When a person is overweight and they begin to search for the most successful diet on the market that will help them shed the pounds, they often focus too much attention on the diet itself and do not examine the things in their life that are causing them to overeat.
One way to do such an examination is use the Serenity Prayer to evaluate your life.
The Serenity Prayer was written by Reinhold Niebuhr in a sermon he delivered in 1934.
Many of us are familiar with the opening part of the prayer which goes: "God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference.
" I will be using the extended version to show you why using this prayer can help you adopt the most successful diet ever.
The first part of his prayer makes a lot of sense and will be the easiest part for you to adopt.
There are simply things that happen in life that you have no control over.
You simply have to deal with those uncontrolled events in life such as a sickness or illness of a family member or friend.
Let's now look at the rest of the prayer line by line to see how it might help us: "Patience for the things that take time.
" You must realize that you did not gain the weight overnight and it may take months, even years for you to reach our idea weight.
You must all learn to be patient and look for the stress triggers in our lives that cause us to overeat.
"Appreciation for all that we have.
" In our overly materialistic world, many of us focus our intentions in getting new things and we forget to be satisfied with what we already have.
If you are simply more thankful and grateful for what you have, you can focus more attention on exercise and improving your eating habits.
"Tolerance for those with different struggles.
" Too often, all of us get overly impatient with other people as they struggle with the different oddities in life.
The best approach is for us to accept others for what they are even if it appears to be strange for us.
"Freedom to live beyond the limitations of our past ways.
" We all the freedom to think like a thin person.
As soon as you decide to lose the weight, you have a choice to either adopt a whole new lifestyle or keep eating in the way that caused us to gain the pounds.
The choice is yours.
"Ability to feel your love for us and our love for each other.
" Although you may have gained many pounds, this does not mean that God does not love you or that others look at you with disdain.
You must love yourself regardless and also allow God to love you.
You must also begin to love others and allow them to love you.
"Strength to get up and try again even when we feel it is hopeless.
" Please realize that no matter how much you are overweight, the most successful diet can be started today.
It is never too late.