Trust me, you will succeed -- you will do this right, one time -- because you are about to take your weight-control efforts to a deeper level, where you exercise your personal power to be totally and consciously in charge of everything you think, do, and feel. It's not just about cutting calories, doing a few more push-ups, or taking diet pills. It's not simply about just getting "skinny." It's about changing what you eat, why you eat, where you eat, when you eat, and how you eat, and doing it all in a way that is custom-designed so that it is natural for you. It's about changing yourself from the inside out, so that being what is fit and healthy for you is as natural and as normal as breathing.

By changing yourself from the inside out, you will be able to attain and permanently maintain what I call your get-real weight. It is very important that I establish a clear definition in your mind of what this really means. Essentially, it means a weight that is healthy and realistic for your age and for your physical and genetic makeup, a weight at which you are happy and truly at peace with your size, and a weight that is stable because you have taken control of every factor in your life that keeps it there. Incidentally, that weight may not be at all what you now think you should weigh. For example, if you are a woman who is postmenopausal and you have had three children, and what you want is to be super-skinny like you were at age twenty-three, the reality is that you need to aim for something else. Your get-real weight is a state of health and well-being that is congruent and in harmony with how you are physically and genetically configured. It is the weight that is "right" for you -- a stable, comfortable weight. It is the weight at which you look good, feel good, and lovingly accept yourself from the inside out.

Copyright © 2003 by Phillip C. McGraw