Do you feel like you are on a perpetual diet? Gaining weight, then losing weight. Again and again repeating this cycle. Let's face it, it's hard to stay on any diet. Everyone seems to jump on a new diet idea when it gets enough press, only to be exactly where they started six to twelve months after giving up on the diet.  Diets are more motivational than anything else. They get us pumped up to lose weight. But the weight always comes back eventually. Why? Because diets don't work.

The only real solution to perpetual dieting is to gain a better understanding of your body and manage what you eat every day, given your level of physical activity. If you are fairly active, it is easier to eat what you want. But most of us are too busy working and our time for exercise is limited. What we really need is a process of managing our weight daily. 

Do you know how much you eat each day in terms of calories? If you answered no, as most will, then you have no real control over your weight. Any weight management system worth its salt will require you to count your calories. I created a program I now refer to as the Rich Habits Weight Management Program. I did so as I was tired of living on a treadmill where I would gain weight and then lose weight over and over again. I was tired of always being twenty pounds overweight. I wanted something that would help me lose those twenty pounds and then allow me to manage my weight permanently. What is this program and how does it work?

Step #1 - Determine Your Caloric Threshold:
Each one of us has what I call our own personal caloric threshold. This is the number of calories you can consume in a given day without gaining or losing weight. Mine is 2,140. It took me only one month to find my caloric threshold. How do you find your caloric threshold? You must track what you eat every day and weigh yourself without any clothes on every day at the same time.  Do not eat less, do not eat more than you usually would eat.. Just track your consumption of food during the first month of starting the Rich Habits Weight Management Program. Because you are weighing yourself every day, you will see that on certain days your weight goes up and other days your weight goes down. You will need to keep a log of every food item you eat and the associated calories. What you will find out in that first month is that certain foods you like to eat are high in calories and some are low in calories. This will help you identify those foods you need to moderate your consumption of.

Step #2 - Maintain a Weight Tracking Schedule
I use an excel spreadsheet with eleven columns as follows:
Column 1 = name of the day of the week
Column 2 = date
Column 3 = weight
Column 4 = aerobic activity time in exact mimutes
Column 5 = extracurricular exercise from sports you engage in, in exact minutes
Column 6 = breakfast calories
Column 7 = lunch calories
Column 8 = dinner calories
Column 9 = total calories for the day
Column 10 = cumulative calories for the month
Column 11 = average calories for the month (cumulative calories divided by # of days in the month that have gone by)

Step # 3 - Maintain a Monthly Summary
At the bottom of my Tracking Schedule I list the following summary data in columns by month:
Column 1 = name of month
Column 2 = # of days in the month in which you exercised
Column 3 = total minutes of cumulative exercise for the month
Column 4 = average daily calories consumed for the month
Column 5 = beginning weight
Column 6 = ending weight
Column 7 = pounds gained or lost

Step # 4 - Exercise Regularly
You must engage in some form of regular aerobic activity. Aerobic activity includes jogging, stair master, treadmill, biking etc. You do not need to exercise every day but you must do at least four days a week. The ideal amount of uninterrupted exercise is thirty minutes. Weight lifting does not count. Weight lifting is supplemental, not a replacement for aerobic activity.

I am a six foot two male. When I implemented the Rich Habits Weight Management Program I weighed approximately 200 pounds. I now weigh about 180 pounds. I've been at that weight since September 2007. I never feel like I am on a diet. Instead, I feel as if I have total control over my weight. When I want to drink a six-pack of beer, I do. When I want to eat White Castle sliders and fries I do. When I feel like a milkshake I have one. I never deprive myself of the food I love. What I do do, however, is I moderate  the consumption of the foods I love dearly so that I can maintain my weight and continue to eat those foods. The key here is moderation. You cannot eat some of the food you love all the time. You have to limit your consumption of these foods. If I do eat some of the high calorie foods, I will make a point of adding an extra fifteen minutes - thirty minutes of exercise time to my next workout.  I always permit myself to eat the foods I love at least once a week, but no more than twice a week, as a rule of thumb.