The Starting Line

 
  When you are obese, being able to see the finish line is extremely difficult. You've spent years living a lifestyle of bad nutrition and little to no exercise. Often the natural inclination is to try and find a quick solution. Weight loss commercials that you have seen in the past now catch your attention promising quick and effective results. You start reading online articles on how to "shave off 20 lbs" or "Get 6 pack abs by the summer." The reality is, a very small percentage of obese people see these programs through to completion, and even less keep the weight off once that program is complete. I've been there and have tried just about every fad and diet there was. I've done the following:
Lemonade Diet
Atkins Diet
P90
Weight Watchers
Nutrisystem
Southbeach Diet
Juice Diet
Vegetables only

With some of these diets I had a little success here and there, but was never able to finish. My problem is that much like a race, the diets had me come out the gate to fast and I was unable to sustain myself till the end. So what is the key to really making this transformation?

The key is to be realistic. It takes a calorie deficit of 3500 calories in order to lose 1 pound. Weight loss is not a speedy process and its not meant to be. You are retraining many elements of your lifestyle that led you to get to the place where you are now and that is going to take time. What I decided to do was take steps. Going from 245 to 180 was too much for me to tackle all at once. Instead I decided to divide my main goal up into monthly goals. 10 pounds a month is what I aimed for, meaning I only had to average about 2.5 pounds of weight loss a week. Only having to focus on the 2.5 pounds of weight loss made what originally seemed like a mountain to be no more than an ant hill. I purchased a calendar and labeled each week with my targeted weight loss goal and soon I had a road map and a direction. I also had to come out with a strategy. I was eating to much fatty, fried and sweet foods, and while I knew I was going to have to drastically reduce my intake of those items, I knew I couldn't give them up for good (nor would I need to). The key was to begin incorporating moderation into my lifestyle. Often times people go cold turkey into a diet, and like a drug addiction, your body goes into shock. You begin to get headaches, your energy feels low, and eventually the person runs into a road block and go back to the old habit with even more intensity than before. I knew that I was going to need balance, and so I broke my week up into 2 parts. 5 "health" days and 2 "off" days. This means that 5/7 days of the week I was going to consume a very healthy and nutritious foods. But on my 2 "off" days, I would be able to eat some of my favorite foods. Through out all of my planning , the primary purpose was to maintain a level of balance and moderation. With the framework in place, I needed to begin educating myself on nutrition and exercise, and how my body could combine to two to get me to where I wanted to go.