Do You Really Want To Lose Weight?

Many people go through life “playing” at diets.

One week it’s the 1,000 calorie diet; the week after that sees the start of  the vegetarian diet… followed by the low calorie diet and then the very low calorie diet.

Eventually some may even try fasting. Unfortunately, at the end of all this dieting, the dieter finds that nothing has worked. ?The life of a “playing at diets” dieter proceeds as follows:

It’s Monday morning and Mrs Smith wakes up. Today is the day for a new diet. Strengthened with a cup of black coffee and enthusiasm, she starts her daily work.

By eleven o’clock, visions of foods loom large on the horizon. By twelve o’clock, hallucinations have set in, her blood sugar being so low that her body can no longer function.

After a lunch of lettuce, cottage cheese and perhaps a tomato, Mrs Smith continues with her daily work, but something is not quite right.

Perhaps a cup of tea with a little digestive biscuit might help. But maybe another digestive biscuit, because after all, she hasn’t eaten that much today.

After several more digestive biscuits, Mrs Smith comes to the conclusion that the diet has failed again. Come teatime, everything in sight is eaten.

After tea, settling down to a nice cosy evening by the television with the usual drinks, nuts, crisps and sweets, Mrs Smith looks back over the day. She finds she hasn’t done badly.

After all, she managed up until about two o’clock. Oh well, it’s too late now to start this week. Next Monday she’ll do better!?

This sounds amusing, but is it?

Do you recognise yourself? Many people who deviate from their diet, even slightly, become discouraged and stop altogether. These are the “playing at dieting” dieters. Very often, however, there is an underlying reason for this.

Some people just think they want to be slim, but deep down they feel that being slim will give them responsibilities which they do not have to bear now.

Perhaps they find it difficult to accompany their partners on social occasions. Perhaps being looked at with admiration is too much for them. Even the thought of them having a different physical appearance is frightening for some people. T

herefore, it’s easier to just pretend to diet, to say you’re dieting, even believe you’re dieting. You may even manage to persuade yourself that you want to diet, that you want to be slim, but, alas, experience has taught you that you were meant to be fat and that your metabolism is different from everybody else’s – in spite of what the doctor says, yours goes at a much slower rate than the norm. ?

So it follows that your lot in life is to be fat, not to be attractive, not to be so lucky as some people and have an attractive figure…and go places…and do things. The world is geared towards self-confident, slim people – not towards fatties like you!

This is the way that many people with a weight problem think. They forget their beautiful hair, their lovely eyes, their fine skin or their high intelligence. All they can see is this great fat mound of flesh. Whether it be half a stone or several stones, it is still a problem.  ?

? Some people think that their friend’s half a stone of excess weight is nothing. They’ll tell her “I wouldn’t worry if I were you. If I were like that I’d be happy.” Unfortunately, it doesn’t work like this. Half a stone can be just as distressing as several stones, it is unattractive, it is confidence undermining and it should not be there.

Laying aside for the moment the physical discomforts which accompany being overweight,  just  think of the mental ones: some people feel they have to apologise for their existence, they feel inferior, self conscious. These attitudes really can undermine everything that an overweight person does