Dieters are constantly calculating. One piece of pie plus 20 minutes of aerobics minus breakfast equals a smaller waist and thinner thighs. These dietss are not making us thinner; they are making us fatter!

The average person who diets begins a new diet about three times a year. He or she follows a strict eating plan or eats only grapefruit or cabbage soup and, yes, does lose weight. Once the weight is lost, however, the person goes back to his normal eating patterns.

Statistics show that nearly half of those people who lose weight by dieting, regain or exceed their before diet weight within one year. Another study says that 95% of dieters regain the weight within five years.

So, why don't diets work?

1. First, because a fat cell's growth speeds up when it is deprived. Fat cells react to a low calorie diet by holding onto the fat they contain, and speeding fat growth when the diet is over.

2. Diets can mess with your metabolism. Dieting starves your body of vital nutrients because nutrition intake is connected to calorie intake. Very low calorie diets will cause your metabolism to stop burning calories. Then, when you go off your diet, it takes a while for your metabolic rate to become normal again.

3. Dieting makes you feel deprived. You may get to the point where you binge on high calorie foods. Binge eating causes you to store more fat than if you had spread those caloreis over a longer period of time.

4. Diets are only a short term solution. You may lose some weight but once you're off the diet, you gain the weight back. Change your eating and exercise habits and you will lose weight and keep it off.

5. Diets may also be bad for your health. The deprivation of favorite foods may cause stress and anxiety. You are so focused with dieting that you lose your ability to think clearly - forgetting things that you wouldn't normally forget. Lowering calories also leads to low vitamin levels which causes fatigue.

Now that you know that diets don't work, what does?

1. Eat smaller meals more frequently during the day. Instead of three large meals, opt for five to six smaller meals.

2. Move your body. Start exercising - but don't over-do it. You may keep up with an excessive exercise plan for a while, but it's likely that you'll quit after a short time. Slow down and do activities that you enjoy.

3. Motivate yourself. Why do you really want to lose weight? You can't change your lifestyle if you don't really want to. If you know within your own mind that you "can do it," then you can!

You can lose excess weight by eating sensibly and keeping your body active. Forget the diets and starting eating healthy foods.