Five Ways to Fail at Losing Weight

1) Go on a diet. How do diets thwart weight loss attempts? Simple- they are temporary solutions to permanent problems. The whole concept of a diet is that it is a temporary endeavor. Once people grow weary of their diet, or reach their goal, they slip back into their old, bad, comfortable habits that made them gain weight in the first place. People have built empires on diets; it is a multi-million dollar industry. Ironically, with the thousands of diets out there, with all the promises they make, obesity continues to rise to epidemic proportions. Ask any overweight person how many diets they have been on over the years. Each person will probably be able to rattle off a long list. Then ask yourself, "what's wrong with this picture?"

2) Rush. Jump into a heavily restrictive diet and a vigorous exercise program tomorrow. You'll get some immediate results, before your body becomes concerned about the water and calories it is losing too fast and shuts down your metabolism. Then, when you are irritable, have little energy and hit the weight-loss wall, you'll get discouraged and give up, and your body will quickly replenish all of the pounds it lost, throwing in a few extra for good measure.

3) Don't eat vegetables. You hate vegetables. After all, you're an adult, and you don't have to clean your plate of Brussel sprouts or broccoli anymore if you don't want to. Maybe taste is adaptive and you'd get used to them- even find yourself liking some- if you made yourself eat them more often. Maybe they are chocked full of nutrients and will give you energy and fill your belly so you eat fewer of the protein and carbohydrates and chemical-riddled snacks. But darn it, nothing is worth eating vegetables- not even being thin and healthy, right?

4) Look for the miracle cure. Find that pill, or that simple treatment, or wonder food that you can eat that will do it all for you without you even trying. Why spend four, six, even twelve months- let alone the rest of your life- eating healthy and exercising when you can just wait for the miracle cure to come out? One of these hundreds of products that come on the market every year are bound to finally be The One you have been waiting for and solve all your problems for you overnight.

5) Make excuses. Convince yourself it is reasonable to skip a day at the gym, that a couple of cookies won't hurt, and that you don't really need to waste all that time reading labels and calculating your intake of fat, carbohydrates and calories. Eyeball that dressing and hope you've poured on two tablespoons rather than four. Doing things the right way would be a direct road to success, but they're such a bother you wonder if they're really worth it. Why jump these hurtles when you can lay at the base of them and whine? Then, a year from now, bemoan how you could have reached your goal had you just done things right from the start and stuck to it.