Weight loss and common sense

While doing my daily run-through of news articles related to health, wellness, and fitness (this is actually part of my job, so it's only partly slacking off.... whereas stopping to blog about it is completely slacking off), I came across this article on MSN.ca which I really needed to share.

Living Large: Gaining Back the Weight Once Lost

The premise of the article is about a woman who successfully dieted from a size 32 down to a size 6, and gained a great deal of fame and attention for her success; however, within three years, she had regained over half that weight. Her explanation? She is "biologically condemned" and suffers from a "raging addiction to high-fructose corn syrup" which triggers the same dopamine reaction in her brain as, say cocaine would for a drug addict. Those who manage to lose weight successfully and keep it off, she argues, are just biologically gifted or very, very lucky, or "work so hard at it that it's become their life."

If you read on in the article, however, her method for losing her weight: "a spectacularly rigid no-sugar, no-flour, no-snacking diet."

I think I just found the flaw in her weight loss plan.

In all the drivel she spouted, she got one thing right. Those people that succeed? They work so hard at it that it becomes their life. But only because they design plans that can become their life. Weight loss shouldn't be extreme self-deprivation. It's about long-lasting lifestyle alterations. If you can't see yourself doing it for the rest of your life - how many of us could live without flour and sugar for the rest of our lives - then why do you think a weight-loss program based on those principles is going to be successful?

Their is no trick or easy fix to weight loss - and no need to buy into the "weight loss industry" that apparently wants us all to be on that roller-coaster. Just take your ideas about weight loss, combine them with a little common sense, and start moving forward.