djByron [Dan Byron]husband, father, christian, musician & technophile ( but not a dj )

Here’s the deal..

Like many of you, I have tried to shed a few pounds over the years with limited success. I’d loose the weight only to gain it back within a matter of weeks or months. So this time I decided to attack the “issue” from another perspective. The question is, why does the weight keep coming back? Obvious answer: because you eat it on fatty! So if one eats it back on, how do you stop the cycle? I think it boils down to the fact that you’ve got to REALLY want to change. You can realize that you need to loose the weight and you can even attempt to do it, but until you have a Damascus road experience it won’t last.

What’s my Angle?

I started off by taking the phrase “eat to live, not live to eat” to heart. I’d find myself in the past just eating out of habit as opposed to sustenance. I finally realized that if I was going to change for good, I needed to get some self-control and change myself before taking another step. So many people jump aboard the diet train only to fail in the end, why? Because they fail to realize that it’s not about following a diet plan but it’s about having the self-control needed to change. Sure you can “be good” when you’re following a program but what happens when the program is over?

So first I start off cutting out the snacks and the second portions. My logic might seem obvious but the reasoning was two-fold. 1) Obviously eat less and loose weight in the process. 2) Learn to say “NO!” I figured if I can get to the point where I could effectively tell myself no, I would achieve the same results as those supposed appetite suppressing pills. Did it work? YES! Since I’ve started this experiment almost two months ago I’ve lost 20 lbs without doing anything but exercising self-control. Initially it was tough, I was hungry a lot but after a couple weeks the hunger went away and I started seeing the results.

The Cool Part

So now for the really cool part… I just live! I don’t diet any more… I don’t watch what I eat, I just have a little self-control (which is one of the fruits of the spirit go figure – Galatians 5:22-23). It’s not the fastest way to shed the pounds but it’s effective. Even if I don’t loose anything over the course of a week, I have yet to gain a pound back!

“Disclaimer”

Obviously you might have to tailor this philosophy to your situation. I only needed to drop thirty or so lbs so this works out perfectly for me, but what about someone who has to loose a lot more? In that situation, maybe doing WW and having the support team there initially is a good idea. But even if you take that route, eventually you’ll be on your own and will have to adopt a concept like this. And when that time comes what will you do? Will you reach for gravy or think twice?

[UPDATE 5/19/08] I totally forgot to link over to Brent’s NMFAPIMWLC post where a bunch of us are dropping the extra pounds together.