It sounds simple enough doesn't it? You burn more calories than you take in in order to lose weight. To gain weight you burn fewer calories than you take in and to maintain weight you balance calories eaten with calories burned. If only weight management were that easy in real life. But it is not. So how do you find out how to lose weight fast?

Obesity On The News

We have all heard the statistics that one-third of adults, 72 million people, are obese. We have probably also heard that 16% of children are obese, that more and more kids are getting lifestyle diseases like diabetes II, high blood pressure, and high cholesterol at younger and younger ages. It has been said that today's youth will be the first generation not to outlive their parents in more than a hundred years.

Beating Ourselves Up

It is no secret that being overweight sets you up for a myriad of health problems. We know in our heads that it would be best if we achieved some fat burning. Still, many do not even try. Others try and regain the weight. Some people develop eating disorders and laxative addictions. Why does it not seem to matter that we can die at an earlier age? Part of the answer is that food is more than just something we eat to stay alive.

Just Give It Up

Should we all resign ourselves to being fat, live as long as we can and enjoy it or should we keep up the struggle to be thin? The answer is somewhere in the middle. Before we go on one more diet program with expectations that we will be perfectly able to follow the diet 100%, stop. We are already setting ourselves up for failure and we have not even begun yet. Nobody does anything to the level of perfectly for 100% of the time. Would you expect your best friend to do that? No? Then why do you expect it of yourself?

Looking At Things Differently

What if we re-framed our expectations to something more reasonable? Let's look at the issue from another angle. Percentages. Could you eat healthy foods 50% of all of your meals in a day or a week? What about 60% of meals? 75%? Could you eat healthy for 90% of your meals? What is the highest percentage of meals you think you could reasonably achieve with a minimum of stress and anxiety? Start there. Increase that percentage over time until you are eating healthy 90% of your meals. That means you ultimately have 10% wiggle room built right into your eating plan.

Now do the same thing with exercise. Could you exercise for five minutes, 10 minutes, an entire half hour one or two days a week? Find what works for you without provoking a huge anxiety response and build from there until you are working out 30 minutes for at least five days per week.

Take Care Of Yourself