How To Become Slim and Smart

Weight Loss Support Is critical.

Losing weight is not difficult to work, no special diet, no special exercise. We can follow the following steps to lose weight. 

Get Proper Help To Lose Weight

Our greatest need when dieting is encouragement. We need people to cheer our successes and help us overcome our disasters. Amazingly, most online weight loss programs fail to discuss this need. Instead, they focus on what we should eat, how many calories we should consume, and what exercise we should take. And while this advice is useful, it’s not critical. What we have difficulty with is motivation. We know what to do to lose weight, but we can’t sustain it. Maybe we lack a strong incentive, or perhaps our family situation interferes with our weight loss plans, or maybe we hate cooking and eat out too often. Whatever difficulty we have, it’s not likely to involve food or exercise. It’s much more likely to be a motivational or lifestyle problem. Yet as I say, most online programs don’t offer motivational or lifestyle support. And even when they do, their advice can often be expensive and quite uninspiring!

Survey Of Dieters

The value of proper support was highlighted in a recent survey of Anne Collins online weight loss program members. The program includes a 24/7 community forum specializing in motivation and lifestyle support, with several thousand topics and about 100,000 posts. Subjects were asked to assess the personal benefit they had obtained from the forum. A total of 1,348 subjects responded, of whom 81 percent rated the program’s community forum as “important” or “very important” in helping them lose weight. In contrast, less than 5 percent said it “made no difference.”

Join An Online Community Forum

In my experience, dieters who join a good online community forum can expect to lose 400-500 percent more weight than those who go solo. In addition, if they keep up their community membership after achieving their goals, they have an excellent chance of maintaining their weight loss indefinitely. This is because an online community can give several specific benefits. First, as stated, it offers personal advice and encouragement. Secondly, it offers members the opportunity to help other people, which typically works wonders for their self-esteem and understanding. Thirdly, most community forums are self-run. Members may progress to become moderators or resident experts. This, too, is a real confidence booster and a great incentive to keep up the weight loss. But by far, the major benefit is the fact that online forums are in action 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. So support and human warmth are available when you need them. They are real 24/7 safety nets, especially the Anne Collins forum, which has members from all time zones of the world.

Features To Look For

The best forums are active, well-managed, and provide quality advice and support. Activity is best judged by checking the number of “active” members rather than total membership. And the greater the number of recent threads (topics) and posts (messages), the better. Assessing the management and quality of the forum is a bit more difficult. To do this, open a recent thread, scan the posts and look for the following. First, how quickly do members and/or moderators reply to questions asked? Second, are the questions and answers reasonably serious or more frivolous? Generally, a well-managed forum will have a higher percentage of serious posts. Other questions to ask yourself include: how “personal” does the forum seem to be? Do you feel a sense of warmth and caring? What are the age groups most active? Take a good look around, and don’t hurry. Finding the right forum for yourself is crucial to your weight loss success.

Summary: Focus On What Matters

The secret of successful weight loss is to focus on what matters. So don’t waste too much time or money trying to find the “perfect” diet. I mean no disrespect to any dietitian or nutritionist, but, for most people, a diet is a diet. As long as it’s reasonably balanced and includes a reasonable number of calories, it’ll do fine. What really matters is support – to help you cope with temptation and disruption during your journey. An excellent option is to join an online weight loss forum and be part of a real community. Because when you have tons of friendly people cheering you on, you can move mountains.