I’m not that gal that goes for fads. There are some things in life that I might be tempted to try, just because the allure is too great to resist, but there’s not much out there that fascinates me to that point.

I don’t dress according to trends. That’s why you’ll never be able to go into my closet and find something that’s current. An example are capes. I fell in love with capes about five years ago, when no one was wearing them. My friends thought I had lost my mind as my cape collection expanded beyond even their grasp. Now it seems everyone is spinning a cape in the air and letting it fall gracefully around their shoulders, and I am kind of feeling “meh” about them.

Fad diets and fad diet products are another mystery to me. The famous Cabbage Soup Diet, or Eat Only Mangoes, or eliminating foods from your diet that are actually good for you to be eating. These kinds of diets play havoc with your internal clocks and gears and send your metabolism into shock.

I know some folks that try everything out there that comes up, but I tend to stick with just one thing and either stay with it as a life change, or beat it into the ground until I decide it doesn’t work and probably never did. There are some diets that are life changers and those I can get on board with. Ideas like the Ketogenic Diet or the Paleo Diet are great, if you commit 100%. The problem is that many folks just won’t make that kind of a commitment, even when their life depends on it.

Currently I do not take or use any diet products.  

I have a good friend that found out her health would not allow her to lose weight the regular way, so she had surgery. That’s a life change and it’s also someone that did the work before diving into the pool. Every move she made was under a doctor’s care. These folks out there with their shakes and their supplements can’t make that claim. In fact, they say the opposite; “This product may not have approval from the FDA”. I don’t think the FDA is the goddess of all things edible, but it’s a nice place to start.

I am happy to watch my friends that are at least making the attempts to try new stuff and change their lot in life for the better. They do all the work and I can see if what they’re doing is producing results, or not. Then I can base my decision on their success or failure. Like I stated above; currently I do not take or use any diet products.

I have watched this one friend go from trying a new diet product, to falling in love with it and joining the pyramid selling scams that seem to be attached to most of these items. Then every friend becomes a customer with a weight issue and her Facebook profile becomes one long boring sales pitch; “Let me send you some samples!” When the latest fad diet product company went bankrupt, because most of them eventually do go belly up, or she ran out of friends that weren’t listening to her spiel anymore, she moved to the next new thing. There was never an explanation about why the product that was changing her life, had also just changed names.

I’m no expert, but one thing I do know for a fact is that diet pills and shakes are not loaded with magical fairy dust. You’re going to need to do some jumping jacks. In the end, the jumping jacks are going to be the reason you lose any weight.

My sister in law and I decided one year to try one of those places that mail you meals for the week. We heard this one meal plan was having terrific results and it sounded perfect! Every week I would get this huge cooler stuffed with dry ice and plastic packaged meals from breakfast to dinner. I could add salads and suggested snacks on my own, and I most certainly did that. The food was pretty good and I followed the rules for what to eat on which day, to the letter, but I never lost any weight.

Not wanting to be the one that was the spoilsport by quitting first, I asked her how she was doing with the meal plans. She told me she had quit a long time ago because when her meals would arrive she would spend the first two days eating everything in there that she liked and just trash the rest. I had never thought of doing that.

I truly hate to be the one to burst your bubbles out there, people, but these kinds of diet plans, supplements and shakes and pills are never going to work. There is no magic pill you can take. They either won’t work, or they rot your liver. If there was one, everyone would be taking it and everyone would be skinny.

If you must spend your money on something, then consider these options. These suggestions allow you to be in control of your destiny and they are plans that treat you like an adult that can make adult decisions and be held accountable. You pick and prepare your own food, you take recommended, FDA approved, vitamins and you mingle with other adults doing the same thing.

• Join Weight Watchers. It truly is a great life changing plan.
• Join a gym, the YMCA, a dance class, a boxing class or an exercise bootcamp.
• Buy a yoga mat and learn yoga.
• Buy some cute compression workout gear.
• Leg and ankle weights make a huge difference in the validity of that walk around the block you’re taking.
• Buy healthy fruits and vegetables. Spend those extra dollars on the good oils and quality kitchen equipment, like a blender or a juicer.
• Subscribe to a healthy cooking magazine. I subscribe to Cooking Light and find that I can plan a few week’s worth of good meals from one issue.

You don’t need a magic pill or a mystery shake with an unknown sea creature’s adrenal glands to make you skinny. All you need is a good attitude and the will to do the work, but most important, you need to love yourself enough to know you deserve to be whatever you dream of being.