Have you ever met a woman who felt that she had finally achieved the perfect weight? Well, I haven’t, and I bet you probably haven’t either. In fact, I’d bet a buck that you’ve wanted to take some weight off yourself.

Unfortunately, you feel the urge to feel the burn at the moment of impossibility—a couple of weeks before a big wedding, a class reunion, or a summer vacation. Desperate for immediate fat loss results, you try the cabbage diet—the Alcatraz diet, a diet that bears no resemblance to how civilized people actually eat—and you burn yourself out at the gym in the first 5 minutes of arriving.

One of two things happen:

• You lose 10 pounds, only to put it back on, plus a few, after the big event is over.

• You don’t lose any weight, and you wind up feeling like a fat cow.

It’s easy to say, stop the madness, but the truth is, it’s too much trouble to get on a diet plan just for the sake of looking good and feeling better for a once in a blue moon event. You need that extra bit of pushin’ to get you to take the weight off.

Isn’t it time you stopped the yo-yo dieting?

Wouldn’t you like to stop the nagging voice in your head every time you look in the mirror, or squeeze yourself into a pair of jeans?

Then do it.

If you need some motivation, consider this:

• If having a definite, set goal is not your style, then try to change one thing a week about how you eat or move. Don’t do it to lose weight—do it for yourself, and your health. By the time a year has passed, you will have picked up 52 new, healthy habits, and you will also probably find that you’ve lost a love handle or two.

• Imagine if you lost just one pound a week, that would mean that you lost 52 pounds by the end of the year, and that’s about four clothing sizes; a six-year-old child.

• Birthdays are a big motivator for a lot of people. And they don’t think about it until the calendar page turns onto their birth month. If you’re going to be 20, 30, 40, 50, 60 years old in a year or two, start now, and look your best when your big milestone comes around. If that’s not a motivator, think about all the pictures of you that will be taken at your party. What do you want to look like in those pictures?

• Has summer crept up on you again? Well, this year try something different from the usual starvation diet before hitting the beach next month. Instead, use this summer as the motivator for next summer - and start now with a diet and exercise regimen that will have you hitting the beaches showing off your new body next year. As a reward, maybe you could take an island vacation.

Very few of us are as thin as we were in high school. But don’t wait until the reunion invitation comes in the mail! You know what year you graduated.

Get started with your plan for revenge now, then you can put pictures of the new you up on Facebook, so when everyone starts looking for old classmates they’ll recognize you right away, and be green with envy at how you’ve kept your trim, long figure.