Page 3

Did you see yourself anywhere in that pattern? Or do you have your own very special destructive pattern. Now count how many times you've done this in your lifetime. Now think about how you felt when you failed the diet; the let down. Think about how you felt when you looked in the mirror and still saw that 15, 20 or 50 pounds you wanted to lose. That's a mental stab. Now your self image is affected. Think about how you felt when you saw yourself and the emotion you felt. Oh how you wanted to lose those pounds. Why can't I get it right? I'm just doomed to be fat. There's that emotional stab. Now your self-esteem has been affected. You're on a mental and emotional rollercoaster ride. You're obsessed with losing weight. You've got to find a diet that works. Obsession is not good. You count calories, fat grams, and carbs. You weigh and measure endlessly only to kick yourself when things don't go as planned. You find another diet and this one is going to work. The process starts all over again. It's called Yo-Yo dieting. Not only do you bounce back and forth from diet to diet, your self-esteem bounces back and forth as well. What is so bad is that every time you embark upon one of these famed diets your body is saying, "Humph, she can try to starve me if she wants to, I ain't going". So your body goes into starvation mode. It preserves itself from the stuff you are doing to it. Our bodies are literally smarter then we are. Your metabolism slows down in order to preserve energy (calories) and all those Cokes and Mountain Dews start coming out of your system. Most of the time when we start a new diet our bodies responds instantly. You lose weight quickly at first, but that is mostly water. When your body starts to recognize that you are denying it food it begins to shut down and do whatever is necessary to conserve FAT. The body will burn muscle and organ tissue before it burns fat. Fat is more essential to the body to support it than muscle is in difficult times (i.e. dieting-starvation). The metabolism slows down therefore body functions slow down. Why do you think you are