HOW TO LOSE WEIGHT FAST!
by Alcamo "Al" Passagento

Oh, dear me! I get those e-mails all the time from desperate people with desperate overweight problems. What is the best way to lose weight fast?

My answer to you is: If there were just "one best way to lose weight" out there, I would be a millionaire!

But unfortunately, yet fortunately, there are as many ways to lose weight as there are pounds to lose! Believe me, I know! You, our loyal readers, have already stuck it out with me over this past year in my own desperate search to lose my excessive weight and keep it off. And, I dare say that I have failed and succeeded as many times as you have. (Imagine how boring it would be if there were only one way to lose weight and only one try at reaching the golden ring that will guarantee us to look as we did when we were sixteen years old!)

So, having said all of that, here is my suggestion to you. Find what works for your body and lifestyle. Take little suggestions from all of the weight loss programs, with a grain of salt of course, and make them work for you. (Mostly remember, that if it sounds too good to be true, it is.) For example:

1. All diets seem to stress drinking a lot of water, so obviously there is something to that!
   So DO DRINK LOTS of water. Take it one step further, and learn to LOVE drinking water. Make it your lifestyle, not this week's fad. Learn to enjoy it. Perhaps drink it with lemon or maybe add a non-caloric sweetener. I have this large mason jar sitting right next to my computer and I figure that if I fill it three times, it would equal 12 8oz glasses a day. So I make it a habit to drink three full jars a day, maybe more if I don't feel like I'm drowning by the end of the workday. I drink my water in a variety of ways. Sometimes with lemon juice and sweetener, sometimes by adding some instant (decaf) tea, to give it flavor, or whatever you like!



2. All diets stress exercise.
   So, again, there must be something to this. The important thing is to GET MOVING!!!!! If you love to jog, jog. Here again, make it your lifestyle! If you love to walk your dog, walk your dog! THAT IS EXERCISE! MOVING IS EXERCISING. Can't seem to find the time? Look at this scenario... If you go to the store twice a day, park in the back of the parking lot. That's about 2.5 minutes of walking each way, times two visits, that's ten minutes. Then you should park as far away from your job as possible for another five minutes. Then, walk upstairs, instead of elevators, say for another five minutes. (If it's less, it's o.k. It can count double for the stairs. Then, during your break, get up break and walk outside or around the office, that's at least another ten minutes of exercise. (Add stretching if you'd like, it'll help tremendously.) Look, already you haven't "exercised", you've only changed your lifestyle, and you've exercised 30 minutes. HEY, I THOUGHT YOU DIDN'T HAVE TIME!!! At thirty minutes a day, you just added 3.5 hours a week to your exercise schedule, without an exercise routine!



3. WATCH YOUR SWEETS AND FATS AND CARBOHYDRATES!
   Nothing by itself can make you fat. It's a combination of a lot, literally. I used to just watch fats. I ate nothing but low-fat and non-fat foods. I NEVER dreamed of eating a hamburger, fried chicken, or meat hardly at all, for that matter. Then I had a wonderful friend who told me about her diet, where it was just as important to add meat as it was low-fat wheat toast. So I experimented. One day I ate a low-fat English muffin with low-fat ham and low-fat cheese at 8:00am. Then by 10:00am I was starving. So, I ate another one. Then at 12:00 I was starving again. The next day I ate the same thing, except with an egg on it at 8:00am. I was not hungry again until 12:00! I was convinced. You must have protein. It's crucial to your diet for MANY reasons. One, it's healthy, two it fills you up, and keeps you full, and three, it keeps you from losing muscle along with your fat. People who tend to starve themselves off of protein-rich foods are depriving their bodies. Your muscles are always re-building!!! Keep the protein available for them! Besides, it will act like a fat, in that it will keep you filling full.

There are many other small tips that could help you like: don't deprive yourself, if you eat several small meals, it keeps your metabolism going, or ALWAYS BE SURE TO EAT BREAKFAST, your metabolism sorta goes to sleep with you, and just as you need to wake up and get going, your metab needs the same so feed it something to wake it up, or think positive!

The point that I hope you have gleaned from all of this is that you strive to make all the above suggestions a lifestyle, not just a fad. All the above suggestions are easy enough to live with. You just have to make up your mind and be patient. Take it from "Big Al" -- Rome was not built overnight!!! And neither will your healthy body!

When I first started my diet I had no goals or a lifestyle set in place that would insure a steady weight loss. I just crippled along trying one thing then another. Even on my first day, I couldn't take that first step and admit to being a food-a-holic. It hurt too much to formulate those words in my brain. That morning I was up at five, hungry as a bear out of hibernation, and made myself and my wife a wonderful café' au lait and served it with a piece of toasted raisin bread, which I had baked the day before, smeared it with creamy butter and an orange marmalade I had made myself. My wife, at five feet three, 110 pounds, is in wonderful shape and has never had to diet! She eats at a drop of a hat, whatever she wants, as much as she wants! So, go figure.

I send you lots of luck. Keep those e-mails coming and feel free to ask questions at any time!!!!