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Your Weight Loss Wake-Up Call

Experts and dieters offer insights on making the decision to diet - and sticking with it.

By Colette Bouchez
WebMD Weight Loss Clinic-Feature

Reviewed by Ann Edmundson, MD, PhD

For artist and author Janice Taylor, making a decision to lose weight was easy -- she did it dozens of times.

But the decision that finally made her weight loss resolution stick began the day she got out of the shower and caught a surprise glimpse in the mirror. The moment, she says, was nothing short of an epiphany.

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"Because I did not intentionally look, I didn't have a chance to set my mind to it, that it wouldn't be so bad," says Taylor. "So I caught the truth in my reflection, and it wasn't pretty.

"I realized for the first time that my fat rolls had fat rolls," says Taylor, who chronicles her experiences in the forthcoming book Our Lady of Weight Loss: Miraculous and Motivational Musings from the Patron Saint of Permanent Fat Removal.

Still, says Taylor, there was one more moment of truth to come before her weight loss journey could begin.

"I went to one of those weight loss meetings and I looked around, and what I saw was so depressing and demoralizing that I just started to cry and I said to myself 'I will NEVER do this,'" Taylor says. "And that's when the real life-changing experience started."

She says that a little voice inside her head -- one she now dubs "Our Lady of Weight Loss" -- told her: If you think you can't, you never will.

"It was in that moment that I realized the power of the thought," says Taylor. "If I thought I was defeated, I had no chance. If I believed I could do it, I would. It was all about turning my mindset around."

Ultimately she lost - and has kept off - more than 50 pounds. She now helps others do the same, via coaching, a web site, and a motivational newsletter titled The Kick in the Tush Club.

That Magic Moment

While Taylor's experiences were dramatic, experts say that not everyone who decides to lose weight has such an obvious turning point. For most of us, says health psychologist Lyssa Menard, PhD, it's not one moment of truth, but a series of changes that happen over time.

"The first stage is pre-contemplation -- the problem doesn't really bother you, or it's just a brief flutter through your mind -- but it seems to bother others more, like maybe a spouse or a parent or even your doctor, who all urge you to lose weight," says Menard, a clinical health psychologist at Northwestern Memorial Hospital Wellness Institute in Chicago.

The next stage, she says, is contemplation: You become aware of your weight problem, but in a general way, and you're not quite ready to take action.

"It's in this stage where people spend some time contemplating and seriously consider some options -- like what diet to go on, if they should get a checkup with their doctor, if they need to join a gym," says Menard.

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