's motd Monday August 15, 2011

[Guest guest]

NO CONTEST

Monday, 15 August 2011

I get

a question asked of me very frequently. And that

question is...well I'll tell you in a coupla minutes.

But first, I want to talk to you about something else.

One

of the greatest experiences of my life was doing The

Show back in the 80's. When my

show was on, I received truckloads of mail every week.

A lot of that mail was from people sharing their own

weight-loss success stories with me. And some of

their stories were so impressive, we'd fly them out to

Los Angeles to be a guest on my show.

I

must say that The Show was

really one of a kind. Each episode featured three major

segments, the cooking, exercise and

motivation segments. During the motivation

segment, I'd interview the person who was our success

story for the day. As they shared their stories, my

audience members and I would end up in tears listening

to them. I'm sure that the millions of people watching

at home were in tears, too.

My guest's success stories were always very motivational

and, yes...very emotional, too. Everyone's journey was

a little different but we could always learn an

important lesson from each of them. We loved hearing

about how they got started losing the weight and how

hard they worked to keep it off.

Now I have to tell you, the people we flew out to be on

the show didn't win a big check because they'd lost

weight. They didn't win some fancy trip either, (except

for getting to visit LA). Nor did they "win" anything

else. Hey, just by losing the weight, they'd already

won something...their good health!

Now

back to that FAQ I told you about in the beginning of

this message. And that question is: ", what

do you think of all the weight-loss shows on

television these days?"

Well, let me answer that question for you. I don't

think it's a great idea to have a weight-loss

competition between people, their prize being to

win a big check or anything else, for that matter. I

don't know, it just always seemed odd to me. See, I

think competing against someone to lose weight is not

really a very good message to send people. Losing

weight should not be a competition between you and

someone else.

You know why you need to lose weight. You need to lose

weight so that you body works better and you can live

longer. That alone should be one of your major goals in

life.

Just like the people who wrote me at The

Show, can you imagine how many obese

Americans are writing trying to get on one of those

weight-loss competition "reality" shows? And out of the

millions of people who write, only a handful of them are

chosen. But for all of those people who're not

chosen for the show, think about how they must feel to

have been passed over.

Well,

I can give you some idea. I get mail all the time from

people who were disappointed because they weren't chosen

to be on one of these shows. They really feel like

"losers" and not in the way the title of one

the shows suggests, either.

Look, I want you to feel like a winner and to

be a winner by losing this weight. And okay, if

you feel like entering some kind of contest, well, I

suggest you get your entry in to Publisher's Clearing

House right away.

Love,