June 30

First of all, I want to start today's blog by wishing my mom and dad a happy 58th wedding anniversary!! They are still sweethearts and each other's best friends and their marriage has been a wonderful example for their four children as they have modeled love, mutual respect, and what it means to serve each other in love. I am so blessed to have them as my parents and I'm so thankful that they live five miles down the road from me and that I see them often.

Now on to today's musings :-)

They are out to get us. They're everywhere, and the mixed messages they send are enough to make us crazy! Who's the "they" I'm referring to? The media and the fast food industry - talk about a deadly pair!

What got me going on this were two internet ads, one above the other, on a local news home page yesterday. There was a large ad touting a program promising to remove 15 pounds in two weeks with some "secret" program, and directly above that ad was - unbelievably - an icon of the infamous golden arches. A simple "click" on the icon would bring you straight to a website with products that will most definitely NOT help people lose weight.

You and I see it every day - ads for every kind of fattening and unhealthy food you can imagine, often right next to the latest "lose weight quick" ad, next to a recipe for a high-calorie, high-fat dish, next to the latest warning from the medical community about the growing danger of obesity and obesity-related disease. Does this dichotomy make you as crazy at it makes me? What's a person to do? The information out there is confusing and contradictory! On the one hand, we're being repeatedly warned about the health risks of obesity, while on the other hand we are bombarded with ads for things that will make the obesity epidemic even worse - yikes!

Here's my suggestion (you just KNEW I'd have one, didn't you?!): Take a deep breath, read the medical community articles if you must, and then just ignore the recipes, the fast food ads, and particularly ignore the latest fad diet ads.

What most of us have figured out by now is that there is no magic diet that will melt away our excess weight while we sleep, or while we continue in our old and unhealthy patterns. Many of us have wasted way too much time and way too much money in a futile pursuit of something that doesn't exist.

Now for the good news!

You already have in your hands THE most clinically proven way to lose weight quickly and safely. You may or may not know that Medifast has been around for almost 30 years, that it is the program that Johns Hopkins uses for their own weight loss clinic, and that the safety and efficacy of this program is proven by multiple published studies by both Johns Hopkins and the National Institutes of Health. There is NO faster way to lose weight safely than the program you're on, but it goes way beyond losing the weight, because this program will also help you stay at your healthy weight.

Now that you have THE program in your hands, all you have to do is open 5 little packets today - how simple is that? The question is, will you open those 5 little packets today? Will you also commit to eating nothing else, except for your lean & green? If you do so, you'll be one day closer to your goal, and that's a promise that's supported with solid research! With the support of a Take Shape for Life health coach, you have a program and a product that will bring you safely and quickly to your goal, AND help you to stay there!

Feel better now?

Have a great, on-plan day!