Diet Foundation Part II

As I discussed in my last post, I firmly believe the success to any change in healthy living is to get yourself in the right frame of mind. Regardless of what your goal is - be it to lose weight, or to become a chiseled pillar of muscle and sweat, or just to change your eating habits - change is only successful if one lays a good foundation for healthier living. Step one in laying a good foundation, I believe, is to get away from the word 'diet' and move towards the thought of a change in lifestyle. Step two is to never, under any circumstances, make your lifestyle changes for anyone else but YOURSELF! If you're making these changes to please someone else, or because someone else told you to, you're creating a recipe for failure. If you walked by the magazine stand at the grocery store, saw the latest Hollywood tabloid featuring the body of your favorite movie star, and decided you ought to look like him/her, then you might as well not even get started. It won't take long before you begin to realize that you are working so hard for all the wrong reasons. Brad Pitt doesn't care what you look like. Jennifer Aniston couldn't care, either. Your Mom or significant other does care, but they love you (or should) for who you are, not what you look and/or feel like. The desire to change has to come from deep down inside in places you don't talk about at parties, people. There are many reasons for changing one's view on healthy living, but for me, it was simply a desire to feel better. Sure, I want to look good, too, but really, I just want to feel better. I woke up one morning and realized just how tired I was of not being able to physically do some of the things that others could do. I realized that I wanted to be around a long time to enjoy my grand kids, sit on the front porch watching the sunset with my wife, and do lots of traveling during retirement. Mentally and physically, I just needed to feel better. Those personal desires led to an overwhelming feeling of a need for change, and I'm following through because I want to seek out those changes. I've tried to make changes for others in the past, and it might have been a successful run for awhile, but eventually I become bored or even resentful at working so hard to make others happy.

So, to recap, I've suggested a foundation of thought that has worked for me in the war on fat. First, I got myself into a refreshing frame of mind, which is not to go on a diet, but rather make a healthy, permanent, lifestyle change. Second, I'm not doing this for anyone else but myself! Sure, others will support, encourage, and advise me throughout the battle, but I am ultimately doing this for no one else but myself. Please understand that what I have talked about thus far are only my suggestions. I'm not a doctor, or otherwise an expert on weight loss, exercise, or healthy living. I am but a person whom has been overweight my entire life, and have tried just about every stinking diet or weight loss program in existence, in some form or another. I have found something that seems to be working now, and I just have a good feeling that the sound advice I am following will become more permanent than anything I've tried in the past. Hey, I'm down over 20 pounds in 5 weeks. Good luck - and please keep me posted on your trials and tribulations!!!