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Whenever anyone talks about wanting to lose weight, what’s the first thing that happens?

Someone mentions a diet.

Oh, you know you’ve heard it before. Where someone eats only mashed potatoes for breakfast, lunch and a snack, or only eats grapefruit for breakfast and lunch, or only sips some weird cayenne pepper kool aid concoction for three weeks straight and before you know it, you’ll be fierce! Fit! Flawless!

Foolishness.

You know why diets feel like the best way to accomplish your weight loss goal? They’re easy. Do X, get Y in response. If you’re given a regimen, it’s that easy to follow, and it promises to give you the results you want, why on Earth would you pass it up? And, if you’re limiting yourself to only eating a food that you actually enjoy? There’s no reason in the world for you to turn your back on that.

What we never do, though, is delve into the realities of dieting and why it works. If weight loss is simply about calories in and calories out, then dieting is simply a quicker way of limiting your calories in with less planning. It’s glorified auto-pilot eating. You don’t have to learn about what part of your habits caused you to gain weight. You don’t have to learn how to eat for your body and your activity levels. You don’t even have to learn how to cook the foods you like differently. You cheat the system; you limit yourself to a handful of foods, inadvertently cut calories, and boom. Weight loss.

Except…without fail, the weight almost always comes back.

Because you didn’t learn which foods were causing your weight gain, because you didn’t learn which habits were causing you to pack on the pounds, because you didn’t learn how to eat for your activity levels… you’ll inevitably put the weight back on. Because you restricted yourself to a handful of foods for an extended period of time, you’ll put the pounds back on as soon as you hop off your diet.

And, because you probably restricted your caloric intake far beyond reasonable levels, you also probably lost the invaluable muscle that burns almost three times as many calories per hour as fat, which means you’ve damaged your metabolism, which means you’ve negatively affected your ability to successfully keep the weight off.

This is why diets are ridiculous: they are plans for losing weight, that have no forethought into how a dieter should keep the weight off. Anyone can lose,  but how you lose that weight should be directly tied into how you keep it off. Are you going to only eat grapefruit and mashed potatoes for breakfast? Or are you going to learn how to eat a breakfast that is not only tasty, but nutritious and within your allotted calories? Are you going to sip cayenne pepper cocktails forever, or are you going to figure out that you shouldn’t be packing away an entire sleeve of cookies in a day? Are you going to find ways to enjoy what you eat and still eat nutritiously in a way that preserves your figure?

If so, then your best bet is to skip the “diet.” Learn what your body likes. Understand what it needs. And, rest assured, your body will thank you for it!

Erika Nicole Kendall is the writer behind the award winning blog, A Black Girl’s Guide to Weight Loss, where she blogs everything from fitness to food, weight loss to wellness, body image and even her own 160lb weight loss journey. A trainer certified in women’s fitness, fitness nutrition and weight loss coaching, she can be found taking over your Internet on Youtube, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.

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As another year on the fitness calendar has ended, researchers and nutritionists have picked apart 2012’s diet trends to tell us which ones should be ditched, which ones should prevail, and which ones are just in need of a little adjustment. Here is what to expect of diets trends for 2013.

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It happened while shopping at a local boutique during my freshman year of college. At the time she was a size 14 and I was a 4. For some reason, that day she decided to try on clothes in the petite section. I was confused, but I continued trying on clothes.

She kept eyeing a teeny bra and panties set and I thought, “No way. I know she’s not.” But she did. She picked up the set and fawned over how cute the lace was and said she was buying it. I didn’t know what to say, so I said nothing and continued trying on clothes. With no warning, she looked at me as I awkwardly stumbled out of the dressing room wearing what I hoped would finally be the perfect dress for whichever event we were going to.

“Ugh, you make me sick you skinny b***h.”

It stunned me at first. I had the kind of relationship with my friends where we could insult each other lovingly and never take it to heart. But this. This was something else entirely. She gave a half-hearted smile and chuckle but she looked a confusing mash-up of angry and sad. Back then I thought too much of myself as we so often do and I took offense, discussing the issue with friends to make myself feel better as they coddled me with the, “She’s just jealous,” speech. What I know now is that it was more about her than it was about me.

Self-doubt, ESPECIALLY when it comes to physical beauty drives us to comparison in absolutely illogical ways and then throws us down into the muck of despair when we don’t measure up to whatever ludicrous standard we’ve set ourselves up against. But instead of accurately and honestly assessing where we are and then putting in the sweat (literally) to get where we want to be, it’s so much easier to give intense side-eye to that young woman who spends three hours daily in the gym and watches what she eats. It’s so much easier to call a slimmer woman (by metabolism – something almost completely uncontrollable) a “skinny b***h” without knowing her story. Did you know she may be battling an eating disorder brought on by physical and/or mental abuse? Or that perhaps she has a rarely high metabolism and intensely low self-esteem and tries desperately to gain weight to avoid criticism? You don’t know because you never asked. You never asked because you assumed that she thought she was “all that.” And we’re (skinny girls) supposed to take that?

If it’s rude or inappropriate for me to call an overweight woman a “fat, moon-faced heifer” then it’s equally inappropriate for someone to look at my 105-pound frame and jeer “Anorexic, skinny b***h!” or assume that I’m purposely missing meals to stay small. I get it; life is unfair. Boo hoo. Society is full of double standards, all of which coddle one group and leave its opposite open to criticism and cruel treatment that often lead to unfair resentment and hidden insecurities.

Though I wasn’t always comfortable in my body and I still deal with insecurities about it, it has become clear that acceptance is a useful tool in moving through life. Well, acceptance and a staunch refusal to bite my tongue when confronted about my weight. I learned to brush off the backhanded remarks about my size by larger women when I understood that I had nothing to apologize for. As if the fifteen or twenty pounds tipping another woman’s scale were somehow caused by my innately high metabolism. Really?

Society has really screwed us up. It has skewed our perception of what healthy looks like and driven home the lucrative “Try this and lose weight!” campaign year after year on the front of every glossy magazine in the checkout, in every aggravating commercial featuring that annoying celebrity, with pills, supplements, exercise regimens, crash diets and surgery. So, we clamor for that elusive perfect shape (yes, even the thinnest of us) and compare ourselves to those who we feel have reached that goal in our place. “In our place.” As if another woman’s physique decides the beauty, or lack their of, of our own. The result of that kind of ridiculous comparison is misguided self-doubt, insecurity and unfortunately, for many, lashing out to cope. I get the psychology behind it. Truly. But it’s no excuse to be mean.

I am not pleading the case of skinny girls. I am defending everyone who falls on the other side of any number of double standards, through the cracks, and gets lost there. Thinner women are subconsciously taught to be ashamed of their size and never to complain whilst we deal with an array of problems ranging from health to clothing that others deem trivial/silly. How crazy is that? Though I do struggle daily with lurking insecurities about my weight, that doesn’t give me license to belittle someone who is larger – nor would I ever want it to.

“Be kind; for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.” – Philo

Though the struggle may not be overt; though the struggle may not look like yours; though you may not understand it – accept the fact that everyone has a struggle.

We have to stop thinking of ourselves in terms of everyone else. We’re doing more damage to our own psyches and self-view than the best marketers and advertisers ever could. Thin or thick – healthiness is beauty and THAT is the only standard to which we should ever strive to measure up.

La Truly’s writing is powered by a lifetime of anecdotal proof that awkward can transform to awesome and fear can cast its crown before courage. La seeks to encourage thought, discussion and change among young women through her writing. Check her out on Twitter: @AshleyLaTruly.

From yourtango.com

By Alice Greene

First, answer these questions:

1. Do you binge, but don’t purge?
2. Do you overeat at night on a regular basis?
3. Do you eat when you are stressed or eat to cope?
4. Do you eat in secret? Do you feel like a sugar or carbs addict?
5. Do you eat a lot of junk food? Do you constantly crave food?
6. Are you good during the day, but bad with food at night?
7. Do you overeat forbidden foods before or after a diet?
8. Have you been on multiple diets, yet still can’t seem to make healthy food choices, or stay in control around certain foods?
9. Do you have restrictive eating and cheat days?

For the full article click on this link yourtango.com

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Weight loss and weight gain seems to be a consistent problem in the USA.   With so much focus on diet fads and weight loss programs, it can be tough to know what’s right for you and your body.  These celebrities have done it all with their weight: kept it off, then put it back on.

celebrityhealthfitness.com

Kirstie Alley

Who can forget our favorite lady from “Cheers” during the early ’90′s?   Kirstie Alley became a spokeswoman for Jenny Craig from 2005 to 2008, when she was almost 228 pounds. Before that, she would constantly go up and down with her weight.   Her stint on “Dancing With The Stars ” in 2011 has kept her in shape and even starting a weight loss campaign.  ”Cheers” to that!!

(New York Times) — Paying with credit or debit cards makes people more likely to make impulsive, unhealthy food purchases, according to a new study in The Journal of Consumer Research.  Previous research has found that paying with credit can encourage people to spend more money because physically handing over a dollar bill increases the so-called “ pain of payment,” which takes away from the pleasure of consumption.  It turns out paying with a card can also make consumers likely to spend more money on “bad” things in particular, like junk food.

Read More…

By Khadija Allen

For women, weight is a controversial issue that gets dissected from all subjects. Doctors, medical students, and psychologists have had discussions and open dialogues on weight that not only poses potential health risks but a desire to be thin.

Read the rest of this entry »