The “Weekend Diet”, the “1-day Diet”, “Quick Weight Loss Centers”, and the “Hollywood Liquid Diet”. What do they have in common? False promises. It's in their names.

When selling a product, marketing executives, have to come up with names and phrases that will be eye and ear catching to the consumer. The products DON'’T however have to live up to their names.

Americans spend 33 billion dollars annually on physical fitness. Fitness products and equipment are big business today. Everyone wants to lose weight, get toned, and get healthy. The reason for the boom in the fitness industry revenue is that most people try the products or the equipment for a short period of time and then move on to something else.

If results from a product or pill are not seen within the first week or two, we assume that it doesn’t work at all. We all want a quick fix, a potion that will magically give us the abs of Janet Jackson, and the legs of Halle Berry. Unfortunately here's some bad news: The quick fix doesn’t exist.

Berry and Jackson are two examples of beautiful women, who have healthy bodies that have women of all ages green with envy, however they have help keeping themselves in tip top shape. Help is one thing that most of us cannot afford.

Self-regulation is a difficult skill to master. However it is one of the first skills to be learned when beginning an exercise program. Without the help or supervision of anyone else, you have to be able to know your limitations, and not allow yourself that last piece of pie, just because it’s there. Or force yourself to get up early and take a walk, even though you may be still tired from the day before. The process to lose weight, and “get in shape” is a long, tedious, time consuming, and thought consuming process.

The two components, that make a weight loss program successful are, consistency and perseverance. Without those two elements, a person will not be successful at his goal. To lose weight in a healthy manner, suggested weight loss is 1-2 pounds per week. It doesn’t seem like a lot when your goal is 20 pounds, but, you have to remember 3500 calories= 1 pounds. If you want to lose 2 pounds per week, you have to create a caloric energy expenditure of 7000 calories. That is not an easy task. Every day has to be consistently thought out, to stay on a successful path.

The Surgeon General’s recommendation for exercise for an adult is 30-45 minutes of moderate / vigorous physical activity 5-7 days per week. Moderate physical activities consist of things that most of us do on a regular basis, walking the dog, doing yard work, and cleaning the house. My recommendation: Invest in a heart rate monitor. Keep track of the readings, consistently. This will help you meet these minimum requirements to get you started.

A basic exercise plan would include; walking 2-3 miles daily. After a few weeks, incorporate another activity you enjoy, a weekly tennis match, an hour of basketball, or rollerblading. Remember all the fad diets out there pull you in, with their “overnight” tactics, but none of them will work if there is not maintenance involved by the user.

Losing weight is a simple science, the more energy in (calories consumed), the more that has to come out (calories expended). TODAY, sit down and set short term goals for yourself, keep them S.M.A.R.T; Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-based. Follow this, and you will be on your way to long-term weight loss.