How often do you look at yourself in the mirror and are please with what is looking back at you?  I would bet that the vast majority of people see something they wish they could change.  It may be that they don’t like the look of their hair, nose, eyes, or lines in their face.  They might have ears that they see as too large or many would like to change their lips, but most would like to reduce the excess weight that they’re carrying around your middle, legs or backside. They see themselves as elephants or hippos.

All of the items are able to be changed with a different degree of finances, pain and risk.  You can restore your hair by having a transplant.  You can make changes to it by color or style.  The lines around the face can come from a jar of cream to plastic surgery.  The nose, eyes, ears and lips would take some form of physician involvement that usually involves cutting.  Now the stomach and the excess weight has now been a subject of an instant gratification surgery as well with gastric bypass and lap band technology.  All of these things have some risk and cost from minimal to very expensive.

The good news on weight loss is that you can do this with no real cost at all and the benefits may make changes to some of the other things you’re unhappy with.  Did you ever hear of the expression “low hanging fruit”?  It means those items that you can take care of right away with little outside help.  Like low hanging fruit, you just can reach out and pick it.  You don’t need a ladder, basket to collect it in or anyone else to help you.  Well with weight loss, the low hanging fruit is the ability to attack this problem by simply walking.

The act of getting yourself out of a chair and putting one foot in front of the other is the start of an exercise program.  To lose weight, you have to start somewhere, so it might as well be at the beginning.  I talk to many people that would like to lose weight very fast and try many different diets or programs to get there.  The psychology is that you will have great ambition first and may even drop a few pounds; however, the will usually doesn’t keep up to the goal.  By starting off walking and keeping up with it, you are taking the correct step in recovering from being a food addict.

It took quite a bit of time to put any weight on, so it will take much of that time to take it off.  You can accelerate the process because your metabolism will be increasing.  To get to the desired goal of your loss, you need to change what you are doing today.  This means both diet and exercise has to be concentrated on.  The goal to losing fat is to reduce calories coming in while burning up existing.  Exercise is by far the best method for expending those calories.

With a concerted effort and encouragement you can be well on your way to shedding those excess pounds and feeling good about yourself again.  You may even catch yourself smiling when you look into a mirror.