How To Lose Weight And Keep It Off

Great post about weight loss vs fat loss, why diets fail, and how to keep weight off permanently post diet period. Check out the 'KSuccess Blog'.

Rodger is currently hosting a Physical Fitness & Weight Loss Challenge. It started some time ago and is still open and the information alone is worth heading on over and checking out.

Back to the article link and a little teaser for you:

SMART Weight Loss - How to Lose Weight and Keep It Off

Did you know that as many as 95% of all diets fail to produce long-term weight loss? I don’t know about you, but that seems like a pretty dismal success rate to me. Why is losing weight and keeping it off such a difficult challenge?

Now, before you tell me all about your friend Joan who went on the XYZ diet and lost 30 pounds in 2 months, you have to be clear about what success means when it comes to weight loss and dieting.

It turns out that losing weight is generally NOT the problem. In fact, most overweight people will find that they can lose weight using almost any popular diet. The real problem is keeping the weight off after you’ve lost it.

That’s where most diets fail to deliver, and usually leads to the “yo-yo” dieting vicious cycle that can wreak havoc on your sanity!

In this article, I’ll show you why most diets actually set you up for failure right from the start. I’ll also show you an alternative way to lose weight based on a strategy that I have been using successfully over the past 10 months. It took me a while to figure out the best way to go about it, but that means that you won’t have to go through the same trial-and-error process that I did.

My Own Struggles with Weight Loss

A few years after finishing college, I started eating more and stopped exercising as much as I used to. Not surprisingly, my weight slowly started to go up.

About six years ago, I reached my peak of about 170 pounds, which clearly put me into the “overweight” category based on my height. I didn’t necessarily feel fat, but I was definitely overweight.

Since then, I’ve tried to lose the weight three times.

The first time was about four and a half years ago. My strategy then was to follow a traditional “diet” and eat less food to create a caloric deficit. I would often skip breakfast altogether, or have just a small piece of fruit.

Using this approach, I felt hungry a good portion of the day, particularly in the morning. I could hear my stomach rumble while I was trying to do work. I got cravings for food nearly every day. I definitely did not enjoy the experience.

This “diet” only lasted for about 3 months. My weight did drop down to about 165 pounds, but it quickly went back up after I stopped dieting.

My second weight loss attempt was about three years ago. At that point, I had started playing racquetball regularly 3 times a week. The regular exercise from racquetball helped me get my weight down to about 166 pounds. Then, I tried going on another diet to get my weight down even more.

After about 4 months, I finally broke 160 pounds for a single day! Unfortunately, I had the same problems sticking to this diet as I did before, and I never reached my target of 158 pounds. To make matters worse, I dropped one of my regular racquetball days because the gym was too crowded and ended up going back up to about 167 pounds.

I started my third attempt on March 2006. This time, I didn’t want to have the same poor results that I experienced before, so I changed my strategy.

I’m very confident that this time I’ll be able to lose the weight and keep it off long-term because I’ve already reached and surpassed my original target weight of 158 pounds. Plus, I have kept the weight off for well over 3 months.

So far, I’m down to about 155 . . .

Read more . . .