Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Short-Term Fix or Long-Term Solution?

Whether or not you plan to get up early and watch the Royal Wedding this week (I don't plan to), it's hard to escape the coverage of every aspect of this event.  It was no surprise that I even ran across a couple of articles that discussed the diet that Kate and others in the wedding party supposedly used to drop a few pounds before the big day.

I always cringe a bit when I see an article posted about the "dieting secrets" of famous people or Hollywood stars because I am sure that most of the "secrets" are just a collection of fad, even dangerous, diets, and because I know that somebody somewhere will decide to give it a try.

Whether it's a soon-to-be princess, a Hollywood star or just an average person, people are looking for a way to lose weight, and many are focused on the results and not the process.  When a person is focused only on the results, and when those results are short-term, they can do some pretty foolish things.  I read an article a while back about a Hollywood star who wanted to lose twenty pounds quickly for a movie role.  She said, "I lived on water, cayenne pepper and maple syrup for 14 days. It was tough; everyone was eating and I was dying."  Can you guess what she did after she lost the weight?   "After that I ate waffles, fried chicken, cheeseburgers, french fries, everything I could find. That was the best time of my life. I've gained twelve pounds."

Here's what happened:  she went on a dangerous crash diet, endangering her health, in order to drop some weight very quickly.  She lost muscle as part of her weight loss, then went back to very unhealthy eating and gained twelve pounds of fat.  What she did was increase her percentage of fat, decrease her percentage of muscle, slowing down her metabolism and making it more difficult to lose weight the next time.

For us to be successful for the long term, we obviously need a very different strategy :-).  When I finally acknowledged that I had to lose weight for my health, I wasn't looking for another fad diet (I'd done plenty of those).  I didn't want to make myself more ill in the process of trying to lose weight, and I wanted a program that would help me to safely lose weight AND help me keep it off.  That is exactly what Take Shape for Life/Medifast is designed to do, and that's exactly what this program did for me!  Thirty years of successfully helping people lose weight, with the safety and efficacy proven through multiple independent clinical studies, reassured me that this program was solid.

I don't know if you started this program because you were looking for a short-term, quick fix, or if you started because you were ready to make a permanent change in your weight and your health.  Regardless of what prompted you to start, you made a wise choice when you chose Take Shape for Life/Medifast!  Even if you were looking for a quick fix to get you into your swimsuit in a few weeks, please know that by embracing this program and following the protocols, you can not only safely get the weight off quickly, but you can keep it off.  Better than that, you have begun a journey that will help you stay healthier for the rest of your life!

That journey continues today, with the choices that you'll make.  Choose wisely :-)

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