There is one way to become overweight: eat more food than your body needs; plain and simple. Whether you learned to over-eat as a child, adolescent, or as an adult, the fact remains that if you eat food that contains more nutrients and calories than you expend in a day, your body will store that excess energy and you become overweight. We all have reasons for being overweight, and some of these are legitimate. Our eating habits are learned, and many of us learned from our parents who didn’t have solid information about nutrition and diets. I get that. However, it seems that people always give some sort of excuse for why they can’t lose weight. They are big boned, have a thyroid problem, an eating disorder, never learned self control, are unable to exercise, and the list goes on and on. It all boils down to one thing: people don’t want to take responsibility for being overweight and solving that problem.

There is one very basic truth about being overweight: nobody forced you to eat more than you need. Nobody else is responsible for your being overweight. The buck stops with you.

Own it. So you’re overweight. You are one of millions of people who are. How can you stand out from the others? Take responsibility for your health and do something about it. Stop using excuses: start finding solutions.

Look, we all have our reasons for being overweight. Mine is due to a few things including being taught to finish everything on my plate regardless of how full I am (this one still haunts me and I struggle with it even today) coupled with bad nutritional education from elementary school through high school. I decided that I needed to get past my reasons and tackle the issue head-on. I did it by doing a Whole30 and then adopting the Paleo Diet. The bottom line is that I took responsibility for my own health. Nobody was going to change it for me. I could only do this for myself. Just like you; nobody is going to fix you if you are not willing to fix yourself.

No pills, patches, powders, or products are required. Just eat meat and vegetables with some fruit and cut out all processed sugar, added sugar and sweeteners, grains, soy, and dairy. It’s a simple plan, but not an easy one. It does take discipline to get through the first few days, but once you’re through it, it gets easy from there. I’m living proof of that.

Own your health. Make your health what you want it to be. It’s within your power.