When it comes to success on this program, the outcome is always determined by what we want. I've seen individuals who embrace this program from Day 1, follow the protocols and get to goal quickly, and I've seen others who struggle for a while and hit one bump after another, but who finally make the decision to get to goal - then they do. Sadly, I've also seen my fair share of individuals who get started, do well for a while, but eventually fall off and regain their weight.
So what's the difference between those who succeed, sooner or later, and those who don't? The individuals who embrace the program and reach their goal don't have more willpower or less temptations than anyone else. They've just figured out what they want and have made a decision to get there.
The bottom line is that if you really want to do something, you'll find a way. If you don't, you'll find an excuse.
I'm speaking from my own experience. I tried to lose weight on a myriad of other programs for over two decades, only to fail miserably time and time again. Some of the failure was undoubtedly due to the programs I tried - crazy, fad diets that weren't sustainable over time and threw my body so off-kilter that I didn't even feel well. However, there were other programs that had a decent track record and were relatively well-balanced, but I couldn't stick to those programs either. My bottom-line issue was that while I was interested in losing weight, I didn't want to lose it enough to do whatever I had to do to reach my goal. I wanted something that would somehow get me to a healthy weight without having to sacrifice anything. I wanted the results without the effort. For that reason, I eagerly followed news reports on FDA trials of new diet drugs, hoping that the next one out would be "it" and magically get me to goal while allowing me to continue my clearly unhealthy habits.
Because I was far more interested in losing weight than actually committed to doing so, it didn't take much for me to go off plan. Any social event, regardless of how small, was a reason. A stressful day at work? Well, that certainly made for a "no diet" day for me. Coming down with a cold? Poor baby - eat some chocolate and feel better. I could be perfectly on plan on a perfect day, but life is life and I was hard-pressed to ever have very many "perfect days" in a row. I kept kidding myself and telling myself that I wanted to lose weight - really I did - but my actions didn't support what I said I wanted. I always had an excuse - a good excuse - why I just couldn't stay on the diet "today."
By the time I started on Take Shape for Life/Medifast, I was really desperate. I had regained almost all of the 36 pounds I'd lost on my last diet attempt (took me almost 9 months to lose those 36 pounds and I managed to regain the weight in less than 6 months). My blood sugar was also going up and I knew my efforts to stay off of oral diabetic medications were coming to an end and that I'd soon be adding those to the other prescription medications I was on.
I didn't place my first order with a firm commitment to losing weight - it was more like grasping at straws. I didn't expect the program to work and, in fact, carefully researched the return policy because I thought I'd probably hate the food, feel hungry, and return everything. The only thing that initially kept me on plan was the cost, because I couldn't justify spending the money unless I was actually following the program.
The switch was flipped in my brain - finally - when I started to see the weight come off and realized that I actually felt great! I liked some of the food, wasn't so crazy about a few things, but realized that this was a program that could actually work - if I let it. It was at that moment that I made the decision to go for it and get to a healthy weight, and everything changed. I still had some of the same struggles as I'd always had - work was stressful, we had a lot of social events, I still got colds - but this time I figured out what I needed to do. Those things were no longer excuses.
So, the question today is: do you really want to get to a healthy weight? If so, if you've really made the decision to do that, if that is what you REALLY want, you'll find a way to do it, one day and one choice at a time. Make the decision, then choose wisely :-)
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