Does that mean that if you want to lose weight all you have to do is meditate, or sit and think yourself thin? No, I’m afraid it’s not that easy. But successful weight loss is not easy and imagining that it is, is the reason so many people fail at it.
Education is geared around examinations, but no one expects to pass an exam with just a few weeks work. The training for examinations is measured in years. The reward for the effort that goes into passing an exam comes in the years that follow.
Losing weight is about attitude, understanding your body, and most importantly, understanding your mind. It is about learning new skills, and undergoing training too.
If you are serious about changing your body shape and size then you need to take the whole thing seriously and, rather than jumping on the latest celebrity diet bandwagon, recognise that what you need is a lifestyle change. It’s a bit like going to live in another country. They have different social rules and expectations, there is a different language to learn, and it will take a while before you feel part of it.
When you don’t allow yourself the luxury of taking time to learn the new rules that will ensure your success – then you will fail. When you want it all over in two months – you will fail to keep the weight off.
There is no way round this.
The vast majority of people who diet regain all of the weight they lost, plus more, within twelve months of reaching their target. Around half of people who diet give up within a couple of months of starting.
The reason for this huge failure rate is twofold:
- There is a multi-billion dollar diet industry that needs you to keep on failing in order for It to survive.
- Unless you take the time to understand your body and your mind, you will never, ever keep the weight off for any length of time.
The diet industry needs your money. It is a huge business. The only way it continues to make money is by ensuring you fail. It cannot sell you a new diet every year, if you haven’t regained the weight you lost from the last diet. It can’t sell you club memberships over and over again, unless you keep failing. It can’t sell you a magical new piece of hi-tech home gym equipment, unless the last bit of kit has been abandoned.
You are fighting this constantly. This industry bombards you with messages that cause you to feel uncomfortable about your body shape, and promises magical solutions that promise the world and do nothing. But you keep on buying into the diet thing, and the exercise machine thing, and the weight club thing because they tell you that that is the only way you can have the body you want.
It is a lie.
My book How to Lose Weight Easily – and Free Yourself from Diets Forever is the first step you need to take in order to begin that process of understanding your body and how you can work with it to lose the weight you need to lose.
Michael