By Jackie Wicks

Welcome. I’m happy to finally sit down and write this because people have been asking me for this information for a long time. I’ve never had one place where I could refer members to all of the recipes, suggestions, kitchen aids and tips and this is it! The guide....the way to finally make the concepts that we outline in the Cheat System come alive in your kitchen and your life. This guide teaches you how to actually do what you know and live hunger-free and change the way you look at diet food forever.

The GUIDE.

This is my guide to living the ‘diet fusion system’ and making your diet and food choices work for you. How often do you feel like a slave to a particular diet or a way of eating? How often do you find yourself saying to yourself, of course I would eat a healthy meal but who has time to prepare it? Besides, my children won’t eat it so who wants to make 2 dinners? So often the answer becomes the same pasta and butter with Parmesan because it’s easy and you know how to make it. It’s not that you don’t want to eat well with a diet full of vegetables and high nutrient foods: it’s that no one has made it easy for you. No one seems to want to give 2 minute ideas. It’s all so “gourmet” out there.

Quick Definition of Diet Fusion.

Diet fusion materialized when I observed over and over what worked with the people who have been through PEERtrainer.com. What worked for losing weight. What worked for sustaining weight loss. What worked to improve health. What worked within the context of their life. It’s simply means fusing diet approaches together to find what works for you. We recently created a more structured system that people could follow each day.

Here are the three pillars:

- Nutrient Rich: Eating foods with a high density of nutrients, i.e. vegetables and preferably the green leafy kind that are the key to feeling full and improving health.

- Eating for Energy: If you don’t have energy, you really won’t do much of anything. I’ve lost years of my life because of low energy. You have to find the food combinations that make you feel like a rockstar.

- Portion Control: 80% of your day should fall in the first 2 categories of nutrient rich and eating for energy but 20% of the time, for those times when you’re out and celebrating with wine and Triple Creme Cheese, you have to have a sense of how much you’re overdoing it. This works when you’re out at a restaurant, when you’re traveling.

INTRODUCTION: We All Know What To Do:

And we would do it all the time if it was easy, fast and tasted good

I practice diet fusion. PEERtrainers do diet fusion. It works. The Magic Fridge guide does NOT include low fat cheesecake recipes or whole wheat pizza. There are millions of recipes already out there that are easy and taste delicious.. The Magic Fridge focuses on the 80% of your plate, the part where you have to get in the high nutrients for sustainable and hunger free weight loss.

I would still prefer to pick up a slice of pizza any day of the week. A slice of pizza is fast, tastes great and it’s easy. Unfortunately, now that I’m 40, portion control doesn’t work like it did. One slice of pizza leaves me hungry. I want 10 more slices! The cure is high nutrient food that tastes great and doesn’t require an all day slaving in the kitchen.

The purpose is to teach you some basic concepts of diet fusion but most importantly, make it easy, and make it taste good! I’m not going to put in tons of spices that you don’t know the name of because it can be intimidating. For those who love food, love the process and make it the main event in their life, this book is for you as well. I do not sacrifice on taste. If I had to eat bland food, I couldn’t sustain my weight loss of over 60 pounds. When I do make high nutrient dishes, it’s an investment.

What do I mean? If I spend the time making food, it better be the gift that keeps on giving. I want to spend 45 minutes making something that taste great and then be able to have it over time. I’ll make a soup that will last me for a few days in the fridge and I can freeze the rest. I’ll make a staple to a salad that will last for days and I can grab anytime I want to make something. If I’m going to soak beans, I’m going to soak a lot of them so they are in the fridge waiting for me.

When I first mentioned this concept to my husband, he remarked that it reminded him of an Indonesian story he read when he was young of a rice bowl that was always filled with food to help feed hungry villagers. It was a gift from the gods. The book was called ‘The Magic Pot’.

I’m here to give you your "magic fridge". Because I have one and it’s the way I sustain my good habits.

-- You will start to see yourself eat well because it’s easy to do so with these tricks and recipes.

-- You will start to feel full because you’re eating nutrient rich foods.

-- You will have the process of ways to make vegetables taste great de-mystified.

-- You’ll make small steps because it’s easy to and you’ll start to discover flavors and foods that you never thought you’d like. And they become a big part of your life. 

Sample Recipe, (Inspired by Beau at The Food Shack In Jupiter, Florida)

How To Create The Magic Fridge:

...And make it the gift that keeps on giving

I’ll introduce a few kitchen tools that I could not do without: you don’t have to get the fancy stainless steel version and after you have them you’ll wonder how you ever did without it.

The most important thing is that you’ll learn what you like and you’ll understand how to find great tasting nutrient rich foods when you’re out and about in your day.

If you discover that you like tomatoes and onions and avocado, you’ll start to look for these combinations and you’ll find them. One of my favorite “go -to” places is Chipotle. This chain has spread like a weed and you can almost always find one. I order the beans, salsa, extra tomatoes and guacamole and while it’s not full of greens, it’s delicious and it gives me energy.

One important note: I make every effort to eat in a nutrient rich way 80% of the time. 20% of the time, I go with the flow. I don’t want to be one of those annoying people who says I’m on a diet, I can’t have that. So when I’m out at my children’s carnival at school and they only have hamburgers, hotdogs and chips, I don’t have to leave. I make the best choice for me (and I’ll show you what that is) and that falls into the 20% of my day that I practice the portion control part of the equation.

*****If I can leave you with one thing: no one knows your body better than you do. No one knows what gives you energy and makes you feel so excited you can’t stand it better than you do. Just because someone tells you to eat in a certain way (including me!), still question if this is right for you. Try something, see if it works for you and modify it as needed. This has been the only characteristic I have seen from everyone who has lost weight and kept it off and not been starving, or a slave to discipline. They’ve found what works for them and they’ve kept doing it.

Use this as a guide and tell me what works and what doesn’t and feel free to send new things. I’ll include them in the next version.

A final note: All the pictures were taken in my kitchen. I could have gotten a food stylist and made beautiful perfect looking foods, spices and dishes but you already see that everywhere and sometimes that’s what makes you think you can’t do it yourself. I don’t have a nanny or a personal chef. I am married with 2 young children and I run a business and I want to be lean and fit but most importantly eat for health and energy.

Everything you see here is what I make and what I do on a daily basis. It’s for you to do right now, within your constraints and busy schedule so that you can truly have it all.

Your Magic Fridge:

The way to being full and losing weight

I founded PEERtrainer in 2004 after realizing that after the height of my pregnancy weight, 185, I had only lost 20 pounds. After months of being at 165, it was evident that the myth of breastfeeding was only a myth, and I wasn’t going to be one of the lucky ones. I knew what to do. I just wasn’t doing it. A friend and I started emailing our daily food and workout habits back and forth with the hope that this would provide the accountability we needed. Two other friends joined us and the first “PEERtrainer group” was born. Buddy up and slim down worked.

One Final Thing: About PEERtrainer

We’ve helped people over the years and our success stories have been featured all over the press, in PEOPLE and Good Morning America. PEERtrainer has become a weight loss lab of sorts, with the collective sharing what works for them. There is no one person or approach that works. I’m not the end all. No one is. You have to learn the basics and make it work for you. I have finally lost all of the pregnancy weight and a few more. I’m 5’5 and I’m between 120 and 123 pounds and I don’t live in the gym. I don’t have rock hard abs and I’m ok with that. I’m more comfortable with my body than I ever was at 20. In these pages you’ll see who I am and how I did it. This is just part 1 because if there’s one thing I’ve learned, the more you learn when it comes to food and nutrition, the more you realize you don’t know. I love it though. I love figuring it out and learning something, just one little tool that will change how I do things.

-- Jackie Wicks, cofounder, PEERtrainer

Permanent Control

How Does This Work?

PEERtrainer's "Permanent Control" is a program that is designed to help people who experience frustration at not being in full control of their eating. The program consists of 8 short audio calls that you can download.

Over the course of the 8 short sessions we introduce to you a series of ideas that are designed to completely change how you think about your eating habits by leading you through an exploration of your own emotions. There is also an emotional eating support group that you are invited to join.

We observe that most people who suffer from this phenomenon display excellent discipline in other areas of their life. Not being in control of your eating can manifest itself in the following ways:

Emotional Eating

Night Eating

Stress Eating

Mindless Snacking

Binge Eating

These are unscientific terms, and there are other approaches out there that seek to pathologize these behaviors and assign scientific categorization. This program does not do that. (And there are other programs we can recommend for that) Instead, we approach these behaviors from a problem solving perspective. And in our view, one of the most important things that we can communicate is that these behaviors do not need to be a permanent condition.

We use the skills you have successfully learned and used in other aspects of your life, and teach you how this is just another problem.

What Should I Expect Out Of This Program?

The most important thing we hope to accomplish to end the frustration that comes when you feel like nothing works, you always go back to square one and as a result feel hopeless.

How Does The PEERtrainer Emotional Eating Program Work?

When you sign up, you are immediately sent an email that contains a link to an audio call, where the PEERtrainer coaching team introduces you to some key concepts. You will also be asked what your specific area of focus is. This helps us further tailor the program. We also want to know how much information you want to absorb, and at what rate. With email programs like this it can be easy to feel like you are "falling behind."

The intention is to introduce the information at the appropriate pace and reinforce the information at the appropriate pace. For those of you who are new to PEERtrainer, we have a extremely deep body of knowledge and experience in this area. And we know that people like information served in "bite sizes", maybe a couple times a week. We may create a more "intense" version of the program for people who want that.

What Are People Saying About This Program So Far?

"Thank you so much for your support. I am truly amazed that I have stumbled on to this program. I think it is amazing, and to think you give of yourself to help others is awesome!"

"Thanks for all of your help. I really appreciate it. This mini-series is great, and I'd love more like this! Since starting PEERtrainer, the numerous suggestions, emails, calls, have really helped me separate my emotional concerns from my food choices. Instead, I check in every morning to myself, "how am I feeling today?" and answer the question, pondering it over for a little while, and thinking why I feel the way I do. Sometimes I can find an explanation but other times I cant, and that's okay. I have lost about 25lbs as well! Thank you for your help!"

"I have been sharing all of the ideas that you provide with the folks I coach. so many folks. so many triggers for emotional and night eating. we're getting some good responses on the practical ways of detecting, and rechanneling the triggers. It continues to be of great value."

"I'm doing VERY well, I call on the skills and ideas I learned regularly and please know that I encourage others to use the program...listening repeatedly to the installments is part of my routine now as my selection is guided by whatever challenges I feel I'm facing at the moment."

"Love this series -- thank you so much! The piece that has spoken to me in particular this time around is the difference been "want to" and "decide to." Don't know why I hadn't made this distinction before, but it's very helpful."

"I have learned that emotional eating does not have to be a part of my identity, and the program has helped me to realize that there are alternatives to emotional eating."

"The EE program is totally helping me. My awareness level of my problem is at an all time high and understanding where my EE is coming from makes it so much easier to not give in to it."

"Emotional eating is just not an issue anymore. I wish I could tell you what has made the change, but I am getting results and that's all that matters I guess. :) My life has truly changed. It's like the perfect storm....Everything--these emails, the PEERtrainer community, the tools and inspiration I am getting from the Point Of No Return program--have all come together to make a difference in my life. I have lost 10 pounds since I began PONR and like I said, emotional eating is just not an issue anymore. It's incredible. Thank you."

"I love how do-able this program is. All I can say is thank you, thank you, thank you. Keep it up." 

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