The Missing Link in the Diet Industry: Guest post by Dede Barbanti, author of Transform: The Secret to Unlocking the Perfect You

The Missing Link in the Diet Industry

It’s unfortunate, but the diet industry has tricked people into believing that they have to continuously consume their breakthrough product, pill, shake, boxed meals or follow their program if they want to lose weight. Most popular diet programs or products give you that glimmer of hope that maybe this time this one thing will be different and you’ll finally get the results you so desperately seek; but most of those programs will completely destroy your metabolism. They severely limit your calories by replacing nutritious meals with shakes or by changing your appetite with some type of diet pill. Or they provide you with sodium-and preservative-filled prepackaged meals to make it easier for you to stay on track, but they cost you hundreds or thousands of dollars in the long run. And they never show you how to tackle the real problems that cause the merry-go-round.

The diet industry is a multibillion-dollar industry for a reason, my friends: everyone is looking for the easy way out. But Trojan horses can only provide you with a temporary fix, and they are designed to keep you on them forever. Just think about it. If you are replacing any nutritious meal with shakes that claim to have as many vitamins and nutrients as a well-balanced meal, what happens when you stop taking those two shakes a day and start eating like a normal human being again? You will just gain the weight back—and then return to the shakes because you were duped into believing they are the only thing that actually works and can give you results.

As a single mom that has always had to make every minute and penny count, this makes me furious! None of these things provide you with the tools you need for real, lasting results. Just take a moment and think. Why would the “diet industry” want to give you the answer to permanent results? Why? If they did, they would lose residual revenue. They want you to have to stay on their programs or keep going back; this is why they only give you half of the answers. I firmly believe that if you bring balance to three key areas in your life, you will transform your body, life, relationships, and most of all; it will change you from within. When you realize that you can do anything you set your mind to, the sky’s the limit! I am in my fabulous forties, a single mother of three great kids, and a fitness and lifestyle coach, but life has not always been the glitz and glam that it is now. (Note the slight hint of sarcasm?)

To sum up my life before as quickly as possible, I was on top of the world, with a successful fifteen-year career as a professional choreographer and competitive dancer. In my late twenties I got married, got pregnant, and left dance entirely. I ended up getting a regular nine-to-five in real estate, and with tremendous success in sales eventually became a licensed broker. During this same time, I had two more children and got divorced, and the real estate market crashed. I found myself very overweight, eating and drinking a lot, totally broke, and alone. So yes, there is a lot that I am not going into detail over because that could literally take forever and would be a novel in itself!

So what happened to me? At some point during all of this, I totally lost who I was, my passion for life, and my passion for myself. I had always been active and fit, and I had always known what I wanted. I always had direction, but that person had disappeared. What I was facing in the mirror was an overweight, empty version of my former self. Now, don’t get me wrong. My kids are my passion and what I live for, but as you all know, it’s very easy to lose who you are when all you do is give to everyone around you. How could I raise my children to be happy, confident, independent, successful individuals when I wasn’t modeling that in my own life? After some serious reflection, I had to accept where I had gone wrong.

I am a firm believer that the best teachers, coaches, and mentors are the ones that have been there themselves. How can one truly guide someone else if they haven’t experienced the same struggles? Nobody is perfect. I’m just a regular mom who has been through many of the same obstacles you have faced and come out on the other side. This doesn’t mean my life is perfect or that my way is the only way. I’m just very resilient, and what I did worked for me. It has changed the lives of countless people I’ve had the pleasure of working with, too.

It’s unfortunate that most people want to put their precious time and energy into a quick fix. They are willing to believe in any magic concoction or program with a good pitch. It saddens me to see that people are so quick to waste hard-earned time and money on this stuff, but are not willing to slow down and focus inward. I believe that diets, pills, weight loss shakes, and other Band-Aid types of superficial weight-loss programs and products are pure crapola! Sure, you can starve and malnourish yourself by living on shakes. Of course you can waste your hard-earned money on sodium-and preservative-filled prepackaged meals. But what happens when you are ready to go back to normal life? You can’t live on shakes and prepackaged foods forever! Not to mention the diets that claim you will lose a certain amount of weight in thirty, sixty, or ninety days. What happens when those thirty, sixty, or ninety days are over? Ask yourself why you are always bouncing from diet to diet or product to product. Why? Because they only provide you with a temporary fix. None of these things provide you with the tools you need for real, lasting results, and like I said before, it all starts on the inside. The majority of people who overeat are overweight because they are using food as a reaction; their obesity is a byproduct of their external and internal circumstances. Overeating, weight gain, lack of motivation to exercise, and lack of consistency and commitment are the symptoms of not dealing with the core barriers and bringing balance to your mind, body and inner self.

The missing link in the diet industry is that they don’t help you identify your core barriers. They don’t help you identify what needs to be adjusted internally so you have the solid foundation to achieve want you want externally. By keeping you tied to their products, they prevent you from achieving and maintaining your goals. They have no reason to teach you how to change your negative patterns! That would take money out of their pockets. The truth is, I can teach you all day long how to eat correctly. I can show you all the right exercises for burning fat and building muscle. But in the end, if you don’t deal with whatever is causing your self-sabotaging habits and blocking your logic, vision, and commitment, you will not be able to build a solid foundation that can maintain your results. You will only find yourself on that endless, frustrating carousel that you and many others have been on time and time again. You and you alone have the power to achieve your weight-loss and fitness goals. You have everything you need to achieve the life balance and body you have dreamed of. You do not need to starve yourself, pollute yourself with diet pills or drugs, or spend thousands of dollars or hours at the gym. You have all of the tools within yourself and in your home to get the body you want, but first you have to build that foundation. Weight loss my friends begins on the inside, not the other way around.

Let’s face it—things go wrong, plans change, people will let you down; but it’s what you do and the choices you make that determine your happiness. So before you try to blast me with excuses like “I have kids,” “There just isn’t enough time in a day,” “My husband/ex doesn’t help me,” “I work too much,” or “I’m too tired, and this is why I have to buy into these band aid diet products;” don’t even bother. Been there, done that. I know every excuse in the book. I am a firm believer that if you follow your passion, you will find your life’s purpose. When you want something bad enough, you will not let anything or anyone stand in your way. So you can sit there and make excuse after excuse, but the truth is,

“If you want it bad enough, you will do whatever it takes. Only you have the power to create the body and life of your own design. But the first step is to take that first step.”

Transform: The Secret to Unlocking the Perfect You by Dede Barbanti
Genres: Self-help, Health
Pages: 257
Purchase at Bookshop.org
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Finally, a book that will provide you with the answers that change your body and your life! TRANSFORM really is the SECRET TO UNLOCKING THE PERFECT YOU. Once weighing over 200 pounds, Fitness and lifestyle expert Dede Barbanti not only gives you the tools to achieve your weight-loss goals, but helps you dig deep to fix the core issues that keep you from lasting success and your true potential.

This is not your traditional weight-loss book. Most diet books focus on the outside by changing your eating and exercise routines,but they fail to find the root cause of your bad habits: what, why, and where they all started. These band-aid treatments never treat the problem, only the symptom, and most people find themselves back at square one, frustrated and defeated. Dede's no-holds-barred approach gets your booty into gear by tackling the real issues of your weight loss merry-go-round; so you can stop the madness and unlock the perfect you.

You can continue reading all of those other diet and lifestyle books that ultimately keep you repeating the same old story and never seems to get you anywhere, or you can get real with yourself and finally bring about the changes that you have always wanted...permanently!