At the very beginning of a diet
it isn’t too hard to maintain our enthusiasm to lose weight.
We have a tendency to believe that this time we’ll finally do it.
Finally, we’re going to bring our weight under control
and keep the weight off.

In our heads, losing weight is easy.
All that’s needed is to cut out junk food,
Eat less bread and pasta, and more fruits and vegetables,
Use less fats and oils to cook with, and choose the leanest meats.

We don’t really think about the emotional side of eating,
Or how we are going to react when we smell or see food when we’re hungry.
We find enthusiasm for weight-loss when we consider
How much better we’re going to look and feel,
Once we’ve reached our goal weight.

Then, along the way, something happens.
We begin finding it harder and harder to take the time to exercise.
We take a bite of this and that, here and there.
We use the activities and events in our life as an excuse to overeat.

Maintaining the enthusiasm that we have at the beginning
of the weight-loss process is incredibly difficult.
In the beginning, we’re excited about the possibilities.

The first few weeks, people usually log in big weight-loss numbers
as bodies begin to shed water weight.
But after several weeks, the body slows down,
and weight loss sometimes plateaus.
We find the numbers on the scale aren’t dropping as quickly as we’d like.
Even though this is normal,
it still feels frustrating to work so hard
And not see the results that were hoped for.

The Reality is that weight-loss requires hard work and discipline
and a lot of determination. over a long time period.
It isn’t always easy, and at times, it is almost impossible
to stay focused on the task, and the ultimate goal.

This is normal. It’s a process.
It takes time and energy and patience.
Sometimes it’s hard to keep a positive attitude.
We will have good days and bad days
and what’s important,
Is that we don’t get into the habit of having bad days.

If we only had to watch what we ate for a few weeks,
most of us could probably handle it,
but when we have to do it for
days and days, weeks and weeks,
months and months, and then years and years
our inclinations are to just give it up sooner rather than later.

It just seems like too big a hassle,
and so we take a break from our weight-loss plans
until the next time we get the urge to drop a few pounds.

This happens because we simply haven’t sustained
our enthusiasm for the kind of lower-calorie lifestyle
that weight-loss and maintaining weight-loss actually requires.

When weight-loss has plateaued…..
or when in Maintenance, after reaching goal,
is when the Real Challenge happens.
We have to keep reinventing ourselves,
Finding and trying new food plans, new diets, new recipes,
new workout programs.
Any way we can find to keep ourselves interested
and to re-inspire ourselves.

That point in the weight-loss and maintenance process
where the going gets tough
is what separates those who can stay focused
from those who choose not to do so.

To succeed.
We have to find a way to keep ourselves engaged.

It's important to know what to say "yes" to, 
and what to say "no" to. 
 

Today
I intend to be positive all day long:
follow my current food plan as closely as possible;
do some exercise;
and then....
....except for working to meet those requirements....
I'm going to choose to do exactly whatever I might wish, with my day.  

Each of us has the ability to choose our attitudes.
We can be positive or negative, it's up to us.

When my attitude is positive and upbeat,
it makes my day brighter and more pleasant.

I choose to work toward having a positive attitude.
I will fill my mind with happy, inspiring thoughts,
by reading and watching things that encourage and inspire me.

I will either surround myself with happy, pleasant people,
or choose to spend my time engaged in pleasant activities alone,
and will avoid and ignore negative people who complain and whine,
and choose to wallow in their misery.

A positive attitude will help me succeed with my goals,
and will help me survive the many difficulties
that each of us experiences during our lives.

 
I started DietHobby in February 2011,
so it has now been in existence for 1 year.

Today, I'm taking a step back from the day-to-day involvement,
to look at the big picture, re-assess my progress, and perhaps
make adjustments to the project.

 I began the DietHobby website as an extension of my
diet forum involvement in order to provide a place of my own

that was under my own management and control,
to store my Thoughts about dieting and related subjects,
as it applies to my own Maintenance Progress.

I purchased my own Domain, DietHobby.com.
My web-genius-son wrote the code for this DietHobby website.
He brought it into existence and taught me how to use it.

People can easily learn about me and my dieting history
by reading the About Me page.

I've written frequent articles and stored them in the Archives
for easy accessibility for anyone interested.

I've made many recipe videos and put them in the Recipe section
to easily share them with others.

I've included some personal pictures in the Gallery section,
for those who would like to see my family or my stained glass projects.

I've completed a thorough summary of a best selling diet-book
and placed it in the BookTalk section.

I've organized and provided links to helpful sites,
and relevant videos in the Resources section,
including a Playlist of my Words of Wisdom video series
which is intended to be used as a positive motivational tool.

 DietHobby's companion channel on YouTube
began as a place to store the Recipe videos,
and the 30 second Inspirational videos
that I made for this website.

However, YouTube also has a community of its own
who view videos, make comments,
and subscribe to be notified of future videos.

This YouTube community includes all ages, from children through the elderly.
These are people of different tastes, interests, cultural backgrounds, education,
nationality, religion, race, sex, and political affiliations.

Although the YouTube DietHobby's primary viewers are in the United States,
there are also DietHobby viewers in Canada, United Kingdom, Australia, Germany,
the Netherlands, India, Singapore, Saudi Arabia, Mexico, Brazil, Thailand,
Turkey, Kazakhstan, and the Philippines, as well as other countries.

My web-genius-son suggested that I begin a third video series,
to better address the many needs and interests of the YouTube Community.
This video series is entitled "Ask Grandma", which answers questions from viewers.

 On YouTube, I am now known as Dr. Collins, the YouTube Grandma,
whose hobby is dieting. My recipe video series is known as, "Grandma's Recipes".
My Inspirational video series is known as "Words of Wisdom".
All of these video series tie in together to form an educational, how-to, channel.

This past year, in order to accomplish making videos.
I set up and learned how to use a Macintosh computer,
and many of the latest Apple software programs.
I learned how to use a camcorder with a tripod;
how to set up and use professional photography equipment,
including lighting, and backgrounds;
and how to set up and use a teleprompter.

I learned to prepare, set up, shoot, and edit all of my own videos,
and how to upload them into YouTube.

I've learned to navigate my way around YouTube,
and am learning more about Twitter, Facebook, Google, and Google +.

During this past year, I've also continued to engage myself
in my Hobby of Dieting, to connect with other dieters who have similar interests ,
and I have managed to maintain my weight-loss for yet another year.

At the beginning of 2011, I was a "windows" only computer user,
who didn't use a movie camera, seldom even took snapshots,
and knew nothing about photography technique.;
I knew very little about websites and knew nothing about
YouTube, or the other computer social networks.

 Now it's the beginning of 2012, and I've learned a lot.
So….what will happen this year?
I have no idea.

My primary DietHobby plan is to continue writing
and participating here at this DietHobby website,
and I hope that people with similar dieting interests will
come here and participate with me.

For the present,
I intend to continue my DietHobby involvement with YouTube.
and try to be helpful to the community there, while trying to attract
those adults who are interested in dieting and maintenance to
this DietHobby website.

YouTube is simply a massive website of it's own,
with millions, probably billions, of viewers from all over the world.
It is owned by Google, who is now in the process of
incorporating it into the "Google family". 

This is bringing a great many drastic changes to the YouTube website,
including the way it is set up, designed, and managed.
Right now, navigating through the New YouTube
is proving to be sort of a "crap shoot" for video "creators"
such as myself.

This is because YouTube…since being taken over by Google..
has many vague and poorly defined rules, and policies
that are sometimes shared, and sometimes kept private.
YouTube can pick and choose if and how they enforce these,
and any channel can disappear from the site without cause or notice.

YouTube is now moving toward a corporate goal
of becoming more like television…whatever that might mean to them….
and people who have video channels there…even those with
hundreds of thousands of subscribers, and millions of views…
are far less important or valuable to the owners of the YouTube website
than they were in the past years from its creation in 2006 to the present.

YouTube's new plans could benefit DietHobby,
or it could make the youtube website useless to DietHobby.
Either way, the process is interesting, and I am actually
very much looking forward to seeing how this develops over time.

 So…. this is what I've been doing this past year.
I'm hoping that this next year will be just as interesting.
But I also hope that DietHobby will take a lot less of my time,
and will be a whole lot less work.