How To Lose 80 Pounds and Keep it Off

Robert Seidman © June 7, 2007

Around this time in 2003, a little over 4 years ago I was tipping the scales at 250. By this time in 2004 I weighed about 170 (and still do). I get a lot of questions on “how did you do it?” The tactical part of this equation is the only easy part of the equation: I ate less and I exercised more. Or, if you asked my friend Bill G. how I did it he would say, “He walked TWELVE MILES A DAY FOR TWO YEARS!!”

More like 10 miles, but again, that’s tactical. The tactical part of the equation is the only easy part to explain. Here’s what’s not at all easy to quantify: how and why I made it so important to me.

THAT is the secret of how to lose 80 pounds and keep it off – make it really, really important to yourself, make it one of your highest, if not your highest priority. It has to mean something to you, it has to be important enough for you to deal with and confront. That’s the fraud of the diet sensation that is our nation. The books, plans, programs, all focus on the tactical. But if you don’t make changing how you live your life a high priority those plans aren’t sustainable.

I got swept up by various diets myself, and would often lose 20-50 pounds only to gain it back (and then some, sometimes). Why? My priorities and my reasons were all wrong.

When I was a fat man and had no success at losing weight did I want to be thinner? Of course I did! But I hadn't actually made a choice and a commitment to radically change the way I myself operated. Diets are great for losing weight, but what happens when you've lost the weight?

What seemed to happen with me, in those times where I really hadn't made that commitment was when I'd lose weight at first I'd receive a lot of positive feedback. But after you lose 25 pounds or whatever, people stop telling you how fabulous you are and that reinforcing feedback is gone.

I think for most people that’s the kiss of death. It can be circumvented, but only if you make it a personal choice that losing weight and keeping it off is important to you. Without actually making that choice, it’s hard to sustain any diet or major change to your lifestyle.

Make it matter. If you do, the tactical gets incredibly easy. Unfortunately packaging up the diets is way easier than packaging up the "making it matter". More people need to talk about that if we really want to heal our fat ass nation.