After much deliberation you decide that it’s time you lost some weight. You’ve looked at your current diet and decided that you want to make some changes. The first to go is sugar. No more sugar in your coffee, and from now on you’re going to examine every packet for any sign of sugar. You are convinced that this will do the trick!

What exactly is sugar? Well, it’s a chemical. That may sound a bit odd, but it puts it in its rightful category. It has no protein, no carbohydrate, no fiber and no enzymes. In fact it is made up of ‘empty’ calories.

When you eat sugar, you put your body in a bit of a dilemma. In order to metabolize the sugar it has to borrow nutrients from other cells. When your brain gets the message that its reserves are being depleted, it sends out hunger signals. Your reaction is to come to its rescue – usually with some high-calorie food. The result is weight gain.

Having stopped taking sugar you may feel the need to have something sweet – you’d be unusual if you didn’t. If you choose a sugar supplement like saccharin or aspartame you are making an error.

One thing that has been puzzling scientists is that despite the growth in the consumption of sugar substitutes, there has been no reduction in levels of obesity, in fact the situation has become considerably worse.

Recent studies have found that far from helping you to lose weight, artificial sweeteners actually help you to put on weight!

Scientists at Perdue University carried out experiments with animals, some of whom were fed food containing natural sweeteners and others with food containing artificial sweeteners. Over the same period those animals fed with artificial sweeteners consumed more calories and gained more weight than those fed with natural sweeteners. Why? Because our bodies have learned to associate sweetness with food loaded with calories. When the calories don’t materialize we continue to eat to make up for the shortfall in expected calorie intake – the result – weight gain. You can’t fool your body!

So what about sugar? The best thing to do is to reduce sugar intake gradually, but most importantly, avoid artificial sweeteners.

We live in exciting times! Barak Obama’s victory signals that we’re entering a period of change. Actually, people are hungry for change. Don’t all those people standing in line to vote say something? They sure do!

Much of the change that’s going to take place in the coming months won’t be particularly pleasant, but let’s hope that we have elected a president who forgets about his re-election campaign and has the strength of character and resolve to do whatever needs to be done, regardless of the political consequences. If it happens it will be a political first!

There is often a lot of concern expressed about change. It sometimes has an ominous ring to it. Actually there is nothing to be afraid of. Without change there is no progress. Change is a necessity.

Actually, change is something to look forward to. Change is just another word for learning.

A world without change is a world where there is no progress. All of us have been stuck in a time-warp, happy to protect the status quo. It’s done us a whole lot of no good too!

What is for sure is that Barak Obama can’t be the only catalyst for change. He needs you to change too.

If we’re looking for inspiration we need look no further than his presidential campaign. If we can show the same determination, self-discipline and commitment in our lives we can make a huge difference to the nation’s future. Not grand words, but just good common sense.

We could all take one aspect of our lives and see if we couldn’t try and do things better. Let’s take health – or to be more specific our weight. If you need to lose weight permanently you need to change. Personal change is the only real way to lose weight permanently. You need to adopt new behaviors, and you do this by learning new habits – slim habits. The new president elect has given us an example and a challenge. It’s a pretty good start, but can we live up to his – and our – expectations?

What is your attitude when things get tough? Do you retreat and hope things will just get better? Do you believe that every cloud has a silver lining and it will be all right in the end? When things are bad they always see worse than they are. Sometimes they are, of course, but problems in bad times are always magnified.

Read the newspapers or watch the news on television and you would think the world was going to end. Armageddon is just around the corner…or is it? Probably not.

Wearing rose colored glasses when things are tough is not very sensible, but we do need to find some sort of balance. If we don’t, the decisions we take are going to be the wrong ones.

It’s an alarming fact that we take decisions on 5% of the available information. The message is clear. We need develop our awareness and start to ask more questions. We need to season our diet of bad news with a few facts.

We could make things so much better for ourselves if we asked more questions. The more questions you ask, the better able you are to be able to make informed decisions.

For some strange reason, few of ask questions about our health and about weight in particular. If we’re overweight, we are reluctant to bring the subject up. We feel vulnerable. Instead we continue with the behaviors that made us overweight in the first place, and hope the problem goes away – which it doesn’t. Soon the day dawns when the bill has to be paid.

There’s a great similarity with the current financial crisis. Doing things that are not in your long-term interest, living a lie, not being totally honest, being selfish and greedy. it doesn’t make good reading.

But let’s not always look on the black side. Maybe every cloud has got a silver lining after all! Let’s start to look for opportunities. Let’s take our health, and our weight in particular. If we are slim and healthy we will be in a far better position to deal with whatever is thrown at us than if we were fat or obese. Isn’t it time we shed all those extra pounds and put our life in order? ‘The crunch’ should be the catalyst that stirred us into action: time to change and learn some new habits – slim habits.

Why is it so hard to lose weight? Weird as it sounds, the answer is trying too many of the diets that are out there these days. Yes. You heard me correctly. A big number of so-called miracle weight loss plans are just there to take your money and leave you in the same out of shape body you were already in to begin with. Some of the diets that you might try will even add to your body fat, now that is news that is interesting.

When you are able to lose pounds and burn fat, you will immediately start looking and feeling better about yourself. They say that you can’t buy happiness but you can certainly be happy with the right diet that works for you. Losing that extra weight can put a smile back on your face and a spring in your step. Obesity is a serious health problem and millions of people are carrying around extra weight that they need to get rid of now. Losing Weight will make you look and feel better and it will add years to your life. Now there is a new and easier way that you can lose weight and fight fat that really works. You can lose the weight you want in time for the Christmas blowout.

Lets face it most of us who are or have been over weight do want to lose weight (I include myself in that) I have tried lots of ways to lose weight and learnt the hard way that a sensible diet plan is the best course of action to take. I have tried what are known to be fad diets and found that the weight returned much faster due to my metabolism being even lower than before I started a diet plan. It is very true that 2llbs per week is a healthy weight loss and is definately more likely to stay off in the long run.

The Strip that Fat program is one of the best diets you can find online or in stores. It’s one of the best because it works….it’s as simple as that. You have probably heard of or tried most of the well-hyped diets already. There are low carb diets, low fat diets, and the thing in common…..they don’t work as well as they claim. In fact, if you starve yourself for a few days you will end up harming your body and gaining more weight. Now that’s an eye opening fact to consider. There are also the so-called Celebrity and Hollywood diets that you can use. I don’t know about you, but I like eating foods that are a bit more substantial than a glass of bitter tea and scraps of carrots with 1 oz. of boiled fish.

Strip that Fat can help you to your goal of weight loss by letting you eat meals more often. You can enjoy up to 5 meals a day and start watching the pounds disapear. This weight loss plan will help you learn how to eat the right foods in the right amounts and this will increase your body’s own metabolism. Not only will you learn to combine foods to actually help your body burn fat, it will show you the right exercises to do that will make your body burn that tummy fat even quicker.

When you eat and workout according to Strip that Fat plan you can quickly lose up to 2 pounds of fat or more every week….and, you wont find yourself starving. You will be eating more food more often and you will be conquering the battle of the flab at the same time. If you want to be in great shape for the holidays, Strip that Fat can show you how to burn fat and be the slim person you want to be.