I applaud anyone who voluntarily restricts their eating, for an extended period of time, to lose weight — more power to you! The thought of following a food-deprived routine just isn’t appealing to me — I have tried, and failed.

Weight-loss diets aren’t easy to follow. You first have to get your mind right to go through with the plan. If not, you’re wasting your time. Then, there’s the added expense of buying all the food ingredients for a specific diet. And, last, but not least, there’s the measuring of everything you eat. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to spend my every waking moment measuring out peas, beans, and what have you. I’d rather just be mindful of what I eat, which is what I’ve done for the last 30 years.

There are so many different weight-loss diets, it’s hard to keep up. I hate to say it, but maybe if we followed a control-your-weight diet, we may not need so many diets urging us to lose weight. Rather, our daily eating of healthy foods such as fresh fruits, vegetables, lean meats, fish, poultry, whole grains, and dairy would help us to maintain a healthy weight. So, you heard it from me: “Ditch the weight-loss diets and just eat real food!”