There has to be a better way to lose weight. Sticking to your diet is one way. It is tried and true. Changing your bad eating habits is another. No doubt about it. And then keeping the weight off for good must somehow be in the mix. If you can do all of these, you’ve found the better way. What would it take for you to stay on a diet, change your bad eating habits, and keep the weight off forever?

There are two catches. One is the phase that comes before sticking to your diet. This is where you have established your daily life so you are adept at keeping yourself right where you are. You reinforce behaviors, thoughts, feelings, attitudes, and beliefs that will keep you overeating and overweight.  Here’s the second catch. When you try to change these patterns that are so you, you move to the second phase—the struggle. The struggle is always hard and long, never simple and quick as advertised. It is terribly difficult to change behaviors that have become so you. To be successful, your goal must be to try to take as much struggle out of the middle phase as you can. If you don’t, you will lose the struggle but not the weight.

Getting through the struggle to the other side means that you’ve found ways to change your weight-maintaining, weight gaining habits. You’ve reached a healthy eating, ideal weight. Now you more easily and more comfortably live your life without the weight maintaining you used to do. You’ve arrived. Well, almost arrived. You still have work to do to keep the weight off. So your aim is to go from the first phase where there is no struggle to the third phase where there is no struggle. The struggle is in the middle. Remember to make the struggle as easy as possible for you. That’s the goal. The easier the struggle, the more successful you’ll be.