For most people, starting off dieting is a highly successful experience - short term, at least.  It's common to lose several pounds in the first week, and you feel that your new "wonder diet" must be the best thing since Grandma wrote you into her will.  You weigh yourself daily, and smirk with the satisfaction of a job well done.  However, all this is about to change.

Week 2: you look at your scales and take a step back when you realize you've put on three pounds again.  How did this happen?  Where did they come from?  And why isn't your "wonder diet", that worked so well last week, still doing its job?

It's time for some harsh low-fat facts. 

• Virtually all of what you lose in the first couple of weeks of a diet is fluid loss, not fat

• Fat is like a flatmate that won't take the hint to go just because you've treated her badly for a week or so

Pace yourself.  It's now time to realize that fat comes off your body at about 1 - 2 pounds (0.5 - 1 kg) per week.  Sit down and do the math.  If you have 20 pounds to lose that makes it: today + (20/2) and carry the two...or 2.5 months (10 weeks) before you can reach your goal weight - best case scenario.  So if that party dress of yours is a little too "inappropriate" in the way it hugs your body, it's probably not going to be much better by the big bash next week.  Losing weight is a planned, methodical process.

Project manage your own weight loss.  Grab your wall-calendar, diary, or spreadsheet, and write down your current weight today.  Then on each week going forward write down two numbers.  1) This-week's-weight minus 1 pound, and this this-week's-weight minus 2 pounds.  Those two numbers will form your goal weight range.  Repeat the exercise for as many weeks as it takes for you to reach your goal weight.  Now, sit down, grab yourself a coffee, and marvel at your handiwork.  Before you is laid out a project time line for your weight loss.  It is a best case (2 pounds per week) and a worst case (1 pound per week) range against which you will chart your progress.

Unless simple arithmetic was your worst subject throughout your entire school life, planning your weight loss over its entire duration shouldn't have been a too taxing task.  You have but one purpose, now, in life.  Keep your weight loss going according to your project plan.  And anywhere in the range is fine.

Week 4: you weigh yourself and discover that you are, in fact, even lighter than your best estimate?  Well give yourself a gold star, and a low-fat latte, and realize that accelerated weight loss comes on occasions, but probably isn't something you'll be able to maintain for long periods.

Week 6: the weigh-in, this week, doesn't tell such a happy story.  Hmm.  Two pounds over your worst predicted estimate.  Time for a rethink.  This probably means that the evening walks you gave up last month will need to be scheduled again, and the extra croissant will need to go on a sabbatical.

Week 10: you bound out of bed and leap onto the awaiting scale, which struggles to fix its mind on any one weight for a seemingly undefinable period of time.  Eventually, it arrives at a number.  With any luck, it will read at or around your goal weight.

But is it really luck?  Actually, it's not.  You have

• Established the amount of weight you needed to lose

• Estimated the actual timeframe which it will take you to lose the weight

• Projected the best and worse case scenarios which are acceptable to you

• Marked in milestones (weekly) weight checks to make sure you're on progress

• Taken corrective action whenever you slightly missed your targets

Congratulations.  Unless I'm completely mistaken, you've actually project managed yourself thin.  And it didn't take a Harvard degree.

...though if you want to make yourself up a graduation certificate in Photoshop, I'm sure your family will understand.

Written by Monty James

Monty is an well-respected writer of weight loss advice, and more of his work can be seen at Weight Loss International . com