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On January 21st, 2010, I weighed 247 pounds. On March 14th, 2010, I weighed 226 pounds. What I was doing was working and something I could keep doing long-term.

There is no need to jump to the back of this book for the conclusion. The way I lost weight was by reducing my carbohydrate intake. There, now we can talk about what this entails and how an average guy like me went about doing it.

Yeah, yeah, we’ve all heard stories about these fad diets like Atkins and South Beach or insert fad diet here. My hope is to dispel some of the myths behind these stories and to get you, esteemed reader, to research for yourself the effects of carbohydrates in an overweight person. I’m not promoting the “Matt James Diet.” I’m not going to try to sell you a bunch of frozen dinners, or make you use a point system. I don’t really want my own talk show, and you probably won’t see me on Oprah’s favorite book list. After researching the subject, I found that there is a lot riding on most people not knowing what actually controls our weight. The diet industry is huge. Any data that can prove you don’t need them is, needless to say, bad for their bottom line—yes, even Atkins.

Okay, I have a disclaimer first. I assume if you bought or borrowed this book, you have a weight problem, so disclaimer: I do not promise that you will lose all the weight you want to lose. In fact, I do not promise you will lose a significant portion of your weight. The fact of the matter is DNA plays a lot larger role in our weight than most of us have been told or believe. I do not know your DNA personally, or socially for that matter, so I cannot tell you how your body will react to a reduced carb lifestyle. I can only tell you what I did and what those results have been.

It must also be said that I am talking about “healthy” bodies. If you have a disease of some kind that prevents certain functions to, well, function properly, do not follow the advice of this book. If you have problems with your liver or kidneys, that is far above my pay-grade. If your issue, however, relates to your thyroid, a low-carb diet may help stabilize your weight. I am also speaking about people who accumulate fat relatively easily, so fat people, not the naturally thin.

Like I said, I’m an average guy, or at least think I am. I like sports (go Bruins, Sox, Pats and Celts!), women, and food (what else is new?). Since you aren’t buying me dinner, I won’t bore you with more details about my personal life except, of course, the whole weight loss thing.

This book smashes a few commonly held beliefs about fat accumulation. For instance, we do not get fat because we overeat or are lazy or whatever combination of the two you want to use. Also, the calories-in/calories-out paradigm is wrong. Strong words I know, but words that need to be said. There are also many health issues related to high-carbohydrate diets that we are becoming more aware of as time goes by and more research is conducted. I don’t want to scare the guys, but erectile dysfunction can be one of these issues.

Conventional diets of the low-calorie/low-fat variety, in many cases, can be detrimental to your physical and mental health. Many semi-starvation diets lead to binge eating, depression, and a whole host of other negative symptoms that severely affect our daily lives.

These are extremely important issues and some of the reasons why I decided to write this book. Hopefully, it helps a number of people along the way.

This book is laid out in a pretty straightforward manner. I am going to tell you my story first with some facts and myths interspersed along the way. After that, I’ll get technical or as technically layman (oxymoron alert!) as I can be. Our bodies are extremely complex.

Disclaimer number two: I am not a doctor and have not been trained at any medical school, although I’ve passed them on the highway. I’m also not a nutritionist, a fitness trainer, a gypsy, or a Communist. I cannot stress this enough (especially the Communist part). I am just some guy that lost a lot of weight by reducing my carb intake. I think you can too.