Lose Weight and Keep it Off - Guaranteed!

A few days ago I edited a website designed to sell a weight-loss book. It was and is a lousy website, but at least now it doesn't have any mispellings or grammatical errors.

The theme throughout the entire website was that you could lose weight *without effort*. No need to diet, no need to exercise, no need to deprive yourself. All you need to know is this one 'secret' and you'll lose weight.

And that of course is garbage. Or rubbish - for my UK readers.

And that is why most people who try to diet and lose weight fail. And will continue to fail.

The culture today - in the States at least - is that nothing must take any effort. Hard work is not to be encouraged. It's not the fact that you're sitting on a couch watching TV and eating cookies all day long that's got you overweight, it's the fact that you stop in at those nasty McDonalds and eat their food - so *they've* got to change the way they make it.

Well, I'm not prepared to give an opinion on how healthy the food at McDonalds or other fast food restaurants is.

But I do know that if people are going to successfully lose weight, and successfully keep that weight off, the ONLY way to do so is by making a complete life-style change. And yes, it's going to be hard work to start with, but so what?

The emphasis on 'never feeling hungry, don't kill yourself exercising, don't make any effort, just lose weight' - is EXACTLY the reason why 99% of all people who want to lose weight fail. They want it to be easy, they expect it to be easy because they read the advertisements that promise them it will be easy - and when it turns out they actually have to make some kind of an effort, they get discouraged, and continue to wait - and weight - around until someone actually does invent an effortless way to lose weight.

But the only way to lose weight, and keep it off, is to make a complete lifestyle change. To stop doing the things that cause you to gain unwanted weight.

There is no need for fad diets, of course. Eat what you want to eat --- just eat it in moderation. Get out and exercise or play a game for 30 minutes a day. The main thing to do is give up pop like Coke or Pepsi. I hate to say this, being a Pepsi drinker myself, but if you're overweight and you drink more than 5 Pepsis a day - give up those Pepsis and don't make any other changes and indeed you will lose weight.

(I have to say that because I managed to give up Pepsis for 3 months and indeed did lose weight, then I went off the wagon and it all came back. What can I say - I love my Pepsis too much.)

And that's a cautionary tale. People who drink coffee know it's easy to get addicted to coffee - you can't do anything before your first cup in the morning. For me it's the same with Pepsi. Try to keep your kids from drinking anything but *real* fruitjuice with no sugar added...and they probably won't have problems in later life.

Having said that, I'm all for leaving candy and pop machines in schools. For goodness sakes, this is the US of A. Government doesn't have the right to tell us what we can eat, how we have to prepare our food, how much we can or cannot weigh.
If the government really wants to get its Big Brother paws on everything, they should clamp down on the media that perpetuates the idea that women should be skeletally thin at all times, and that their only role in life is to please men. Get rid of that insidiousness and a lot of the problems - in the Western world, at any rate, would be over.

If you are legitimately overweight, and want to lose weight, more power to you. It's going to be a battle. Accept that it's going to be a battle. You might have to feel hungry every day for a while, until your stomach acclimates. Just accept it. When you feel hungry you know you're losing weight. Drink a lot of water to fill up your stomach to dull the hunger pains, realize that once your stomach gets used to eating less it will soon stop making you feel so hungry, etc. etc.

Depressed people have a harder time losing weight than happy people. That's because food provides comfort. So that can make it tough as well. Try to get your comfort by buying and reading a good book instead, or watching a fun TV show.

Stay away from fad diets, fad supplements, fad this and that. You can lose weight, as long as you accept that it's going to take effort. Make the effort, and you'll be glad you did.