The Uncomplicated Rule

If you want to lose weight what’s the one best thing you can do? Take the stairs? Eat more grapefruit? Take diet pills? Lift weights? Run farther or eat better?

The truth is if you really want to lose weight there’s only one thing you can and need to do – eat fewer calories and carbohydrates than you use. As a personal trainer friend of mine once told me “you are what you eat”. Research has continually demonstrated that exercise programs, special diets, and supplements, though marginally helpful in losing a few pounds, will not, by themselves, bring you to your proper weight, only eating the right amount of calories and carbohydrates can you get to you there and stay there (though exercise has other essential health benefits we shouldn’t ignore).

It’s what I call the “uncomplicated” rule. The uncomplicated rule goes like this. Almost always the simplest, most straight forward and common sense solution to a problem is usually the best one. Why? Because most problems are not as complicated as many people (and companies) want us to believe. Simple problems, like being overweight, require uncomplicated solutions – eat less.

But why do we believe our problems are so complicated that they require complex and magical solutions? Because people’s problems are opportunities for marketers to offer products and services that solve our problems. But to convince us that need help in solving our problems they need us to believe our problems are too hard or complicated to solve on our own. You see simple, straightforward and uncomplicated problems don’t require complex and costly solutions but instead require simple ones (which don’t sell well and have poor margins).

So next time you’re faced with a problem or have a goal you want to achieve, look for the simple, straightforward and uncomplicated solution, most likely it’ll be the one that brings you to the place you want to be.