I agree with most of this recent news article.
Do you? 

"Calories in, calories out—in theory, losing weight should be that simple. But we're going to venture a guess that the reason two-thirds of Americans are classified as overweight or obese isn't because they can't do basic math. Age, genetics, hormones and the big one—a lack of will power—better explain the disconnect between wanting to lose weight and actually doing it.

In fact, while 84 percent of people claim they're trying to take better care of their health today than just a few years ago, 59 percent of people reported they don't have the will power to change their habits, according to a recent survey by The Futures Co. Lack of will power is the No. 1 barrier preventing Americans from living healthier lifestyles, ranking higher than money, time, desire and a perceived lack of need, according to the survey.
So what's the secret to propelling yourself from an "aha" moment to reaching a healthy weight? It's all about the day-to-day. Focusing on lifestyle changes, heeding the right how-to advice and finding support from a group of like-minded peers will help you stay on track better than focusing on the impetus (a scary obesity poster in the subway) or the end result (fitting into your skinny jeans again).

Here, we sift through motivation research and enlist the help of Andy Core, an exercise physiologist and motivational speaker, to muddle through three motivation misconceptions—and provide the help you need to stay on track.

Myth 1: The end result is what matters.

Reality: Enjoying the path to success is what helps you reach it.

You know the Chinese proverb "The journey is the reward," but you've probably never thought of it in terms of losing weight. The reward typically associated with a diet and exercise plan is watching your goal weight calibrate on the bathroom scale. But according to Core, thinking ahead to that magical day isn't enough to motivate you to get there. "Starting with the end in mind is the fast track to failure in a health-improvement program," he says. "You want to have goals, but your daily focus should be on gaining gratification from checking the box."

"Checking the box" could mean finishing a workout, drinking eight glasses of water in a given day, or dedicating 10 minutes in the evening to laying out your gym clothes and making a healthy lunch for the next day, says Core. The important thing is that it becomes a positive experience that you want to repeat, he says, adding that setting up healthy lifestyle patterns helps you build the momentum necessary to reach a weight loss goal.

Myth 2: I am my own biggest motivator.

Reality: Social support is essential to reaching a weight loss goal.

You could have all the gumption in the world, but it won't get you far if you're going at weight loss alone—or from inside a circle of friends who make unhealthy decisions, says Core.

Research suggests that having obese friends can make you gain weight too—and that your peers can help you lose weight or maintain weight loss. The trick to using social support to your advantage is surrounding yourself with the right company. "Ask yourself, 'Are my family and friends encouragers, or are they part of the problem?'" Core suggests.

And don't forget about your online support structure. In a study published in the International Journal of Medical Informatics, researchers at the University of Texas Medical School at Houston surveyed 193 members of the SparkPeople online weight loss community and found that 88 percent of respondents used the site for encouragement and motivation, while 59 percent used it as a source of information and 43 percent as an outlet for sharing experiences.

Myth 3: Failure is a sign of weakness.

Reality: Failure results from a lack of preparation or poor behavior patterns.

If you hit a weight loss plateau or derail your diet over a holiday weekend, it's not a reflection on your character and you shouldn't beat yourself up over it, says Core, explaining that core values don't drive motivation.

"Most people at some point in their lives have felt motivated to live healthy," says Core. "Those same people have also felt unmotivated," he adds, explaining that the two sometimes happen just days apart. "In a period of days, your core values, your metabolism, the way you were raised, and your life experiences haven't changed."

What did change: your habits. Perhaps you stopped tracking calories or skipped a series of workouts and feel as though you've completely killed your diet. The best way to power past a slip-up: "Think execution versus outcome," suggests Core. "Re-energize and refocus on checking the box. Don't focus on what good things happen if you do, or bad things happen if you don't." And to make weight loss goals—and mistakes—more manageable from a success/failure standpoint, don't get too far ahead of yourself. "You don't have to change your life; you only have to change your day," says Core."

by Hollis Templeton, July 14, 2011 Chicago Tribune.

 Sometimes we feel stuck.
Stuck in our eating patterns;
stuck in how much we weigh,
stuck in how we feel about ourselves.
This tends to lead us to a feeling of
hopelessness that we can’t seem to shake.

A look at new possibilities can move us
away from that black- and -white thinking
that we have during the times when we feel stuck.

When we start considering possibilities,
we alter our thinking just slightly to consider
that there is a possibility that things could be different,
that other behavioral options can exist for us.

We don’t have to start with an actual change,
just a consideration of a possible change.

When we’re on the sofa, and junk food is calling us by name,
we can choose to eat it, Or, we have the possibility
of making another choice. We can choose to go online,
or take a walk. We canchoose a different activity.

Do we have to? No! 
Do we want to? Maybe No
But there is a part of us that might like
experimenting with doing something different

Will we go online? Will we take a walk?
Perhaps, if we know the possibility of doing it exists.
No pressure, no rules, just internally giving ourselves an option.

If weight-loss success is our goal,
we have options, and those options give us
a variety of different paths to get there.

Weight-loss and maintenance of that weight-loss
depends on our food-intake and exercise,
which involves the physical process of weight-loss.

There is also a mental side to successful weight-loss,
and people talk a lot about motivation,
which is a way where we can be driven
to start a weight-loss plan and stick to it.

However, the basis of the ability to see a weight-loss
process through is Faith...or what one believes. 

Faith is an underlying force which gives strength to succeed
in changing our bodies.  It is also the driving force
we need to make changes in any area.

At the beginning of a diet,
we need to have faith that we will succeed.
Otherwise we can't really get going.

No one tries something without at least a litle belief
in his or her ability to achieve their goals.
We don't need to be certain of our success,
but we do need to have faith that it is in our ability to achieve it.

Wanting to lose weight is a good start,
but we then it's time for a decision.
We need to choose one plan over another,...even if it is for a limited time...
and put faith in someone, or in some system.
In the end we have to trust someone and something.

There is a saying: "When the Going Get's Tough,
the Tough Get Going", but it isn't the tough that keep going,
it's those people with Faith.

Unless we have faith, we are likely to fall apart
and retreat wheever we face a difficulty.
And difficulties will come, they can't be avoided.

Weight-loss depends on making lifestyle changes and breaking old habits.
It is like swimming against the current of the river or the ocean.
It is much easier to keep doing the things we are used to doing,
regardless of the impact on our bodies and our health.

A few suggestions to help find faith are:

Remember our past successes.
This isn't the first time we have achieved something,
either in school, at work, or in our personal lives.
If we have achieved something in our past,
there's no reason why we can't lose weight.

None of us is THAT different.
Other people find ways to lose weight and keep it off,
and so can we. We aren't that different or that much weaker
than many other people.

Take a blind leap.
In a way, not doing anything is failing.
Not doing anything is failing to make a change.
Sometimes we just need to take a leap of faith,
to try something out and hope for the best.

Faith isn't something we're born with.
It is something we develop over time.
Each of us has the power to change ourselves
to be someone who has faith in themselves.

Ultimately, what matters is what we, ourselves, believe.

For decades now, the conventional advice from trainers and weight loss specialists has been this:

"Eat three meals a day plus two snacks."

The big question is whether or not it's true.

And the answer (drum roll and envelope please) is ...... sometimes. But not always. ...

Many people do absolutely great on three meals a day with no snacks, and sometimes, on some days -- (gasp) -- even two.

See, the conventional advice was built upon the "truth" that "grazing" is always a better eating strategy for weight loss than eating three (or, god forbid, two) "solid" meals a day. Eating three meals and two snacks was supposed to keep your blood sugar even throughout the day, keeping cravings at bay.

Well, maybe.
But the truth of the matter is that people are far more variable and individual than we often acknowledge. And there's a downside to the "five meals a day" theory, a downside which may affect some people more than others.

For one thing, eating every two hours guarantees that your insulin is going to go up five times a day instead of, say, three. For many people, that means more hunger, not less.

Insulin is not only the fat storage hormone, it's also the hunger hormone. In fact, the whole "Carbohydrate Addicts Diet" got started when one of its creators, a (then) very-overweight Rachel Heller, found that she experienced a lot less hunger on one particularly busy day when she "forgot" to eat.

Three meals a day -- each with a beginning and an end -- is making a comeback as a weight-loss strategy, snacking be damned. Celebrity nutritionist JJ Virgin now advocates eating three meals a day, the first meal within an hour of waking up and the last meal at least three hours before bed. And recent research has demonstrated-- at least in rats -- that "intermittent fasting" actually has some major health benefits.

The point here is not that the old information was wrong and the new information is right.

The point is ....
that there are huge individual differences in how we respond to food, and no one strategy -- including the "five meals a day" strategy -- works for everyone.

We need to stop blindly following conventional wisdom and start paying attention to our individual differences when it comes to weight loss. (In fact, that's not a bad strategy to follow for everything, but that's another column.)

Ellen Langner, the Harvard psychologist, puts it brilliantly in her book "Mindfulness," when she says that "certainty" is the enemy of mindfulness. When we blindly follow a strategy, for weight loss or for anything else, we often stop paying attention to the individual cues that tell us whether it's the right thing to do in our particular situation.

 "Certainty is a cruel mindset," she wrote.
"It is uncertainty that we need to embrace, particularly about our health.
If we do so, the payoff is that we create choices
and the opportunity to exercise control over our lives."

So if three meals and two snacks per day works for you, great. Keep it up and carry on! But if it's not working, don't assume it's because there's something wrong with you. It just might be that you need to try a different strategy.

And three meals a day -- each with a beginning and an end point, and with no "snacking" in between -- might be one technique worth trying.

There are days when  I seem to lack inspiration.
Today my plan is to address the issues of Habitual Behavior,
in order to carry out the theme of my Words of Wisdom video,
and I'm just not in the mood.

 My HABIT, however, is to write here each morning,
so I'm working to follow through with my plan,
Perhaps in a "reduced capacity"
but as much as I find it possible at the moment.

Those of you who are familiar with the No S Diet principles
are also very familiar with the concept of Habit,
but I think the Habit concept is still worthy of additional thought.

A Habit is simply an acquired behavior pattern regularly followed
until it has become almost involuntary, or automatic.

Features of an automatic behavior can include:
efficiency, lack of awareness, unintentionality, and uncontrollability.

A "bad" habit is a negative behavior pattern,
and a "good" habit is a positive behavior pattern.
Ultimately Good and Bad are personal  value Judgments,
even when one is talking about Habits.

So...we don't ALL agree on whether a Habit is good or bad
....allthough, as a society in general, many people who 
have values differing from what is considered the norm,
tend to "pretend" they possess those "shared" values in order to "fit in",
and thereby make their lives less confrontational.

Most of life is habitual.
Each of us tends to do the same things we did yesterday,
the day before, and every day for the past month.
It is estimated that out of every 11,000 signals we receive
from our senses, our brains only process about 40.

 Habits, good or bad, make us who we are.
The key is in controlling them.
If we know how to change our habits,
then even a small effort can create big changes.

But before making such an effort,
each of us needs to determine for ourselves
if a change is REALLY something WE want,
or if it is something we think we SHOULD want.

Here is where our personal morality or ethics comes into play.
What makes a Habit good?
Will it really benefit me in a positive way?
And how will it do that?

It is unlikely that we will be successful in either
implementing or overturning Habits 
in order to accomplish things like an overhaul of our diet,
cutting down on TV viewing, or exercising regularly,
unless we truly believe it will result in an improved quality of life.

Re the Question: "How Do I Form A Good Habit?"
The answer is the same for both good and bad habits.
Making a good habit is the same as making a bad habit.
The brain is amoral when it comes to habits.
It does not care if it is good or bad.  All it knows is that
the habit action is routinely performed so it would benefit
from an improved neurological pathway for more efficient processing.

Creating a habit is actually easy.
All you need do to form a habit is to repeat the activity.
With enough repetitions it becomes a habit.
The more you do it after the habit is formed,
the more reinforcement you give to that habit.
and the stronger it becomes.

Scientists have come up with the following reasons
why humans stick to bad habits....
Among these reasons are:

• Innate human defiance
• Need for social acceptance
• Inability to truly understand the nature of risk
• Individualistic view of the world
• The ability to rationalize unhealthy habits
• Genetic predisposition to addiction.
  

 However....remember...
it is important to determine WHO is defining the habit as bad...or unhealthy.
Frequently it the person defining the habit is NOT the human WITH the "bad" habit.
Which, of course, IS an important issue which is often overlooked.

I've found that the less committed I am to the VALUE of a particular behavior
the less likely it is that I will ever be successful in making that behavior into a habit,
or in eliminating it as a habit. It all starts with: 
DO I REALLY WANT TO DO ... (OR NOT DO) ... THIS SPECIFIC BEHAVIOR.