"I've lost weigh and hit my goal! NOW WHAT?"

"HELP!" "I lost the weight I wanted to lose, but now I am gaining it all back!" Aahhhh!

Has this happened to you? You were on a diet, exercising regularly and the weight came off. After a few weeks, maybe even months, you finally hit your goal weight.

NOW WHAT?

This is where you will need to make a very important decision. Will you continue down the path of eating healthy and exercising or are you going to slowly throw away everything you worked so hard to achieve? I have always said, "It's easy to lose weight; keeping it off is the real challenge."

One of our major beliefs here on "I AM AN OVER EATER!!" is NO DIETING! You can't live a normal life when you are always dieting. That's why I strongly suggest that people do not follow shake diets, take diet pills or follow any other fad diet plan. When you stop using the products or stop dieting, what typically happens? YOU GAIN THE WEIGHT BACK!

So what do you do? 

Losing weight is more than just simply losing weight. It is changing your lifestyle, not dieting. It is making healthy food choices and exercising on a regular basis. Remember--calories in versus calories out. If you burn more calories than you take in, you shouldn't gain weight.

This sounds so easy. So why is it so hard? 

Anyone who has been on a diet, lost weight, stopped the diet and then gained the weight back (plus some), knows just how frustrating this process can be. 

Why does this happen? 

One problem for me was when I started reintroducing the foods that helped me gain weight in the first place. These foods include sweets and carbs. Both of these things can become very addicting and to those of us who are OVEREATERS, they can be killers! So what do we do? We need to avoid these types of foods, especially if we cannot control ourselves when we reintroduce them back into our diet.

BEWARE! Eating simple carbs and sugars can make you crave MORE CARBS and SUGARS!

It can happen gradually over time and then all of a sudden you realize the number on the scale has sky-rocketed, you are frustrated or bored with going to the gym and your clothes aren't fitting as well. Finally you've had enough and you just give up and go back to where you were before you lost all that weight. Then you know what happens? You probably go back on a DIET and start the weight loss process ALL OVER AGAIN! AAHHH!

It becomes a viscous cycle of ups and downs, gaining and losing pounds upon pounds. 

Wouldn't it be much easier if you just made living a healthy lifestyle a part of your everyday life? Eat better, make smarter food choices when you go out to eat and get to the gym 3-4 times a week. Trust me...it is that simple. 

Here come the excuses.

• "I'm so busy!" 
• "I work too much; I don't have the time!"
• "The kids and my husband don't like when I am gone." 

BLAH, BLAH, BLAH! Stop with the excuses. Stop putting off what you know you need to do. Make the choice and live it! Live the life you were meant to live. Take control. It's your life; live it the way YOU want to live it.

Be there for you children by being healthy enough so you can help take care of them, not the other way around. 

Be bold. Do something you've never done before, like run a half marathon. Do something crazy. Do something that will leave a mark on your life that inspires you to become a better person.

Once again, losing weight is easy. Changing your lifestyle and living healthy can be hard. The choice is yours to make. Choose wisely! Live healthy! 

I've missed writing and posting to the blog. Please forgive me as life has taken over and kept me busy. I will share with you all the exciting things these last few months have brought me in my next post, but until then, take care and know we are always here for you. Please share this post with those who you think may benefit from reading it. I would also hope that some of you can share your stories about your personal weight loss struggles and what you're doing to get through them. 

Have a great day and live well!

Dan