But there are healthy ways to jump start your weight loss, fortunately. You have to remember one principle that seems counterintuitive: you must eat in order to lose weight.

“Wait,” you’re probably saying. “Isn’t that how I got fat in the first place?” Well, yes and no. The reason you have to eat in order to lose weight is because when you stop eating, your metabolism slows. Your body thinks it’s experiencing a famine and conserves resources as a response. Not only will you have a harder time losing weight, you’ll have an easier time gaining it back when you start eating again. You want your metabolism to hum along at a steady rate and fine tune your eating habits to promote weight loss.

One thing that most diabetics know is that eating smaller, healthier, more frequent meals is a way to keep blood glucose levels stable. It is also a good way to keep a steady supply of energy rather than energy surges and crashes, and as it turns out, it’s a good way to steadily lose weight. If you know you’ll be eating again soon, you’re less likely to binge than if you’re starving and you know it will be six hours until supper.

You can follow this eating plan on an 80/20 schedule: eight out of ten days you follow the frequent, healthy mini-meal plan, and the other two you can eat as you normally do. The great thing is, you might feel so much better that you adopt the healthy frequent meal schedule for good. It feels good and is easy to maintain.

The best part is, once you have your metabolism running well, it is easier to lose weight because you’re never in “starvation” mode, binging then “being good” for a day or two. You do have to eat reasonably healthy, however.

Now, with this eating plan, there aren’t any “forbidden” foods. The more you remind yourself you can’t have that slice of cheesecake, the more you’ll want it, and the more you’re likely to binge on it along with other unhealthy foods. While there are no forbidden foods, the preferred foods are lean protein, fruit, vegetables, and complex carbohydrates. If you do this for eight days out of ten, then you can give yourself a break from it for a couple of days. Chances are that by then, you’ll have noticed you’ve lost a little weight and will be motivated to keep your healthy eating habits.

Losing weight and keeping it off is more about making lifestyle changes you can live with rather than deprivation or fasting.

The processes in your body that take the nutrients you ingest and turn them to energy (whether it’s energy you use by exercising and moving, or energy stored as fat) are collectively known as your metabolism. Your metabolism wants to give you energy when you need it, so that you can walk, work, or do housework without feeling faint or hungry.

A few years ago, everyone blamed carbohydrates for weight problems. While simple carbs like white sugar and white flour can be harmful over time, carbs themselves aren’t necessarily the “bad guys” that everyone made them out to be. If you have a healthy balance of nutrition and an active lifestyle, your metabolic furnace will run well. But sometimes it gets out of balance, you gain weight, and you raise your chances of acquiring diabetes and heart disease.

What happens first is a blood sugar spike that follows consumption of simple carbohydrates. To cope with the sugar overload, your body produces extra insulin. Whatever unused energy from the food is not used is stored as fat. After a while, your body becomes resistant to the effects of insulin and stops using insulin efficiently. Your blood sugar levels increase, which promotes further insulin resistance. Weight gain is very common in this pattern of eating. After several years of this, your body cannot use insulin well, and you end up with type 2 diabetes, which raises your risk of other health problems like heart disease and kidney disease.

Unfortuantely, there isn’t a simple fix to this metabolic cycle that causes obesity. You have to help your metabolism get back to normal again. That is a lot of what happens when people are newly diagnosed as diabetic. Once they are regularly monitoring blood sugar levels and can see exactly how high their blood sugar goes after a couple of donuts, they can clearly see how those simple carbohydrates can cause long term problems. Decreasing your intake of refined sugars and increasing your exercise are the two proven ways to break out of this metabolic spiral, lose weight, and have a healthier body.

So how do you start again? First of all think about movement that feels good to your body. Was there any activity in your past that you enjoyed? How can you adapt that activity to something you can do now? For example, if you used to play football what was it about that sport that you enjoyed? Was it the practice sessions, your particular position and what that involved, the strategy of game play, or the team camaraderie that fired you up? As a kid perhaps you simply enjoyed riding your bike and the freedom it gave you. Perhaps in your teens you were into music and dancing. Could that inspire you again?

I strongly suggest that you get something more back from your exercise that just calorie burning. If you live or work by yourself, maybe you need a group activity or a group class for the socialization. If you need to get away from lots of hustle and bustle, maybe you need a solitary run, walk, bike or swim. If you want to feel more peaceful try yoga or Tai chi. If you want to feel more empowered, why not try intense weight training.

Once you have figured out what exercise to do, step up a goal and break it into small steps. Achieving a slimmer and better physique is all about accomplishing small steps. Weekly and monthly goal achievement lead toward major goal success. If you are a runner you first have to run 10 kilometers before you can run a marathon. If you are lifting weights you first have to lift 30 pounds before you can lift 100. If that sounds overly simplistic, it was meant to be, but you must begin where you are now and gradually move up.

If your goal is over challenging, you might get depressed or quit, so make it realistic. However, please make it something that requires you to stretch out of your comfort zone just a bit. Your body will adapt and change and you will get results if you make the effort. Make a sincere and no excuses commitment to change, do the small steps and be ready for a new you!