It’s easy to get lost when trying to find information about health, diet, and exercise. It’s daunting, with so much information available, many of it contradicting each other or things you’ve been taught in the past. We want to find the easiest way possible to lose weight or get healthy, and trust me, there are more companies out there willing to take advantage of those of us who want to drop some pounds to get healthier. The trick is to find something that makes sense, that is sustainable long-term, and doesn’t cost more than normal food.

I looked everywhere for information about losing weight in a healthy, safe, and sustainable manner. I also wanted to find something that allowed me to eat normal food that tasted good. The last thing I wanted was to try to take on a diet that had me eating salad and baked chicken breast meal after meal. I just couldn’t sign on for something like that.

My criteria for a diet plan was:

• It has to make sense scientifically and take our natural body processes into account
• It has to allow for foods that can be bought in the store and made at home
• It has to include delicious food that I actually can enjoy eating
• It has to include foods that can be found at the majority of restaurants
• It has to be something I can do forever
• It has to be simple

That was a lot to ask for, and I used that list while looking up every diet I could find. I settled on three.

• Whole30
• Paleo
• Keto

Whole30 was a great start, and I eventually started with it, but it wasn’t designed for long-term use. There are some who have adapted Whole30 into long-term diets, but I felt it was more restrictive than I was happy with, so I transitioned into the winner: The Paleo Diet. While the Keto diet was an early contender, and people on keto show amazing weight loss progress in very short amounts of time, I didn’t want to have to manage my macronutrients so closely and it’s so easy to pop out of keto while it’s pretty tough to kick into it. The Paleo Diet allowed me a lot more flexibility in the types of foods I could eat, the number of recipes available are astounding, and of the foods I’ve tried, I found Paleo foods are right in line with what I like and what tastes great to me.

To be able to change my diet from eating everything and anything to Paleo took a lot of dedication, motivation, perseverance, and a lot of believing in myself. I had to have faith in myself that this was a change I could make, that it was something I could stick with, and even when I fell off the wagon from time to time, I would get back on and keep at it. I believed in myself, and looking back on the past 25 months, I am still as dedicated and excited today as I was back then. Only now, I know that it actually works, and that I can keep the weight off as long as I just keep doing what I’ve been doing for the past two years.

Believe in yourself. Believe in your judgment. Believe in your ability to make a good decision based on the data presented to you. Most of all, believe that you can do this, because you can. Only you hold the keys to your success.