When I embarked on my weight-loss journey in 1994, I expected to lose all the weight in a year. No problem. After all, “real people” lost this amount of weight in this short period of time, according to the ads. I’m a “real” person. This would be fast and easy. Then I learned that this real person—me—was somehow different from all of those touting their success via their advertised stories. My weight loss was neither fast nor easy! It took hard work and consistent effort.

Fast and easy may be the way we all would like to handle our challenges—I know I would. I learned, however, that it’s best, no matter what obstacle we’re trying to overcome, to proceed steadily toward our goal armed with a positive, “I-will-succeed” attitude. I thought of the tortoise and the hare soon after I realized that my journey would take some time. And, like the tortoise, I, too, won!

The diet industry wants us to believe everything we hear and read. This is how it makes its billions of dollars each year. But along with the wonderful success stories, no matter what the diet product or plan, there is always the disclaimer: “Results not typical.”

And typically, very few people ever achieve the results proclaimed. If I had learned this truth years ago, I would be the one with an enormous amount of money. My garage sales wouldn’t always have abs-reducing and thigh-firming equipment for sale. Expensive “miracle” diet drugs wouldn’t fill all my cabinets. (They expired long ago…I need to throw them away!) Diet books wouldn’t weigh down the shelves on my bookcase.

When I finally got smart and realized that the only “right way” to reduce weight is healthy eating and regular exercise (and you know this too!), I no longer needed those costly diet things. And when I realized that I didn’t need to go fast or wear a size 2, I stopped comparing my success to all those “untypical real people.”

In the last couple of years, due to a medical condition, as well as a large dose of laxity, I gained back some weight. Then I got back on the road to health and fitness and, thus far, I have lost 55 pounds. Now let’s see. A weight loss of 55 pounds should have me in at least a size 6! I’m not. I’m proudly wearing a size 16 and a size 14 is in my near future!