How To Use The Book:

The first piece of advice I will give is the comment my father Carson Ashworth made to me when he read the book.  He told me to make sure to tell the reader they need to get through the pages dedicated to the different disorders.  Those pages contain alot of medical information, but it is information that the reader needs to understand.  It has been written in an easy to understand format.  My father suggested reading the book cover to cover the first time through, bookmarking the important issues you believe pertain to you.

It is vital to understand that many disorders at first glance may look like exactly what you have.  But when you read the next disorder a few of the symptoms that may have been missing in your self examination will be present there.  This is the reason why doctors live by what we call a "differential diagnosis" way of coming up with what may be wrong with a person.  We list the most suspect disorders at the top of the list, and then list some of the more unlikely (or zebras) further on down the list.  I mention zebra because if it sounds like hoof beats it's probably a horse and not a zebra.  This simply means the more common disorders show up more commonly.

With that being said it is still vitally important that you the reader make sure your doctor looks at all of the possibilities so nothing is overlooked.  It will work the same with this book.  I want each reader to read the entire book and come up with their own "differential diagnosis" if you will.  In order to do this the reader will need to have atleast read all of the more commonly known disorders that contribute to the disease of obesity.  Fortunately all of those disorders are listed in the book.  This will make it more likely that your doctor will listen to what they are saying.  For most physicians there is little worse than a patient that shows up at the clinic with a book in hand, or magazine article telling them how to practice medicine.  But there is simply no denying that this obesity epidemic is obviously out of control and worsening.  Tell the doctor the book was written by a medical weight loss doctor with the sole purpose of helping you the reader help him/her, the doctor understand weight loss more fully.

Doctors need to understand that patients' are going to start taking some control over their health care.  In this case the reader will not be telling the doctor how to treat them, as much as giving them some useful information that may make it easier for that doctor to help their patient get healthy quicker.  If the doctor has a closed ear to this then it may be time to look for a different doctor more open to treat a disease of such importance.