There are two primary things you need if you want to get healthy and lose weight through diet:
Desire
Determination
The truth is that desire on its own is not enough, and determination will only come from desire.
We can all look at pictures of people who look slim and healthy, on whom clothes look fantastic, and think "I'd love to look like that." That's desire. But if we then turn over the page without doing anything to achieve it, we are getting nowhere. If we hear of people who have lost weight and improved their health as a result, and then do nothing about it, we might as well never have heard their stories.
The fact is that desire has to be strong enough to result in action. That's true of every area of your life - career, relationships, sport, as well as health. We do whatever we need to do to get the grades we need in education, or to get that job, or win that partner. But when it comes to our diet and how it affects our health, all too often it's easier to do nothing. We settle for the way we are. Our desire is not strong enough to make any difference to us.
There's the question "How much do you want it?"
How much do you want to lose weight?
How much to you want to avoid Type 2 diabetes?
How much do you want to increase the chances of staying around to see your grandchildren grow up?
How much do you want to feel better, both physically and mentally?
When you want it enough to start taking action, and keep taking action to make it happen, then your have moved from desire to determination. And that is what you need to do.
Do you want it?
Are you prepared to do something about it?
I moved from desire to determination a couple of years ago when I decided to go on an 8 week diet. I'll write more about the detail of that in future posts, but essentially it involved cutting out potatoes, pasta, rice, bread, cakes and sugar. It also mean restricting myself to about 800 calories a day.
Sometimes it was hard - mainly due to sugar cravings and looking at cakes and knowing I couldn't have them.
But I lost about twenty pounds, and people noticed that I looked different. My clothes no longer fitted. And I have not put that weight back on after about two years.
It required determination, but it was worth it, and in fact I found that I enjoyed the new diet better than the old one that had made me fat. So, although I am no longer so strict about it, that diet is the basis of what I now eat, and has undoubtedly helped to to keep the weight off.
Do you have the desire to lose weight and get healthier through diet? I suspect you probably do.
So are you prepared to do something about it? Are you determined enough?