenly aware of how excess weight and poor nutrition can cause major health problems and was ready for that serious discussion.

FASCINATING AUTHORS: What did you do to prepare – such as research – to write your book?

Author:  I could say the preparation and research for this book spanned a period of more than 30 years. The book is a culmination of the research by me through the years, as well as the experiences and results achieved by the thousands of people with whom I have worked. In addition, I pulled together what my staff and I actually do with our patients at Structure House.

FASCINATING AUTHORS: How did you decide which information to present in your book?

Author:  Deciding on what to include in the book may have been the easiest part of the entire experience. I made an effort to create a faithful representation of what we do with our own patients at Structure House. I wanted this book to be the next best experience someone could have other than coming to Structure House itself.

FASCINATING AUTHORS: What do you hope people will gain from reading your book?

Author: My staff and I have developed an amazing program at Structure House and I wanted to share it with as many people as possible. I understand everyone who needs our help cannot invest the time or money to visit us in Durham, but now they can benefit from the Structure House program through my book.

FASCINATING AUTHORS: How long did it take you to write the book – (was it longer or less time than you expected)?

Author:  I really had no expectations of how long it would take to write this book. What I wanted was a faithful representation of my program presented in such a way that people who could never attend Structure House could still benefit. I had created much of the materials over a period of many years and spent less than a year in its organization.

FASCINATING AUTHORS: Did you seek the support of a writer’s group or class?

Author:  The raw material for the book was a combination of materials already existing for the purposes of doing the program at Structure House and my own verbal presentations that I delivered countless times to the patients over the years. I did request the assistance of a gifted wordsmith who assisted me in organizing the material in a coherent manner.

FASCINATING AUTHORS: What surprised you the most about this process?

Author:  I hadn’t thought about it at the time we published the book, but as people reacted to it, particularly my patients, I realized that the book is in a way timeless. The editors of Health magazine selecting us as the #1 diet program in America confirmed that feeling (Jan/Feb 2009 issue).

FASCINATING AUTHORS: What tips would you offer to anyone writing nonfiction for the first time?

Author:  Know your subject.

FASCINATING AUTHORS: What can we look forward to in your next book?

Author: We are presently working on a manual reflecting the book itself. It will be a 28-day “how to” so anyone can create the changes in their lives one day at a time.

FASCINATING AUTHORS: It seems like there are thousands of diet books out there, how is the Structure House Weight Loss Program different from these other books?

Author: When Health Magazine assembled a panel of experts in the field to review more than 60 programs in the country, they clearly showed our uniqueness by rating us as #1. As I have said before, we have probably worked with more people with this problem than anyone else. Our work has spanned many decades. From the very early days when we were the first to apply behavior modification principles and techniques to the treatment of large groups of overweight and obese adults to being the only true residential program in the country, we have taken the treatment of this problem beyond diet and fitness to the very heart of the problem.

FASCINATING AUTHORS: What is it about the Structure House Diet Program as you have outlined it in your book that makes it so successful?

Author: One former resident whose experiences added to the book calls our program a “college education” for healthy living. We have seen what it takes to be successful. In a follow up review, 92 percent of our patients continued to lose or maintain their weight loss two years after leaving. By going beyond diet and fitness, we learned that the very relationship we all develop with food needs to be remade by maintaining the structure I talk about in my book.

FASCINATING AUTHORS: Thank you for taking the time to be part of this interview!

To learn more about the Author and his book please visit -  http://www.structurehouse.com/