Morgan
MICHAEL MORGAN, born in the United Kingdom to Jamaican parents, is the originator of the increasingly popular Ketosis diet - or the Atkin's for Blacks.
The diet, as he has designed it, is primarily made up of spicy Jamaican foods, but has proven to be very popular with dieters of all nationalities.
The web site, http://www.ketosis.co.uk/ has clocked over 800,000 hits in its first two days offers weight loss information, recipes and exercises from an afrocentric perspective.
How did Morgan, a web designer, get involved in marketing a weight loss programme? According to him, his new programme came out of his own trial and error experience in seeking to lose weight.
He told Outlook, "Basically after spending 15 years trapped in a fat suit... I tried Slim Fast, everything, potions and lotions." Nothing worked.
When Atkins came along, he tried the high protein diet, but it was too bland. "Beef with butter is not really appetising not something that can be sustained over a long time. Chicken with black pepper was disgusting."
Morgan then decided to look at the foods he ate on a daily basis. It was at this point that he came up with the idea of using Jamaican foods as the basis of the high protein, low carbohydrate diet.
"I said why not cut down the carbohydrates and leave in favourites like jerk chicken with vegetables," he said.
The web engineer was 15 stones which clinically is classed as obese. On his new Jamaican diet, he lost two stones in six weeks. In total he has now lost three stones, which he says is his target weight. The change, he said, has had a major impact on his life.
"Before the programme I suffered from fatigue, heart palpitations, indigestion and night sweats due to carrying excess weight." He claims that since shedding these pounds his self-esteem has soared as has his health. "Now I am able to cycle 120 miles a week without breaking a sweat, clothes cling to me instead of bulging. My energy levels have increased dramatically. I no longer suffer from the dips in low blood sugar at different parts of the day that caused me to feel sleepy."
The most important aspect of his experience, he says, is that he has developed a programme that is proven based on its results and additionally, "it is the only programme in the world that focuses solely on the dietary needs, cuisine and perspectives of black people."
Morgan, whose mother was born in Manchester Eglington, and whose father is from St. Thomas Mt. Lebanous, has incorporated in his Ketosis plan, many recipes detailed in his book, which were developed by his mother. Delicious ackee and saltfish and jerk are just two of these.
Although the plan has been specifically targeted at blacks, the demographics of the people responding to his programme straddles racial and national lines.
Users include people in the United Kingdom, the United States, Australia and Saudi Arabia.
Morgan, who is now in Jamaica promoting his programme, told Outlook that he has little time to waste on those who may believe that his programme is just a take off from the more established Atkins diet.
He said, "This is about long-term weight loss. You must use food that you love on a daily basis. In order to sustain weight loss you have to introduce a programme which can be used day in, day out."
The usefulness of his Ketosis diet is the edge that distinguishes it from the rest.
The diet which is combined with taebo exercises to the beat of African music, "has been received as a breath of fresh air." No longer, Morgan says, do blacks have to be satisfied with diets which are totally European in perspective.
Morgan notes, also, that the original Atkins diet does not emphasise the integral part of exercise. "No point in fixing the house and the inside is still run down."
Addressing also the concern over the effect of high protein diets on the kidneys and liver, he said that as long as dieters drank adequate amounts of water, the products of fat loss will not remain in he body, but will be passed out.
- Avia Ustanny
