There is plenty of advice out there and plenty of weight loss systems that promote their products. Some of these come with a ginormous cost and very little comparative reward or satisfaction. What do I believe to be the biggest problem with these systems?

Well, besides the cost and the fact that many are barely palatable, many of these are total or near total food replacement systems, and so these companies are completely dependent on you never learning how to eat properly. Do you understand what this means? These companies make their money by keeping you dependent on their food products and never truly changing your underlying eating habits that caused you to gain so much weight in the first place. They are treating a symptoms and not the cause. It’s like taking pain medication for a toothache but never actually fixing the tooth!

My advice, beware of companies offering complete, or near complete food replacements systems-particularly ones with a high cost. You might be successful while on the product, but if you never learn how to control your eating habits you will very likely gain much of your weight back as soon as you stop using the product. This can lead to terrible feelings of failure and negative self worth which in turn contributes to a cycle of emotional overeating and weight gain.

Those who are most successful and keep the weight off long term actually lose their weight gradually. The weight didn’t go on in a day, a month or even a year so don’t expect healthy weight loss to happen in such a small amount of time either. Instead, set yourself up for success by slowly learning to create and enjoy wholesome meals, manage portion sizes, reading food labels and trying new fresh fruits and vegetables-these are natures snacks!