For many of us, deciding on a weight loss program for optimal weight loss and weight control is an annual exercise (pun intended) in futility.  Futility, because we most often start without a realistic plan or end point. 

We want to lose the weight, but we haven’t really committed to losing the wait!  Get it?

We have to decide that we no longer want to wait for the perfect easy answer to our weight-prayers.  While waiting to magically and permanently become that perfect size _____ (fill in the blank), most of you will gain several more pounds.

Losing the “wait” is really what it’s all about.  Once you commit to getting rid of the “wait” and are willing to look inside yourself for what’s been holding you back, you can begin to get the weight off.  Looking inside.  That’s where you have to begin.  You need to ask yourself some serious questions.  What’s driving you to eat the way you do and exercise the way you do (more probably don’t)?  Are you bored, distracted, depressed, anxious, lonely, or angry?

We eat mostly to satisfy, appease, or even nullify an emotional issue.  These issues vary from those that are deeply rooted and require professional counseling, to the more surface matters that just need a little positive self talk to get rid of.  Either way, you’ll need to face up to what’s required and get the help you need.

Getting help is the first step, but you should  simultaneously beginning to focus on the habits and patterns of eating that have put you at risk for weight gain.  Food has so many cultural attributes.  How we think about food and how we interact with food and meals is very much culturally and socially determined.

I’ll never forget visiting a good friend of mine in New Orleans.  This was shortly after we graduated from college.  While driving from New Orleans to Mississippi to visit another set of relatives, we stopped off to eat.  Or perhaps we had eaten at her parents’ home before we left, I don’t remember.  Either way, it wasn’t a long drive. 

When we arrived there were several other relatives to meet.  After all the greetings and introductions, I was offered something to eat.  I politely declined, still full from the last meal.  The offer came again several times, and I kept declining. 

When we left, my friend was more than a little upset with me.  She told me that I had hurt everyone’s feelings because I refused to eat anything!!!  I felt like the most uncouth thing on the planet.  No one had told me that you absolutely had to eat food that was offered in such settings.  Apparently you should.  Most often we all do.  This is part of the social culture most everywhere.  This is only one of the reasons many of us are overweight.  Eating because food is available.