I consider this one of the most dangerous myths about weight loss - perhaps THE most dangerous myth about weight loss.

People believe that they must change almost everything, and so if they feel they can't change everything (especially all in one fell swoop) they decide they can't succeed and so they don't even try. Or they try, but when they slip, even in a small way, they decide that they can't change, or that they're not ready to change, and therefore are doomed to failure, so they might as well give up. Believing that a complete lifestyle overhaul is necessary and that "everything" must change is so overwhelming that it often seems impossible.

I whole-heartedly believed this myth most of my life, and when I would slip into old habits, I would conclude that I was sabotaging myself and must not want or be ready for weight loss (and I didn't come up with this nonsense on my own, "everyone" from my mother to my doctor to barely-acquaintences and all the weight loss authors were saying this, implying that if you're not perfect you're not ready for change).

And I think it's one of the main reasons I failed over and over and over again. It wasn't that I wasn't ready for change, it was that changeing too much was so overwhelming that I felt like a failure (because "everyone" knew you had to change everything about yourself to lose weight successfully).

It's pure hogwash. You can make small changes, and small changes can make HUGE differences. You don't have to be perfect, and you don't even have to be hypervigilant, you just have to make consistent changes.

I had to change my mottor from "anything worth doing is worth doing well," to "anything worth doing is worth doing half-a$$ed, because it's better than not doing it at all. If you only have the energy to do it half-assed, then do it half-assed."

I've lost 105 lbs by making small, gradual changes. Yes, I've lost it slower than I've ever lost weight before, but I've also lost more weight than I've ever before, and have maintained my losing streak without regains for far more often than ever before, and I've lost the weight more comfortably and easily than I ever would have imagined possible. No stress, no frustration, no panic. I'm NEVER tempted to quit, because there's nothing to quit. I've made the changes so slowly that they don't even feel like changes, they just feel like living my normal, mostly the same life.

Sure, the person I am today is much different than the person I was when I started, but I didn't have to make as many changes as we're taught to believe we have to make. I didn't have to change everything, and I didn't have to do it all at once.

This has been an epiphany for me, because in the past I did try to lose weight by changing everything. I stopped dating because dates wanted to take me out to eat. I stopped going out with friends, because eating and drinking interferred with the weight loss. My job and/or schooling suffered when I was dieting, because I made so many changes that I couldn't concentrate on anything but weight loss. I gave up my normal hobbies. I changed everything and when I didn't recognize my life, I felt depressed and disillusioned. I made weight loss so unpleasant that giving up made more sense than sticking with the misery.

I think the main reason 95% of diets fail, is because we're taught that only rapid and life-overhauling methods of weight loss are legitimate, so only the people who can succeed "cold turkey" succed. Very few people even consider trying weight loss the way I've done it, because that's too slow and too demotivating, because we're taught to expect complete transformation and anything else is failure.

We set ourselves and others up to fail by expecting drastic and sudden lifestyle overhauls, virtually overnight AND when someone isn't able to sustain such drastic change, we say they're not ready to change, or that they don't really want to change, or all sorts of criticisms that boil down to laziness, craziness, selfishness or stupidity.

You don't have to change everything, and everything you do have to change, doesn't have to be changed at once or in large ways. You don't have to change everything, you just have to change some things, and you don't have to make huge changes, you can make comfortable ones (and when they become so comfortable that they're second nature, then change something else).

I wish we accepted slow, small, and moderate changes more, because I think more people would succeed if they didn't see small changes as failures.

My former coworker stands 4'10 and her hip width around was 62 inches. She was over 220 pounds. In her mid-50s, so everything's slowing down. She had a lot of knee pain and back pain. She also had a frozen shoulder. Exercise was really, really, really hard for her. Just getting up from her desk to walk to the bathroom was painful.

She started on the hCG diet last January. She got the drops for the States and she followed the plan precisely. Between January and June she lost 54 pounds (though she didn't look THAT much smaller because she hadn't exercised to tighten up the skin). She went off the "diet" around July, and as of today (over a year later) she has not regained the weight.

I'm not saying it will work or that it's healthy for everyone, but she was an extreme case. The loss of 50 pounds off her small frame have helped her be more active, which has likely contributed to the maintenance of that weight loss. She's slowly eating healthier, but you are right - it did not teach her how to eat healthier.

I wouldn't advise the hCG diet unless it was, like her, a dire situation and then only under doctor guidance.

I feel like that's child abuse................ I honestly do. I feel that a child that is that young is being abused in a round about way when they don't get healthy foods and move into morbidly obese. I know it's not physically hitting or being verbally abusive. But this kid will have physical and psychological problems that could easily be solved by diet and exercise on the parents part.
This kid isn't really a consenting adult able to understand and have the ability to make her own choices, and to become that big at that age is damaging in so many ways. It really makes me sad, I know people think fast food is cheaper, but as a broke college student obsessed with numbers it is NOT cheaper. Cheaper to make a sandwich on whole wheat with some lettuce and turkey then it is to get a $6 big mac. I guess if you go for the dollar menu it can balance out.
If you're really that strapped for cash and can't get the basic ingredients for salads, fruits, veggies, chicken you cook etc... then there are shelters and food banks that PROVIDE this. Yes it takes work and can be a pain (trust me I know) but it's your kid. Don't they deserve better?
And water is always cheaper than soda, I never got by people that are so broke complain about the price of food but load up on sodas.

I think kids that are older or once you hit an age where you understand what calories are etc, it's more of the persons choice to be bigger. It's my fault I got to where I am and I know how I got here. But I also can make the choice to fix it or ignore it and am aware of the consequences of doing so. A kid though can't make the choice to be healthier and more than likely doesn't even understand the basics. Calorie counting, etc isn't as easy to comprehend. When I was young I though as long as I ate less than 1000 calories I could have whatever. Even if it was just ice cream all day. It takes a while to comprehend nutrition. Even nutritionists argue. Some say eggs are SO BAD for you, others say they are SO GOOD for you. There is always a new study, there is always a new diet, there is always a random warning about consuming this or that. Kids don't pay attention and some don't have the resources to pay attention let alone the ability to make this change.

I really get annoyed with parents with OBESE kids because of McDonalds and not caring.

/rant

You're joking here right? Honestly I'm shocked that you would post something like this. Study after study has been done and all but one have the exact same result.

The HCG diet works because you're heavily restricting calories and eating primarily protein. The "protocol" of using HCG to speed fat loss does nothing. You can get a large placebo effect because ... you can always get a large placebo effect when people believe. If you think you're not going to be hungry you won't be hungry for a while. The funniest part is most people are taking HCG orally. Actual HCG must be injected. If it is taken orally the HCG protein is digested by enzymes that break it up into amino acids and it is no longer HCG. Regardless - all the studies done were with injected HCG and the simple fact is it does jack squat for fat loss.

Whether one gains weight after the HCG diet depends on whether they resume eating as before or they change how they eat. Just like every other "diet".

HCG diet is a PSMF. The current theory is that a PSMF can help reset one's set point. Maybe it does - sounds like it did with you. If someone is going to do a PSMF they should first consult with their doctor and the one I would reccomend is Rapid Fat Loss.

All you HCG bashers should go head over to the Ideal Protein section of this forum and start bashing there.

HCG is a PSMF based around 500 calories a day.

IP diet is a PSMF based around 600-700 calories a day.

Both programs do not educate their dieters and make up "Facts" to help people be convinced they are spending their money wisely.

The only thing that makes the IP diet any better is that it has phases where you are increasing calories but at the end of the day you still end up with people who don't know why they lost weight.

HCG dieters think it is the magic drops

IP dieters think it is the magic of ketosis

Go ahead ... head on over to the IP section and start educating them. I dare ya! :D

(This post will be deleted in 3 ... 2 .... 1 .... *POOF*)

Nowhere did I say one had to dive into a lifestyle change.

Considering where I came from, I think I would be the last person to advocate that everything needs to change at once—it doesn't. I don't believe it's hogwash at all to say that you have to change your life in order to actually change something about it. It's tough to get up and go to the gym voluntarily if you're not used to it! You have to get into that habit of mind; changing your previous way of thinking and doing things (and probably have to shift your schedule around). It's hard to eat healthy if you're not used to it; it's especially hard to do when you're surrounded by a culture that pushes food at you everywhere you turn. You have to change how you think about and view food in order to get into that habit of mind. You'll also have to be confident enough to defend those choices

It took me years and years to get to this point. I first joined a gym eight years ago and it was the scariest thing I did because I had no idea what I was doing. That became a habit and I slowly over the years learned about healthier foods. The last "burst" of weight loss only came last year when I watched my portions (going from 182 to 112).

It wasn't as difficult as it could be to transition into a healthier lifestyle because exercise was a habit already. Eating smaller portions of healthier foods wasn't all that bad because I was eating healthy foods already. Learning to defend my lifestyle wasn't all that difficult because over the years I learned to go from a shy pushover to a quiet, yet assertive and confident person.

I've already said in other posts that there's no way I could have done this at another point in my life. I struggled to lose the rest of my weight only to fail before I even got a running start because I simply wasn't ready to do it.

Is it bad though to not be ready though? There are other things in life that we tell people to not do if they're not ready. If all they can manage to do is start walking then that's awesome!. If they just cut out some junk food here and there, then that's awesome. It's a process to change everything and it'll take some people longer than others.

My life is different. I did change "everything." I didn't do it all at the same time, but through small changes I still got here.

***DING DING DING***

Add to this that there is a huge amount of conflicting information even from "reputable" sources ... it's a cluster ...

It's such a simple topic ... yet so complicated and overwhelming to the average person. The fundamentals make up 90+% of the results one will get but the fudamentals are not sexy and don't make anyone any money...

You're a fantastic success story and you're right of course that ultimately you do have to take on a new lifestyle and while you might not have to change everything you will ultimately have to make major and substantial changes. That said ... I think your original post could easily be interpreted the wrong way leading to Kaplod's response.

John, I am happy to shoot you an email with a rebuttal to the studies, which were poorly controlled for crucial variables in the protocol, as well as an unaltered copy of the original manuscript, if you want to read the source material without any gimmicky spin (it is a PDF scan).

There are no magic drops, no magic at all. The endocrine system isn't some mythical creation that has no bearing on our bodies or how they function. And in much the same way, hCG isn't some random substance without any physiological effects on other hormones in the body. In certain doses, with particular physiological triggers, its mechanism relating leptin is both real and well documented.

As you have acknowledged, I'm no ignorant dietary quack who is looking for a quick fix or prone to crash dieting and logical fallacies regarding the body. Nor would I cavalierly suggest a medical prescriptive protocol for weight loss to most individuals, especially as it relates to augmenting the hormonal balance of the body for a healing effect on the metabolism. It isn't simple, it isn't magic, and it isn't unfounded quackery - but it IS terribly abused by the diet industry, done poorly by most doctors and nearly all patients, and is no magic bullet. Specificity and rigorous application are what make it successful, and it can be. But not as long as it is relegated to the same category as a starvation diet (it's not, I documented this extensively and tested it on myself in multiple rounds) or an easy, quick fix to weight issues (it is one of the strictest and most challenging ways of eating I have encountered and altering variables of it can have serious physiological consequences. This requires much education, precision, and dedication).

Given my personal credibility on this site, and my own skepticism in evaluating the initial diet, I would posit that if I'm vouching for it as a skeptic turned convert and clearly not off my rocker in other areas, perhaps a more critical evaluation of the protocol might be helpful to those wishing to advise others on its' appropriate use and execution.

Long way of saying - I'm clearly not a nut, it's asinine to judge this protocol by the failures of adherence by certain users and the money manipulation of it by the diet industry. That doesnt mean the original doesn't work, if the implementation violates the prescription.

If HCG sped up fat loss we had some magical properties I am certain it would be known. I think you're credible but even credible intelligent people can be wrong especially when they want to believe.

I will admit I haven't read the studies one by one but on it's face it is rediculous that no one can replicate the original study ... all 24 studies screwed up? Really?

On top of that - the only way HCG could speed up fat loss is by speeding up one's metabolism unless you're suggesting that it can defy the laws of thermodynamics? I mean the bottom line is that our bodies run on energy - and when energy is short we burn fat to make up the difference.

You want post a link to the PDF than go ahead ... I'll read it with an open mind.

Karisitru I totally agree with you. Unfortunately at this time the state doesn't. I hope in the future it changes. I doubt this generation it will though.

On the topic of "changing everything" my point was that whether we mean to or not, we tend to perpetuate the misbelief that everything has to be done drastically and at once. While lip service is sometimes payed to gradual changes, virtually no one actually encourages slow and gradual changes AND intermediate steps are seen as being of virtually no benefit at all.

It becomes extremely easy for people to assume that if they can't change it all, the might as well not try to change anything.

I think more people would be "ready" if they didn't assume that they had to do everything at once, OR if they understood that even small changes have benefits.

Weight loss is seen as a black and white issue of extremes... you're either fully immersed into dozens of simultaneous changes, or you're doing nothing at all... and we tell people it's because they're weak, lazy, crazy, selfish and stupid.

Weight loss and healthy habits are not something we encourage people to take slowly, because even what we consider "slow" isn't really slow. One pound per week weight loss is actually considered "slow" to most people. How can something that 90% or more of people fail at doing be considered slow weight loss? Shouldn't the very fact that most people don't accomplish it, make it rapid weight loss?

We don't even know what normal is, because we're not allowed to see normal (the people who are "failing" don't talk about it, and don't know that they're often doing better than everyone else who is trying).

It actually enrages me that all of the times I quit because I thought I was failing, I wasn't failing, I was experiencing amazing success but no one was giving me credit for that amazing success, they were labeling it failure. I didn't decide on my own that I was failing when the weight loss slowed and/or stalled... others were telling me I was failing. They and I were wrong. Stalling wasn't failing, it was "successful not gaining."

We encourage people to believe that they have to completely overhaul their life to experience any benefit. We don't talk about the benefits of partial success, as if our culture doesn't believe there are any. You're either doing everything you possibly can, or your not ready. And then when people change everything, and the results still don't meet the cultural definition of success, they feel hopeless and useless.

If we told people they didn't have to change everything, they just had to change something, more people would be ready to start. They wouldn't have to wait until they had the time, energy, knowledge, and commitment to change it all. They could change only what they were ready for, and they could stop changing whenever they wanted to.

That's not what we tell people though. The cultural norm is "all or nothing," and we exagerate the need to "change everything."

I would never have given up in the past, if I didn't know that I didn't have to change everything (neither all at once, or ever) and if I had known how well I actually was doing.

I have a masters degree in Psychology but I didn't know what I didn't know. I knew (consciously) that 95% of morbidly obese dieters fail, but I didn't know what real, average, normal success looked like.

I trusted "common wisdom" that one pound a week or less was considered "slow" weight loss. So I thought most people lose more than one pound a week (oh boy was I wrong), so of course I thought when my weight loss slowed to less than a pound a week, I was failing. I was losing slower than normal...

I struggled for years, never knowing that all those times when I quit because I wasn't seeing any success, I wasn't seeing success because I'd never been taught what success looks like. I was judging myself based on what we teach is success, and so we only consider the top 1% successful. Everyone else we judge to be failures.

My doctor opened my eyes when I was complaining that I "should be able to lose at least 2 lbs a week like a normal person," and he reminded me (of what I consciously knew) that normal isn't losing 1 lb a month like I was doing. Normal is losing nothing. Normal is losing a little and gaining more.

Partial success isn't considred success. If a person has gained weight their entire life and diets and doesn't lose an ounce, most people would consider their efforts a fail. What they may fail to notice is this is a person who has been steadily gaining their whole life, even putting a stop to the gaining is an awesome acheivement worthy of celebration, but do we ever congratulate someone for "not gaining."

Not only do we NOT celebrate the small changes, we actually punish them by suggesting that the person "just isn't ready for weight loss," without acknowledging the huge step they did make of just stopping the gain.

Or someone who's never eaten a vegetable in their life, who doesn't lose a pound but starts eating a balanced diet. We don't call that any kind of success.

It's as if we wanted our child to learn to play an instrument but refuse to give any praise until the child could play professional orchestra level. I guarantee the child will never get to the professional level if the small accomplishments aren't nurtured.

And we don't nurture small changes when it comes to diet and exercise, we only judge folks unworthy and unready and leave the impression that if you can't be perfect, you might as well not even try.

Small changes matter, and we need to know how hard even small change is. We need to know "normal" efforts really look like, so that when our progress seems torturously slow, we realize we're using expectations that aren't based in reality. We're judging ourselves for falling behind when we're really in the lead.

I guess I never even thought about it when I believed that "normal" was losing 1 to 2 lbs a week. But I started paying attention in my TOPS group and every week started taking note of the average weight loss for the group. Our average weight loss every week is significantly less than half a pound per person (and that's not counting the weeks, usually holiday weeks, where more people gain than lose).

But instead of the folks who don't lose a full pound (no matter their age or starting weight) are always sad and depressed about it. And almost no one celebrates "not gaining."

This time has been different for me, because I am not waiting until I'm ready to change everything. And I no longer believe that changing everything, even as an ultimate goal is productive. Instead, I focus on small changes and don't even imagine where those changes will eventually lead. I only make the changes that I think I can commit to regardless of whether or not I lose any weight at all. I'm committing to the change because it is manageable and I know it will have benefits and when that change is comfortable I'll consider making more. Maybe I'll make more changes, maybe I won't make any more changes, but the steps I've made are just as valuable whether or not I move any higher.

And that's what we don't teach very well. We're trying. You do see the magazine articles and research quotes that say "even losing 10% of your body weight can have significant health improvements." That's great and all, but we don't focus on the benefits of even smaller changes.

As a culture we only focus on the end results, not on the benefits of the journey along the way. That has to change or people who can't see the end result, will give up or won't even start.

We need to change the weight loss focus from "ideal weight" to "progress as far as you can, and if you can't progress further then that's better than backsliding."

But we don't say that. We still consider weight loss a battle you either win or lose. If we accepted more shades of gray, I think more people would succeed.

Part of it is that no one really understand what "normal" weight loss really looks like. We believe we're failing when we're actually doing better than most. We need to know what success really looks like.

I would never have quit any of my weight loss journeys in the past if I had truly understood that I was succeeding, not failing. It's really tragic, because I'm now feeling more successful than I ever have in my life (I've lost more weight and kept it off longer and made more permanent changes) and yet it's at a rate of loss that is slower than any of my previous failures. At the point of my previous failures, I was losing faster than any of the weight has come off this time.

In many respects I've "failed off 105 lbs." And it wasn't just me calling myself a failure. Weight Watchers scale monitors tsk-tsking or asking "what went wrong" when I had a stall or even a small loss on the scale (as if losing a quarter pound was some kind of crime).

Our attitudes about weight loss and health are self-destructive and culturally pervasive. People don't know what success looks like, and they've been taught to see success as failure, so they give up because they're "failing" by our cultural definition of success, and they have no idea that they're actually doing better than most. We quit thinking we're lagging far behind everyone else, even though we're actually in the lead if we've lost and kept off any weight at all.

We have to redefine success and learn to SEE it or most people will continue to quit assuming themselves failures, because that's what we've been taught to see.

I've been a compulsive overeater since I was a young child, so almost 50 years. I got thin in college but spent the next 30 years going up and down (but mostly up) the scale. I kept thinking that, to be a thin person, I had to fix my psychological issues somehow, so I wouldn't need food to make me feel better. That was far too daunting a task, though, so I just stopped trying.

A year ago, I decided to lose weight. Not to fix myself, but to just lose weight. And I've done that. I didn't change all that much about myself; I just eat less and exercise more. I still don't eat enough vegetables, I still eat too many carbs, I still have trouble sleeping because of obsessive thoughts and anxiety, I'm still angry about all sorts of stupid sh**. But I weigh a lot less and I feel a lot better, both physically and emotionally.

So, this is a long way of saying that I agree with kaplods that some of us fail because we're made to believe that we have to be perfect to succeed. That being said, I also agree with sontaikle that losing weight is not just a physical challenge, it's a mental challenge as well. For me, that challenge was to stop equating my crazy eating with being crazy. Once I realized that I can be neurotic and a healthy weight, my life got a lot easier.