There are other ways to obtain your body's proteins needs with fewer fat calories. Soy protein is highest quality plant protein available. It is a great source for amino acids your body needs as well as antioxidants that help maintain healthy cells. Soy protein does not have high fat calories, and is long acting and slowly metabolized (helping you to keep feeling full). Some high-protein, low calorie drinks can help meet these protein needs as well as being an enjoyable food source.

So what happens if you don't eat enough protein? This is a very important point because many people don't even come close to meeting their daily protein requirements!

When your body doesn't get sufficient protein you can experience food cravings, fatigue, moodiness, depression, poor memory, and poor sleep. Further, you can find yourself out of shape and with excess fat. Your body may even steal protein from your muscles and organs, including heart! Over time, your metabolism may slow down and you may even be at increased risk for a variety of diseases.

The second key element of designing a healthy weight management program is to know your resting metabolic rate (RMR). This is number of calories your body burns while at rest per day. If you eat 500 calories less per day than your resting metabolic rate, you will lose about 1 pound a week. If you eat more than your RMR, and you don't exercise to burn off those excess calories, then you will gain weight.

When designing your weight management program it is generally considered unhealthy for women to consume less than 1200 calories a day and for men, 1800 per day. As a woman if your resting metabolic rate is 1700 calories or less, you will need to consider exercise as part of your weight loss regime in order to see results in first week or two.

Armed with these two pieces of information you will be able to assess many of faddish diets that abound and cut through diet-hype. Of course, there are many other aspects of healthy weight loss, but these two principles are cornerstone to building a healthy program that will enable you to sustain long term weight loss.

The point to all of this is that you need to consciously pick a reason and write it down. It will probably be more than one and they should be something that is important to you. Important enough to get you through those rough days ahead when you feel like quiting.

Post you reasons somewhere that you will see them everyday. At your desk, ect... I like to place mine on refrigerator so when I get that craving for some ice cream I have to stop and ask myself if it is worth it. It feels so good when I reach in and grab a bottle of water instead.

We all are starting from a different place. We all have reasons why we are where we are. We all have reasons why we don't want to be here anymore. Knowing these reasons and being aware when they change will help you greatly in achieving your goals.