Obesity is the 2nd biggest cause of preventable deaths in the United States and obesity is rapidly increasing around the world. It's not surprising that about 50% of Americans are trying to lose weight at any one time. That's more than 150 million people who are dieting, and that's only in the US. 

The Rise of Fad Diets

It's no wonder that diets and exercise equipment are such big business! With half the population as their potential customers, many companies sell fad diets and exercise scams in the hopes of taking advantage of the weight loss niche. Unfortunately, fad diets very rarely work and if/when they do, the majority of people are unable to keep the weight off long term.

You know the story (and odds are you've even experienced it yourself)… you lose weight and get really excited about it only to gain it all back… often with an extra 10 or more pounds more than your starting weight.

Why Is It So Hard To Lose Weight?

Why is it so hard for us to lose weight and keep it off? Obviously, food tastes great and social eating has become a huge part of our personal and professional lives. But is that the whole story? Not at all!

The truth is that our bodies and programmed to survive. Many fad diets cause people to lose weight so quickly that their bodies go into survival mode. Rapid weight loss actually makes your body scared that you're going to starve to death. When your body get scared, it does everything it can to hold on to what weight it still has, and it tries to gain back some of the weight you've lost.

The Secret of Weight Loss

We all know that in order to lose weight we need to consume fewer calories and burn off more calories. That means eating healthier and working out or doing some sort of physical activity to burn off calories. But beyond that, the real secret to weight loss is to lose weight slowly and steadily so that our bodies don't go into starvation mode. That is truly the only way can lose weight and keep it off for good. 

Mariah Careyreveals that getting back into shape after giving birth to twins has meant more than going to the gym. This is something every new Mom would like to know. She has admitted that it wasn't an easy feat to get her figure back, particularly after gaining so much weight during her pregnancy.

"I realize that 90 percent of losing weight is my diet," Carey, 43, who promotes the Jenny Craig plan, says in the May issue of Shapemagazine. "Today my workout routine is more about getting and staying toned," she says. "And for me, that means either taking hour-long walks a few times a week or jumping in the pool three or four days a week to do 45 minutes of aquatic exercises."

The star, who is married to Nick Cannon, admitted to the magazine that being pregnant with Monroe and Moroccan was a tricky time for her. "Pregnancy was probably the best and the hardest thing I'll ever go through."I know for a lot of women, it can be wonderful and relatively easy. But for me, it was like "Okay, honey, do you have to do everything the hard way?"" she added.