It’s a fact.  You have to eat.  Many people struggling to lose extra pounds may wish this wasn’t true. Most of us have bought into the myth of “dieting” with it’s implications of eating less food and losing weight.  Except that this doesn’t always work.  Many “dieters” can attest to the fact that they feel as if they are starving yet haven’t lost any appreciable weight. In some instances they have actually gained some.  What’s going on?

One thing is true. While you will lose weight by starving yourself, you will be miserable in the process.  The weight you lose will come back with a vengeance to haunt you once you resume your usual eating pattern.  So don’t do that.

Understand that the human body in all its magnificence will work to sustain you through all sorts of dietary abuse.  Starving yourself is abusive and unecessary.  You need to eat enough to sustain your body’s physical needs.  This means determining the minimal number of calories you need and trying not to eat any more than that.   Avoid the temptation to eat very much less than that minimal number of calories.

This requires some basic math.  Sorry, but it’s necessary.  Multiply your current weight in pounds by 10.  Use this number to determine the minimal number of calories you must eat everyday to sustain your body.  There certainly are many more elaborate ways of coming up with this number, but let’s keep it simple.

Eating less makes your body think you’re starving even if you don’t feel hungry. Consequently, your body will hold on to every morsel you eat and store it up (think fat cells).  You will gain weight.

Eat the minimal number of calories that you need and combine it with exercise (take a 30 minute brisk walk at lunch time 5 days a week), and you will lose weight.  It’s that easy.  It will take time, but incrementally you will notice that you can drop about a pound a week.  That’s roughly 50 pounds in a year.

Rev up the exercise piece (throw in some weight training 2-3 times a week and walk for a full 60  minutes 5 days a week) and you could lose 2 pounds per week.  For those who need to lose this much, one year is hardly a long time considering that the weight gain likely occurred over many, many years.

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