What If Weight Loss Is Simpler Than You Think?

If you've gone to battle against your weight and won, I'm sure someone has asked you (at least once) how you did it. A lot of people don’t like the answers …

I ate healthy real foods.I ate less.I exercised.
Cue the eye-rolling, the yawns, looks of boredom, and the defeated sighs.
Losing weight in what’s dubbed the old fashioned way—eat less, exercise more—isn’t sexy. 
Eating real foods, reducing portions and exercising more doesn’t lead to overnight success. It’s not a quick fix. Results happen with a daily commitment to hard work and healthy decisions.
While you might think people would be excited when they find out that exercise and eating healthy works for weight loss, it also means if they want to lose weight the healthy way, they have to commit to change. That’s not easy for a lot of people. If they can say things like, Nothing works or I’ve tried everything, then they have excuses to stay the way they are.

Hard work, works. 
Sometimes people don’t like hearing that hard work works. It means they'll have to get out of bed in the morning and lace up those sneakers. It means they can’t limitlessly indulge in the office potluck or eat a piece of cake every time someone at work has a birthday. Hard work entails exercising even on those days when you don’t feel like it and skipping the junk food. Sometimes that isn’t what people want to hear. 
There is no magic diet plan or pill.  
Healthy eating is something you have to put your mind to by thinking about what to buy at the store and what to prepare. It takes some effort. Coming to grips with the fact that eating healthy works, means you have to give up on all the quick fixes. There is no magic wand that makes you instantly fit. There isn’t a detailed plan outlining every food at every meal. 
Prepackaged meals aren’t delivered right to your door. You have to give up the notion that you can go on the latest diet craze for a few weeks. Healthy eating is a life change, not something you go on temporarily. Lots of people don’t want to hear that either.
It cracks me up that people groan when they hear people lost weight eating right and exercising. They could easily choose to view it completely differently. They could start with, If she can do it, so can I. Or, I can do that. 
And instead of viewing all the scary change that is ahead, look for yummy, healthy recipes and embark on a journey to see how strong they can make their bodies. It can be exciting, not full of drudgery.
Sure, there probably won’t be confetti raining down on your head when you step on the scale to see your goal weight staring back at you, but imagine how victorious you'll feel when you can say to friends: “I did it by eating healthy and exercising.”

Photo Credit: Shutterstock.com

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