Lie Number Two-There is a secret to beauty and it's easy!

I wish this lie were true. Believe me, if there was a cream, pill or drug that would make losing weight and regaining a love of self possible, I would buy it. Heck, I'd be the number one promotor!

But there isn't. The truth is if you want to learn to love and accept yourself, it's going to take a whole lot of hard work. 


Oh sure, there is some snake oil that will work for a while, but not in the long run. And most of this snake oil the diet and beauty industry is selling is downright dangerous.

You need to take care of yourself. You owe it to yourself, your body and your family. Don't take any supplement that promises to melt anything off of your body! Melting is not good! You want to nurture yourself. You want to take the gift of life you've been given and make the most of it. You can't do that if you are starving or stuffing yourself.

You need to stop and listen to what your body is telling you.

Let's face it, everything worth having takes hard work. If you are willing to do the work you will earn the positive consequences.

On second thought, maybe that truth isn't so hard, because it's also a promise. If you dedicate yourself to positive change, you will earn positive results. 

But you have to be honest with yourself. You can't be disciplined two or three days a week, and live with reckless abandon the other four days and expect to feel good about yourself. It is entirely possible to undo an entire weeks worth of work with half a cheesecake in twenty minutes!

Before you throw up your hands in frustration, let me share another truth. It's easier to make small changes over a long period of time than big changes all at once. It makes all that hard work not quite so hard.

So instead of committing to lose twenty pounds before next Tuesday by only eating cabbage and cayenne pepper, start with something a little more realistic. Try changing One thing in your life today. For example, commit to drink eight glasses of water everyday or swap your daily cookie for an apple or cut out your afternoon soda. Commit to make one small positive change for a month and make that a habit, then take the next step. Those small changes add up to long term results.

If you're ready for a big change, the first thing I suggest is to change your physical activity. For me changing my level of physical activity was incredibly difficult but necessary. It gave me the tools I needed to late deal with my real demon, my relationship with food.

Before I open that can of worms, I'd like to repost an entry that illustrates where I started.

I apologize for reposting a previous entry but the following post illustrates exactly what I did.

Read One telephone pole at a time -Revisited.