What's a customized solution?

You may have noticed that the byline for my blog mentions customized solutions. What's a customized solution?

The main idea is that people are overweight for different reasons, so the way they lose weight will differ. But there's more.

People have different life situations. In my experience, most diet books assume that you're single and in total control over your food. But perhaps you're living with your parents and your Mom (probably) cooks for you. Or you cook for others and don't have time to cook two different dinners every night -- not to speak of the energy and patience!

You need to consider these situations. In fact, the family situation is often very intertwined with why you're overweight. For example, you may eat more or less the way your parents did.

For me, a big aha was that I didn't need to sit and eat dinner with my family. I wanted to, but it wasn't a healthy choice for me. I digest food painfully slowly at night and when I sat down with the family, I always ate too much. Eating dinner together with the family was a sweet memory for me from my childhood, but I had to break that pattern. As soon as I cooked for the family, quickly prepared something extremely light for me, and ate it elsewhere (where I wasn't tempted by the good food I made for my family), I was able to make progress.

Think about how your family situation constricts your ability to make the right eating choices.