You think PMS can be ugly? Wait until you run into someone under the influence of DMS (dieting misery syndrome). How will you know if you meet them? Trust me, you will know.
The problem is that someone convinced them that starving themselves was a neat way to manage their weight. Get this clear. Dieting is not a weight management program. What we popularly call dieting is in fact a self-inflicted mini-famine full of sound and fury signifying nothing that is going to have a lasting effect on anything except your relationships. So-called dieting is about the most efficient way known to allienate everyone with whom you come in contact and yet never attain a permanent healthy weight.
Weight management is not about punishing yourself with changes that shatter your life and the patience of everyone you meet. In fact, weight management is just the opposite. It is a fun and easy adventure in good eating and good health. To manage your weight, you need only make small, easy-to-live-with changes that can be maintained over time.
To manage your weight, take control of your daily calories in and calories out. If you are over weight, have no overriding medical conditions and are not losing weight, there is only one explanation. Regardless of what you may think, you are eating too much - period. This isn't rocket science or it would have gone over my head. If you don't put the calories in, the weight will come off. To be precise, it will come off at the rate of one pound for every 3500 calorie deficit you create.
If you want to lose almost a pound a month, keep your calorie intake just where it is and take just over a one mile walk each day. If you want to lose a pound each week, then walk five miles a day. O.K.! You probably aren't going to do that but what if you walked a mile twice a day and left off a couple of chocolate chip cookies or a couple of hard candies each day and two sweet drinks a week? You would get about the same calorie deficit. How easy is that?
Here is the real secret of weight management: Until you have a well established pattern of healthy eating, keep a food and activity diary. When you move, or swallow something, write it down. If you are overweight, you are moving less and/or eating more than you think.
Be careful how you reward yourself for good behavior. A super size trip to Burger King and you will have to walk 21 miles just to get back even. An innocent hunk of cherry pie (it is fruit, isn't it) will cost you a 5 mile hike.
