Marshall Brain's Blog

With America's obesity rate reaching nearly 25 Percent, it is time for something new.

I spoke with a friend of mine who managed to lose 50 pounds since January of this year. Obviously he knows something about weight loss, so I asked him to share his secret. His advice is incredibly simple. Anyone can do this, and it is absolutely free:

1. Go to FitDay.com. This is a site that lets you track everything you eat. Set up an account and then track EVERYTHING you eat. It takes about 20 minutes to learn your way around the site, and from there it is easy. You can also track your daily exercise (walks, bicycle rides, lawn mowing, whatever).
   
   It will ask you what sort of lifestyle you have when you set up your account, and he recommends "sedentary".
   
   His contention is that if you cannot get yourself disciplined enough to track what you are eating, then you also won't be disciplined enough to control your eating. Therefore you will not succeed at losing weight, so you can just give up and stop worrying about it. Accept your obesity and be happy about it.
   
   OK, that's harsh. But it is true. So go sign up on FitDay.com and get yourself together enough to track what you eat every day. Force yourself to do it until it becomes a habit.
   
   
2. His second contention is that, as soon as you start tracking what you eat, you will be appalled at how much you are eating. You will be so appalled that you will begin to eat less. Simply by making yourself aware of how much you eat, you will act on that awareness and start cutting back.
   
   He also contends that you will know that if you eat something, you have to write it down in FitDay, and that acts as a deterrent.
   
   
3. Decide what you want your weight to be. Let's say you weigh 200 pounds and you want to weigh 170. Multiply 170 by 12. That's 2,040. That's the maximum number of calories you should eat each day. His contention is that you won't be able to eat more than that once you get down to your target weight, so you might as well get used to it now. If you can't get used to it, then you won't be able to keep the weight off, so you can just give up and stop worrying about it. Accept your obesity and be happy about it.

That's it! It's an easy, straightforward way to lose weight. It all hinges on self-discipline, and if you can just get into the habit of going to FitDay or someplace like it every day, the discipline is a lot easier.

Start losing those excess pounds today!

See also, How Dieting Works and this post (which says that by losing weight your net worth will go up).