Myth #1 -- You must deny yourself to lose weight.

"You can't eat what you most like to eat." - Often our weight-loss efforts revolve around avoiding certain foods. This needn't be the case. If you totally deny yourself some food, you may eventually find yourself bingeing on it.

You may not feel comfortable in having a particular food in your house. If so, keep it out, but try not to say you can never ever eat it again. Plan to eat a limited quantity of it occasionally so that you don't become resentful because you "can't" have any. Moderation and planning are the keys to success.

Myth #2 -- Fat makes you fat.

"You must cut out all, or almost all fat from your diet." - During the last few years we have been told that fat is the enemy. We have been told to severely reduce our intake of fat because it's making us fat. Many reduced-fat and no-fat products have appeared in stores. We have been told that if we severely limit the amount of fat in our diet and substitute these products we will lose weight. Not true!

What people seem to forget is that to lose weight we have to either take in fewer calories or do more exercise to burn off calories. So often we think we are eating something healthy because it's no-fat, but we're actually ingesting more calories than we would have if we ate the regular version of the product! And often these substitute products have a lot less nutritional value than the real stuff! It's the calories in anything we eat that can make us fat if we take in more than our body needs!

Although, for health reasons, we should limit the fat in our meals and snacks, we do need some fat in our diets. Fat helps keep us feeling satisfied, not only nutritionally but by the texture it provides. Fat enables our skin to stay soft and pliant. Fat is also valuable in preventing constipation. It is eating too much fat and too many calories that is unhealthy for us and makes us fat!

Myth #3 -- Exercise must hurt to be effective.

"No pain, no gain!" - Wrong! Exercise does not have to hurt to be effective. When first starting an exercise program you may experience some soreness, but if there's real pain, or the soreness doesn't go away in a few days, then you are overdoing it. Not only is it dangerous because you might do real damage to something, overdoing it may frustrate you and cause you to give up.

Find an exercise or exercises you can enjoy doing. Do the exercise in correct form, and long and frequently enough to safely stimulate your body (and mind) to improve itself. At least occasionally, vary your exercise to prevent boredom. Don't push yourself too hard. The goal is, once again, to be healthy while aiding your weight-loss and maintenance efforts. And if an exercise personal trainer or anyone else tells you to do something way past your comfort level, or to wear sweatshirts and sweatpants to aid your weight-loss efforts (the latter advice can land you in the hospital with heat exhaustion, plus once you drink anything you'd regain any weight lost by sweating) -- find someone else! Safety first!

Myth #4 -- Once at goal you can eat "normally" again.

"When you've gotten to goal, it's okay to eat "normally" and exercise less (or stop altogether)." - Although you may be able to eat more than you could while working on losing the weight, if you go back to eating and living the way you did before, you will eventually regain the weight. You may not have to be quite as strict as before, but you should still be trying to eat as healthy as possible.

It is important that you have made lifestyle changes rather than temporary fixes. If you've been "on a diet" rather than learning to eat healthy, you will not have created the necessary foundation for maintaining your weight. It is much easier to cut back a little, and/or add a little more exercise, if the scale says you've gained 5 or even 10 pounds, than to have to change your total eating practices.

Remember: If you always do what you always did - you will be as you always were! ...Or... if you want a different result, you must do something different!

Myth #5 -- It's impossible to keep lost weight off.

"You will eventually regain your lost weight." - It seems as if all we hear is "very few people who lose weight keep it off." This is not true. There are many, many people who succeed in not only losing, but keeping weight off. The trouble with the statistics we hear about is that they are mostly from studies done using people who are in special research programs because they have a lot to lose and have failed many times before. That doesn't mean that these people can't succeed, but that it is harder and less likely to happen. And often these people leave the program without having any continuing support to assist them in keeping up their motivation.

We also tend to focus on those failures. But how about the successes? In one study 6 out of the 45 people involved actually had not regained any weight three years later, but it's the failures we hear about! There are many studies where the success rate was even higher than that example! Realize that the weight-loss methods used by subjects in many studies are applied equally to each subject, rather than allowing for individual personality differences. Most people who keep off weight do it by using a method that they personalize for themselves. The more restrictive a diet, the less likely a person is to keep their weight off.

So don't let the nay sayers get to you. If you really want to succeed, find a weight-loss method you can live with for life. Adapt it to suit your personal preferences and lifestyle. Add some exercise (include strength training for toning and fat-burning muscles). Get support for during and after, and do it!

The information on this site is either from the author's experience or compiled from various sources believed to be reliable, but its accuracy is not guaranteed. Any advice given is not to be substituted for the advice of your medical professional. Always get the opinion of your doctor before instituting any changes to your lifestyle.

	--Ilene       Don't give up before the good stuff happens!
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