You are fat. Chubby, chunky, husky, robust, rotund, plump, portly, large, stout, stubby, blubbery, flabby: fat. Look in the mirror, at your pants size, on the scale. Perhaps it crept up on you one fast food lunch at a time. Maybe you’ve always been heavy. Either way, you’ve decided; today is your day. Your road to skinny starts now.
But how? There are the obvious answers. Diet, exercise, and eating right. Of course, you say. I knew you’d say that. I knew that. Everyone knows that. But really, how? What diet, which exercise? What if you fail? Well, you are going to be fat, same as now.
The hardest part on the journey to weight loss will not be in the gym. Sweating will not be what brings you down. Your downfall will come very slowly. You start off excited and energetic, and then the doubt will set in. Or maybe the worry, or the time constraints. What can you do to deal with all of these things? What is the miracle key to finally dropping the weight that is holding you down for so long? The answer is easy. The highway to thin just got a little less hard.
The single most important factor to making sure you lose weight successfully is this: determine why you’re doing it. Why is it that you want to lose weight? Of course you want to be healthy and look good, but what truly sparks your desire? Think long and hard: picture yourself slim. What are you doing, where are you going, what do you have on? This is your answer. Write it down in a journal. Flesh it out until it is precisely the moment you are working toward.
If you want to be healthier, more beautiful, and keep pace with your children, you ‘why’ may be “to roller blade at the park with your kids wearing your new pair of hot pants.” Make it real for yourself. Keep it in a journal somewhere. Write down at least 10 good ‘whys’. Now that you have them written they are in stone and easily referenced. Use these as motivation to continue on your journey and as a reminder of why you are doing what you are doing. Is it a vacation that you want?
An image of the small seat on European public transportation will remind you to stay on that treadmill. A Macy’s clothing catalog in the take out menu drawer will magically remind you how to make a salad. Your weight loss journey and the motivation it takes to be successful are very personal, but your ‘whys’ shouldn’t be. Share your ‘whys’ with the people closest to you. Telling other about your goals will give you just one more incentive to do well.
Whatever the ‘whys’ may be that you choose, your answer lies inside yourself. The reasons why you want to lose weight will be the driving forces behind your journey, and everything else that you do in your life. Your ‘why’ will wake you up in the morning and drag you to that treadmill, it will keep you from that drive through line at McDonald’s. Armed with your own personal secret weapon, you can make your weight loss dream a reality.
Dorthy Weatherbush has written many articles on the subject of diet and weight loss and is considered an expert in her field. She has written several review on the Medifast Diet and the benefits of using a meal replacement program like Medifast. She believes that they can be truly beneficial but should only be done under the care and watch of a physician.
