It may take us a while to decide to take it off, but once the decision's been made-we want the weight off today! When the modern dieter starts surfing the Net for diets, fast ways to lose weight seems to be the focus.

After making the decision to lose weight, it is understandable that we want to get it over with. While fast brings us peace of mind, the problems seem to outweigh the benefits.

Look over this list:

* Fast weight loss makes your body think it's starving. Your body will respond to this threat by storing and holding on to fat.

* Low calorie diets make it harder (or even impossible) to meet the nutritional requirements to keep you healthy.

* Fast weight loss diets cause your body to consume its own muscle!

* The fact that you may truly be starving can trigger acidosis and the vile smelling breath that comes along with that condition.

* Sudden attacks of binge eating are common for people attempting rapid weight loss.

* Aggressive dieting will lower your base metabolic rate. What this means is that your body learns to do more with less.

* Low metabolic rates mean that you will gain weight more easily in the future.

* You may find that you develop constipation and/or other bowel related problems.

* As you can imagine, being close to or actually starving makes you become obsessed with thoughts about food.

I think it's important to be realistic about issues that people are very emotional about. Dieting is certainly an emotional topic for most people.

Because of this fact, I not going to try to convince you that thinking about fast ways to lose weight is something you must stay away from. When the topic is emotional, the heart trumps the brain.

Since these are serious consequences, compromise might be worth considering.

* Try not to be too aggressive in your dieting.

* Consider taking supplements while you are dieting.

* Begin thinking and moving towards the long term of weight control through lifestyle changes.

* Exercise to help reduce the attempts of the body to consume its own muscle tissue.

Of course a great consideration would be to move to lifestyle changing right off the bat-but we said we wouldn't get into that, didn't we.