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I was thinking about diets and such and it occurred to me that dieting is kind of like sports, but one way in which dieting differs from sports competition is that in dieting there seems to be a lack of gradualization in the preparation.

What I'm getting at is that if you want to run the 100 metres pretty fast, even competitively, you don't just go out to the track and put in a full practice right off the bat. I mean it's just not do-able really, is it? You've got to prepare and train in a systematic way which allows you to get stronger and faster throughout the training, and that can takes months if not, more realistically, years.

Well we all know that, we've all seen the "up close and personal" sports profiles, we all know that it's a long road to the podium, BUT somehow we have all got this belief that the "thirty day diet" will work! And why not, all we have to do is stop eating or at least reduce our intake to about twenty five percent and we're home free. "That sounds like fun! Why didn't I think of that?" But how long will it last?

Now let me clarify, I'm not dumping on the many diets out there that will produce a result, what I am getting at is the fact that you need to combine your diet with thoughtful preparation, you need a plan, you need a horizon greater than obtaining a transitory result in thirty days. It's a bit like the folks strapped to the bike machine in the gym, they put their heart and soul into working those legs in an effort to shed the pounds and then they get off with thighs pumped like an Olympic ice-skate racer. I mean you've got to question any slimming exercise that starts with the phrase "pump", oh yes, that's sure to mean "slimming"!

So enough, you want some answers, not questions or me casting doubt and undermining your "diet plan". OK, fair enough. You've got to treat your weight loss, diet, fitness or whatever plan as an Olympic sport; you've got to lay out a plan and I can guarantee you, it's not going to happen in thirty days or anything like it. Oh, you may see results but it's the sustainability that is the key feature here and you want something that is not going to be an imposition or restriction that you have to fret over every day, so really you need to get into training for your optimum fitness, optimum health and optimum weight, and that's a real program that will endure. And the good news is, you can eat lots of stuff that's "off limits" as long as you put in the requisite workout balance.

I can't give you my whole program here but I can tell you that if it's to be a plan that will work and continue to work in your weight management, you've got to take it gradually, and get comfortable with each level that you attain before trying for the next. You can't just go on the "deprive" premise and trust that if you cross that thirty-day diet target that the results will hold. You know they won't and then it's on to the next hot diet and more deprivation.

That doesn't sound too much like fun to me and I certainly want to help, so in my next article I'm going to give you some concrete advice on foods that I incorporate (and those that are definitely "out") in my program, and some simple but effective advice on the kind of exercise that will slim you, not "pump" you, and how this whole issue of diet is no thirty-day wonder, but a bit more like that Olympic athlete training systematically and gradually with a plan and a schedule to reach peak fitness for the big day.

Somebody once coined a phrase that I am very fond of and it is, "It's easy to make it difficult, it's difficult to make it easy!" I'm going to try to make it easy.

Hang in there, help is at hand!!

Gordon Black is a world-ranked Master swimmer and Canadian national record holder. A member of the British swim team in the late '60s, after thirty years out of the pool, last year Gordon returned to competitive swimming in the Masters forum. He offers an online weight loss, fitness and motivational coaching service through his web site www.gordonblack.com where his competitive comeback is chronicled. Gordon is currently working on a book based on his own weight management and fitness system - publisher's enquiries welcome!

gordon@gordonblack.com