How many times have you said to yourself, "I have to go on a diet"? Not many of those diets resulted in long-term success, did they. So many people are looking for the answer to fitness and improved health. They spend billions of dollars each year on diets and weight loss. Diets continually fail to deliver results because no matter how compelling the underlying principles for any diet may seem, you can't stay on a diet forever. Eventually, you stop dieting and fall back to your previous eating habits. Typically, you not only gain back the weight you lost, but statistics have shown us that you will also gain additional weight.

Anything built on a faulty foundation has little chance for success, and most weight loss programs are riddled with pitfalls and over inflated promises. Weight loss and weight management are lifelong commitments. Until you accept the reality that they are a learning process that takes ongoing work and focus, you will continue to look for the fast and simple solutions that are nothing more than a bunch of big, fat lies.

Long-term success with health and weight loss requires significant changes not just in how you eat, but in the way you live. Attaining results must be achieved in a way that enhances your life and allows your body to reach its optimal weight naturally. This is in sharp contrast to the quick-fix mentality, which attempts to trick the body into short-term weight loss with diets and other rapid results formulas.

There are six basic principles that allow long-term positive change to occur. Each plays an integral role in achieving health and fitness success:

1. Understand how addictions can negatively impact your lifestyle choices. There are many forms of addiction that go unrecognized or fly under the radar of conventional thinking, negatively impacting our health. In our stressed-out society, we search for escape from the harsh realities of life. We smoke, drink alcohol, take drugs and overeat. The number one reason people give for not exercising is time, yet the average American watches more than 4 hours of television every day. All of these activities make us fat, lazy and out of shape. They prevent us from obtaining optimal health.

2. Reduce toxic exposure and stress. The definition of toxic is poison. Sadly, we are surrounded by poisons that damage our health and put our lives at risk. We have been conditioned to believe that small amounts of toxic exposure are safe, but they are not. There are thousands of untested chemical combinations injected into our food and water supply, and there are deadly chemical compounds in our personal hygiene and cleaning products. Stress is the number one toxin, contributing to as much as 80 percent of all disease. Educate yourself about the deadly toxins or watch your health slowly and quietly deteriorate.

3. Create a mindset for change with no time limits. The starting block for any long-term success is changing the way you think about your body and your health. Changing your mindset says that you've made the decision that you truly want to improve your health. This may include weight loss and ultimately weight management, whatever it takes. Your determination must be strong and cannot waiver. Obviously, this cannot be achieved with a six-week diet or any other type of short-term solution. Until you change your mindset, all of the decisions you make regarding your health or weight challenges will be flawed. Your new mindset must focus on how your actions and attitudes will help you achieve your goals for the rest of your life. If you do not have a weight problem or if you do not feel that weight loss is important to improve your health, your new long-term mindset is no less important. The end result of implementing a new, long-term mindset while applying the principles outlined here will naturally result in weight reduction and, more important, improved health.

4. Provide proper nutrition to feed your body and your brain. Did you ever try to fill the gas tank in your car with diesel fuel? If you have, you would have found yourself stuck on the side of the road watching your car smoke and sputter because you fed it fuel that was not designed for you car's optimal performance. Everything we eat and drink affects us on a cellular level. Fuel for the brain and body is food. The type of fuel you choose to consume will determine how your body operates. Most of our food choices are made with our taste buds, driven by the desire to obtain pleasure with little thought about the consequences of our actions. There are many small but still palatable changes you can make to your eating habits that can have a big impact on your health.

5. Participate in physical activity regularly using consistent exercise. It takes a deficit or surplus of 3,500 calories to lose or gain a single pound of body fat. Everyone burns a certain number of calories just by being alive. This is called your resting metabolic rate (RMR). After you account for your RMR, a caloric surplus (weight gain) or deficit (weight loss) is a simple mater of calories consumed through eating and drinking versus calories expended through physical activity. It is a proven fact that even small amounts of activity can dramatically improve your health.

6. Adjust your lifestyle with habits and routines that will enhance your life. Human beings are creatures of habit, and we follow the same patterns and routines every day. Give some thought about what you do when you wake up in the morning and every night before you go to bed. It is human nature to fly on autopilot, constantly repeating our actions without thinking about them. You will never be successful achieving your health and fitness goals with fads or quick-fix solutions. Lasting results can only be obtained with lifestyle changes that you can stick with for the rest of your life.

Copyright (c) 2008 Craig Pepin Donat