For a lot of my life whenever I embarked on a weight loss journey the first thing that I thought was, “How long will this take?” I just couldn’t wait to finish the diet and get back to life as usual. That is the very reason that I had to keep doing it over and over. That’s the reason that I had low self esteem. That’s the reason that I made poor life choices. That’s the reason that I was speeding towards bad health when I found David’s Way. I wanted a temporary fix, a band-aid. What I found was healing.

I had a lifelong battle with my weight. At the age of four, my mother put me on the scales and gasped “Oh my goodness, Brenda! You’re FAT! You weigh FORTY POUNDS!” I was instantly immersed in shame. I remember it like it was yesterday. The sad thing is, forty pounds is the average normal weight for a four year old. My mother was anorexic. The dark shadow of that moment haunted me until I took control of my life by committing to follow David’s Way. Once I made up my mind to follow this program, I have. The power of making a decision is immeasurable. Once you’ve truly committed, you work the program and trust the process. There’s no need to get in a hurry because this is your life from now on, eating a lot of good, healthy food, working out if you like and reducing stress by eliminating the negative and cultivating the positive and just clearing the clutter in all areas of your life. Spreading ourselves too thin will always cause stress which will lead to overeating and other self destructive behaviors.

Slow weight loss as opposed to fast weight loss protects the elasticity of our skin. At the age of 62, after gaining 65 pounds at the age of 37 during a pregnancy that ended with a c-section, I do not have a single stretch mark. I have gained and lost weight many times in my life but losing was always very slow. I have always used body moisturizers and taken vitamin C, which is involved in collagen production, but those things would not have made much difference had I lost weight fast. Slow loss allows your skin time to adjust to less fat volume.

One of the most important reasons to lose slowly is learning to adapt our habits to a healthier lifestyle. If we force fast weight loss by extreme calorie restriction, we continually feel deprived, hungry and empty. As soon as we have a bad day we’ll feel entitled and stuff ourselves full. The misery of a starvation diet will be one more stressor to suffer and we will rebel with force. Once we have binged and reawakened cravings by eating sugary desserts, we will feel defeated and just give up the whole idea of getting healthy. By eating satisfying amounts of good whole foods and losing slowly, we feel good physically and never feel deprived. There is nothing to rebel against so we just keep working the program, trusting the process and learning about health and longevity.

If we lose slowly, our minds have more time to adjust to our changing bodies and lifestyle. As we work the program slowly we change much like a caterpillar inside a cocoon. There are changes taking place that cannot always be seen but they are critical and they are creating an entirely different person. As we apply ourselves to the Methodology of the program our minds gradually accept that we are truly different. When we emerge from the cocoon our wings will be strong, nurtured by time well spent becoming exactly who we are supposed to be. We will no more want to wallow in the misery of indecision than the butterfly wants to crawl on it’s belly. We will lift our eyes to the sun and fly.

The scariest reason to lose slowly is that if we lose too fast we will almost certainly lose precious muscle. Muscle is involved in mobility, circulation, respiration, digestion, urination, childbirth, vision, stability and posture. (1) It also generates heat. Take my word for it, even if you don’t want to look muscular, you need this magical tissue, as much as you can get. Everything will work better…everything.

Losing slowly trains you that this is your normal now. It’s not a temporary, miserable state. It’s the real you…the person that you’ve always wanted to be…one of “them”. It’s not easy, but let me ask you, how easy is it to be overweight? Decide. Move forward. Get on program. Repeat, for the rest of your life. Bask in your new freedom, turn your face to the sun and fly. The world awaits. ;-*

(1) https://www.healthline.com/health/functions-of-the-muscular-system#posture