If you are the type of person who has never had to try and lose weight, then you will not be able to understand the kind of desperation that some people feel when they think about losing weight. Some people are lucky enough to be able to eat whatever they wish to and not have it appear on their bodies. These people are in the minority and for most of us; it seems that we only have to partake in the slightest indulgence for it to show immediately.

Gaining weight is very easy to do and we need to be careful about this from an early age. When we are children, our eating and exercise is controlled in part by our parents and it is their responsibility to teach us healthy eating habits. As we gain more independence and have access to more junk food and unhealthy snacks, we tend to develop bad eating habits. It is at this stage that a lot of us will start to gain weight and if we are not monitored by parents or other people, the problem can get out of hand.

The weight gain is not an instant thing and it creeps up on you slowly, sometimes so slowly that you do not even notice it until it is too late. At this point you need to take action in order to try and lose the extra pounds which have piled on. This can be the start of a life long struggle for some people, who will find that their weight will go up and down at different times in their lives, and it can often be a source of frustration and despair for those who struggle with controlling it.

This is when we will start to try different ways of losing weight. At the beginning we will try and control our diet and ensure that we only eat healthy things which will not cause us to gain any more weight. Then we will start to cut down on the amount that we eat, even of the healthy things, if we do not see results. Along with this we will start up an exercise regime and try to stick to it. The next stage is to get obsessed with trying to lose weight and this will lead on to the final step which is the road of cosmetic surgery, in various different procedures.

The term shedding a few pounds refers to losing a little weight but at this stage we are also talking about losing the financial pounds, since most cosmetic surgery procedures have to be paid for privately. The most common procedures for losing weight and looking slimmer are the gastric band surgeries, liposuction and the tummy tuck. All of these come under the broader heading of body contouring and this is just a fancy way of saying re-shaping your body to the way you wish it to appear. All of these procedures are now very popular worldwide.

We have always believed that when we are children we can eat whatever we want to and not to have to worry about getting fat. Well this is only true to an extent. A child can eat a lot more of the bad things before putting on weight, but only if these are tempered with an active lifestyle. If you let a child have fast food, sweets and fizzy drinks every day, and they do not run around and burn it off, then you will be faced with an overweight child, as well as one with rotting teeth.

There is a lot of child obesity in the western world and the predictions for the health of the new generation of children are not good ones. Many parents will brush away concerns with the attitude that the children will be fine when they grow older, but by then it is often too late. A child needs to learn healthy eating habits at an early age and be taught to avoid junk food as much as possible.

I have three children and each of them have gone through various stages of changing eating habits. When they were all young, it was a battle to get them to eat as the bottle was an easier option. Then it was because they were developing their tastes and didn’t like everything at some point. As they got older things got easier as they started to appreciate different food types and by the time adolescence caught up, they were conscious of their diet and body shape.

Even now, I have to admit that I am proud to say, they do not have a lot of fast food, sugary drinks and other items on the list of unhealthy foods. I have always made sure that they know what constitutes a healthy meal and about why should eat at the right times. These things together are important so that the child grows up learning to make the healthy choice and knows that eating certain foods at certain times is better than eating them at others.

Breakfast should never be skipped and this is a firm rule in my household. So far I have been lucky that they all have the weights in the normal range and that they are fit and active. I have seen the many teenagers who want to have cosmetic surgery procedures such as liposuction. Any sensible parent would put their foot down and say no, but this is considered to be a personal choice.

I have seen the way that some people will rely on cosmetic surgery to fix small problems on a regular basis. These people will allow themselves to put on weight and then go under the knife to correct the problem. This is why procedures such as liposuction, body contouring and even a tummy tuck are becoming so popular. This is seen as the quick and easy way to look good and hence to feel good about yourself.

When I was a student in college, I had to frequently use the public library for research purposes (and off course as a meeting place for friends, but let’s keep that as a separate issue shall we?!). I noticed that there was a whole section of the library which was devoted to romantic novels and there were so many different types of these novels. There were two whole bookcases just filled with Mills and Boon novels.

Within these bookcases there were further divisions among the types of romance. There were the standard novels which were set in the modern world, historical novels set at some point in history, but usually in a century which was not too far distant and where the fashion was for the women to wear corsets and voluminous dresses with lots of buttons and petticoats! Then there were the medical novels which were set in hospitals either in large cities or in some deserted outpost. There were also the ones which tried to combine the old Wild West with the modern idea of romance.

The one thing that you could be sure of was that they would all follow a standard pattern and that the end would be totally predictable, in fact for many of them you could know the whole story just from reading the blurb at the back. I got into the habit of reading these novels and found that some were better written than others and soon learned which authors’ style I liked. Some of them were quite funny and all were very light and easy reading that you could do while having lunch at your desk, or sitting on the bus to and from work.

Another thing that always stuck me was the way that all the heroes and heroines were described in the same way. The women were all tall, slim but voluptuous and with long legs. They all had shining flowing locks of hair and eyes that would change colour depending on their moods. They all had pert noses, full lips and wonderful skin. It is no wonder that the modern woman feels that she needs to have cosmetic surgery in order to live up to the ideal of beauty that she has grown up with, and yes most women will have read a few Mills and Boon books in their life. The heroines in these novels would never have needed to have a tummy tuck or liposuction.

As for the men in these books, they were all fine specimens of manhood, with broad shoulders, narrow hips and glossy thick hair which was always slightly long. The eyes were also piercing and the nose always proud. The lips were full (and without Botox and fillers and the skin was tanned and rippling with muscles, which he maintained without working out. Yeah right! How many men do you know who match up to this description, at least outside of the gym and the movies!

_ This may sound like a silly question because it seems that the whole world and its mother are constantly on a diet, and every person seems to believe that the one which they are using is the best one. The truth is that it is so easy to gain weight for almost everyone that when you come across someone who claims that they have trouble gaining weight, you tend to be a little sceptical.

When it comes down to the basics, weight is gained when you start to consume more calories than you are using. If you live an active lifestyle and manage to play some sports during the week, then the chances are that you will be able to consume some extra calories without gaining weight. If however, you are the type of person for whom the word “exercise” is akin to profanity, then it is likely that you will show all the extra calories which you consume.

My father has always found that he gains weight very quickly and has to be careful about the type of food that he eats. He is a stickler for getting exercise and makes sure that he fits in a couple of miles walking each day, as well as keeping active in the garden and home too. He gains weight each holiday season and in the winter the pounds will creep on. However we know that come springtime and warmer weather, he will lose the weight easily in just a couple of weeks.

On the other hand, my uncle who is the same age as my dad has never had a problem with gaining weight. I have seen the man eat three full solid meals for many years as well as the snacks at tea time and to keep guests company. Over the many years I have never seen the man gain any weight on his wiry frame and this has meant that he has never understood the way that we lesser mortals suffer at the hands of the monster known as dieting.

Losing weight is one of the hardest jobs in the world and one which many people spend all their life doing. There are different ways to go about losing weight and some of these are more modern than others. If you find that you are having trouble shedding the pounds using conventional slimming treatments, you may wish to go down the road of cosmetic surgery.

There are many different procedures which come under the heading of cosmetic surgery and they are all designed to make you feel better about yourself by looking younger and slimmer than you are at the moment. A lot of the procedures have been tried and tested and are now just considered routine operations with minimal recovery time and side effects. Procedures such as a tummy tuck or skin tightening is now offered as quick in and out lunch time jobs which can be fitted into a busy schedule.