What is YOUR personal favorite diet book?

Yesterday I told you about my favorite diet book.  It's my favorite because I can read and re-read it and draw inspiration from it each time.

What's your favorite, and why?  Did it suggest a specific diet program or was it more of a general approach?  Was it filled with anecdotes and success stories?

Think back to how charged up you felt after reading it.  Perhaps you could recapture that energy and drive if you read it again today.

Or...maybe you should do as I did, and write your own book.  You've had hundreds and maybe thousands of self talks over the years, and you've come up with some pretty good insight and weight-watching wisdom on your own.  Write it down!  Write about the successes.  What were you doing then?  What was your motivation?  Let yourself relive the joy and satisfaction you felt during an especially effective period of weight loss. 

You hold the keys to permanent and healthy weight loss inside you.  Books will help, but only if they lead you to the self discovery of a weight loss system designed by and for you.

Bucket List Weight Loss, an e-book by Jan Manning
www.bucketlistweightloss.com

My all-time favorite diet book

I gotta be honest.  My all-time favorite, and the most personally effective diet book I've ever read, is the one I wrote and published last December.  Bucket List Weight Loss tells my story of 40 years of weight struggles, and it chronicles how I finally got to where I am now, wearing a Size 6, and where I plan to finish out my life.

Half the reason I wrote the book was so I'd have a personal reminder...a documented approach to what I did (and why) to lose 40 pounds once and for all.  The other half of the reason was so I could share it with others.  It seemed so simple, after all, that just about anyone should be able to do it.

Every couple months I re-read it as a refresher course, and it gives me the inspiration and confidence to keep doing what I'm doing to stay thin.

Two other books that stand out from the pile of diet books I've read over the years:
Diets Don't Work (Bob Schwartz) and The Story of Weight Watchers (Jean Nidetch).  Like Bucket List Weight Loss, they're both full of personal anecdotes to which I can relate.  They're also heavy on common sense.  You know as well as I do that you won't get permanently skinny by drinking diet milkshakes or buying pre-packaged diet foods.  You need the same reminding I do:  losing weight (and keeping it off) requires lifestyle changes, none of which need be unpleasant.

Until you write your own book on the subject (and I encourage you to do it!), get mine and re-read it every so often.  It's an easy read, and it will help get you back on track if think you're about to derail.

Bucket List Weight Loss, an e-book by Jan Manning.  $2.99.  Available for instant download to Kindle, Nook, iPad, other reading devices, and your home computer, from all major internet book dealers including Amazon.com.

How much time do you have left?

We call certain things "bucket list" items.  Not goals.  Not dreams.  Those are all different.

When I hear "bucket list," I feel a little pressure from the old ticking clock.  If something's on your "bucket list," it means you'd really like to do it before you die.  You're not quite sure you'll get the chance, but you're pretty sure you'll regret it if you don't at least give it a try.

Losing weight was a "bucket list" item for me.  I'd been bulky all my life and had just about accepted the fate of being that way for the duration.  I also wanted to go to Antarctica.  And hike down into the Grand Canyon and back.  Antarctica's too darn expensive.  I might still do the Canyon if my knees hold up.  But the "losing weight" part is now off the list.  Done it!  Ironically, it was at the top of my list.  Ironically, it didn't cost me anything!  Ironically, now that I've lost the weight, my knees will probably hold up for that Grand Canyon trip in the future.

How much time do you have left to work on your own bucket list?  If losing weight is on it, know that it's entirely possible to reach that Size 8, or 6, or 4, even if you've been a Size 18 all your adult life.  It simply takes some lifestyle changes that are neither difficult nor hurtful.  Don't diet.  Just live right, and become naturally thin.  Don't let your lights go out without accomplishing this thing that is important to you.  Don't die with regrets.

How much time to you have left? 

Bucket List Weight Loss, an e-book by Jan Manning, available for download on all computer and reader formats.

Weighing yourself  as a biology experiment

Some people advocate weighing yourself only once a week.  Some would say never.  I say once a day, but not so you can praise or punish yourself every day at 7 a.m.  I say do it as a biology experiment that teaches you about your inner "clock."

You'll discover there's neither rhyme nor reason for your daily weight fluctuations.  If you're 153 this morning, change nothing about your diet, and weigh in at 156 tomorrow--and if you can trust your scale--then you'll know your body found an excuse to retain extra fluid.  No big deal.  Weigh yourself the next day and you may be down to 151.  (Remember that a quart of water weighs two pounds!)

Your body may also have a delayed reaction, weight-wise, to something you fed it several days earlier.  Fat takes a while to "settle", so when you overindulge on Monday, don't be shocked if it doesn't show up on the scale till Thursday.

So what good is the scale if you can't trust it on daily readings?  Oh, but you can trust it.  Just beware that most of your body is liquid, and that you'll be retaining water for various reasons, some of which seem inexplicable.  Don't argue with the scale and don't get angry with it.  The scale is inanimate and objective tool..  You could be one five-mile walk or one trip to the bathroom away from losing a couple pounds. 

When the scale truly  "does a number" on you, shrug it off and do the biology.  What have you eaten that would cause you to retain water so drastically?  Is it hormonal?  Was it the high-sodium soup you had for dinner last night?  The variables are many.  If you're inexplicably up from yesterday, remember that you are not necessarily any "fatter" than you were yesterday.  The weight gain is temporary, which you will happily verify when you weigh tomorrow!

My book, Bucket List Weight Loss, tells you how you can finally lose that 40 pounds without diets or supplements,  live out the rest of your life with better health , and be the size of your dreams.
www.bucketlistweightloss.com

The "R-word" is fattening

The "R-word" makes it okay for us to eat whatever we want, whenever we want.  It makes it okay for us to gain a pound here and there.  It makes it okay if we choose to sleep in each morning instead of going to the workout.

The "R-word" word is horribly fattening. 

The "R-word" is "Rationalization."

It's okay to have half a cake because it's your birthday.  It's okay to sleep in and skip the gym because you were up late last night.  It's okay to have some Skittles while you're at the computer because they keep you awake so you can finish your work.  It's okay to have ice cream because, after all, the sun is shining today.

Get it?  Rationalization is how you reason your way into or out of anything you want, even when your conscience is advising you otherwise. 

You were endowed with a CONSCIENCE for good reason: to help you choose the "right" courses of action throughout life.  Rationalizing is a method of overriding the conscience--of thinking and talking ourselves into doing whatever we want.

Next time you catch yourself rationalizing your way toward the cookie jar, candy stash, or adult beverages, STOP!  Tell your mind to shut up and let your conscience TRULY be your guide.  Listen to the spark of light within you that guides you safely and lovingly through your life.  It won't steer you wrong.


Read my book and let me know what you think!  Bucket List Weight Loss, available on Amazon, or just go to www.bucketlistweightloss.com.

How to lose ten pounds by Monday

Want to lose ten pounds in a hurry?  Drink eight pounds' worth of water.  It will flush your system clean and very likely will take two more pounds' worth of waste matter with it.

Drinking water is like investing in a stock that pays high dividends.  You get more out of it than you put in.  In this case, in order to lose more weight, you need to drink more water.

No, we're not talking about a few sips out of a water bottle.  We're talking guzzling.  The kind of drinking that leaves your innards sloshing.  The kind of consumption that leaves you feeling as full as if you'd just eaten a huge Thanksgiving dinner.  Thirst has nothing to do with it.  Drink because you simply have a quota to fill.

A quart of water weighs two pounds.  A gallon weighs eight.  That's why you weigh yourself in the morning, before you've had the chance to start chug-a-lugging this heavy liquid.

Provided you eat in moderation (and you'll have to, because you'll be too full of water to desire more food), you should loss at least two pounds in a couple days.  Lest you think this is all "water weight," run the numbers again.  You pour eight pounds of water into your tank, and it produces ten.  Hmmmm.... 

Melted fat comes out in all sorts of forms.

Scale Phobia

In my book, Bucket List Weight Loss, I write a lot about my own scale phobia and how I worked (and continue to work) to overcome it.   I also outline steps you can take to learn to deal with the scale--for instance, how to know the moment is right for weighing, and how to keep the inevitable fluctuations from driving you crazy.

If it's been a while since you've weighed, you're probably not looking forward to the moment of truth.  Nonetheless, postponing that moment can be as hard on your psyche as the gut-punch you're expecting when you step on the scale.  After all, if we don't know our numbers, it's easy to live in denial as we fall back into poor eating habits and find our pants getting tight again.  We carry a nagging guilt as we wonder how many pounds we've gained since our last weigh-in.  Yet we're not ready for the shock, so we put it off.

In the book, I suggest you wait for a day when you're in a good mood and you feel so good and positive about yourself that weight doesn't matter.  Oh, that day will come--sooner rather than later.  You'll finally say to yourself, "It's just a stupid scale. Get on it."   It's just another number.  Even if you've gained eight pounds since your last weigh-in, you're no heavier than you were just before you stepped on the scale.  The relief you experience by JUST KNOWING will feel like an eight-pound weight loss off our shoulders.  And now, you can intelligently begin your journey to the numbers you'd rather see.