Taking on an endeavor to lose weight, become fit, and ultimately adopting a healthier lifestyle can seem like a next to impossible task to some. This is not meant to be construed that it has to be this way. As a matter of fact, if you choose to adopt a realistic approach to the situation, the goals you seek to accomplish can be a sure thing.

Don't believe it? Well, if not, then that mental viewpoint needs to be the first thing you change - right here and now. Perhaps this will be easier if you'll just read on and consider subscribing to what is being suggested here.

Likely, you are familiar with the expression "Rome wasn't built in a day." If you consider the real significance of this statement and learn to apply it to your own life, you will undoubtedly be on your way to success you previously may have thought impossible. Consider the idea of writing a book. To a new writer, yhe very thought of taking such a project seems big - and a major challenge. However, I'm sure that many experienced authors would agree with the following claim: No author ever writes a book. Instead, an outline may be created initially for the future contents of the complete work. This is succeeded by writing a page at a time. Each page ultimately becomes a chapter - each chapter is added to the previous. The end result? Yes, the complete work - the book.

This seems pretty simple to understand; yet, when it comes to applying the same concept to achieving goals of our own, some of us miss the mark. Let's come up with an example: though your particular situation is likely to be quite different (maybe not), let's say that you weigh 210 pounds,and your goal is to weigh 165 pounds. The idea of losing 45 pounds can seem like quite a burden. After all, don't you wish you could just "blink" your way to this accomplishment? Let's face it - it can seem like a long haul!

But wait. Let's pretend that you could somehow magically "blink" your way to this goal of 165 pounds. Remember, it took a lot of "practice," application of the same habits - over and over again - for you to accomplish your weighing 210 pounds. Your mind is programmed to keep you there. If you could simply "jump out" of your 210 pound body and slip into that 165 pound frame, what do you suppose will happen within a very short time? You probably guessed it. Without the reconditioning of how you approach food intake and activity, it won't be long before you're back at 210 pounds again - or heavier.

So what approach is the best? Consider this: if you can agree that your mind has been "conditioned" or "programmed" to weigh 210 pounds, then doesn't it make absolute sense that you need to do what's necessary to "re-condition" or "re-program" yourself? Of course! So, let's reflect on that book - a page at a time, it got written in its entirety. In much the same manner, you can weigh 165 pounds. Adopting better habits and implementing them, little by little, day after day, you will reach your goal.

By now, we can probably agree that changing the way you think on a daily basis about your food intake and exercise habits must be changed. To what? To the way a person who weighs 165 thinks of course! Get it? If we take a person who is your sex and age, has your same frame, and got into the mind of that person, chances are pretty good we would learn a whole lot. First off, caloric intake would probably be significantly less; if not, then exercise to this person would be probably much more important than it is to you, whether that exercise be in the form of deliberate aerobic exercise, weight lifting, walking, or other activity. But you see - and this is important - to this 165 pound person, weighing 165 pounds is not an effort! Why? Because just as you have learned how to think and act in the manner that is conducive to maintaining that weight of 210 pounds without unwanted effort, so has this person learned how to think and act in a manner that is conducive to maintaining a weight of 165 - and, yes, without unwanted effort!

In other words, you need to learn to like what it takes to maintain a weight of 165 pounds. You see, your goal is not to lose 45 pounds. If you constantly see yourself as a person who needs to lose weight, then you won't disappoint yourself (in a manner of speaking) - you will always be a person who needs to lose weight. Even when you reach your new goal weight, you probably will still see yourself as an overweight person who lost 45 pounds. And your ole ways of thinking will likely put that weight right back on. Does this make sense? So, how do you avoid this mistake? Actually, it's very easy; and, if you learn to adopt this way of thinking, you'll amaze yourself. You need to learn to like your new habits. Now, considering that new habits take time to nurture, then it also follows true that the longer you enforce the new habits, the more permanently you'll maintain them and reap their rewards. Sound good?

Okay, so since we agree that your new habits of eating in a more healthy fashion and exercising regularly - in short, doing all things that are conducive to a healthier you - need to be nurtured, then each and every effort on each and every day must be encouraged, executed, and praised! Each little step needs to be accepted as a major triumph! If you fully can accept this idea, then you will no longer fall victim to being discouraged by not reaching your goal in record speed; on the contrary, you will fully be in favor of seeing each and every day as a success, and you accept yourself fully. You see, if you are thinking and acting as a 165 pound person does each and every day, can you see that you are actually already there in a very big way? You're doing it. You're living it. You're implementing the thought habits of a new lifestyle - of the new person you aim to be. The weight coming off is simply an inevitable reward soon to be yours. But more important than that weight coming off is the person you have become internally as a result of doing it the right way. Because, now, you know that you will permanently maintain the new you! Confidence is yours!

So you see, whatever weight loss plan, program, or strategy that you choose to use, it is you - and only you - who will make it work. It's your approach - your way of thinking and acting - that will ultimately cause that program, plan, or strategy to be a success. And doesn't it make sense that the one you choose should be one that is one that will support this new step by step approach of yours? Now, we can see ever more clearly why "quick weight loss" fad diets, pills, etc. have no legitimate place in our lives!

Remember, you're writing your own book - one page at a time. Enjoy writing it. Enjoy every step of the way. Make it a great story that consists of a wholesome, sensible approach with many, many mini-successes and lots of self-praise along the journey.

Make it a story worth reading!