By Brian Abercrombie, Celebrity Fitness Trainer & Nutrition Expert

Don't you love fads? I love fads. They make me laugh. First, because someone has the guts to display their faddish idea -- I mean, just imagine how silly the guy or girl who first wore the skinny leg levis with the crotch at the knees and their boxers spilling out the top might have felt if it didn't catch on. The horror!

What really amuses me though, is how many people buy into the fad only to look back at old photographs 10 years later, drop their head into their hands and exclaim, "What was I thinking?!"

Well, fad diets work on us in much the same way. They lure us with the promise of entry into the skinny human club. They tell us it won't be hard at all. In a matter of months, no weeks, no days, we'll be right where we want to be. We're hooked and, so, we start our regimen of pineapple slices two meals a day and a protein drink for supper.

Lo and behold, it works (duh). We lose a pound, and then two. Within a couple of weeks we've lost six. Then we start getting bored. Then we start getting cranky. Then people start avoiding us, because if they even look at us cross-eyed we will rip their heads off. Then a holiday comes, maybe Thanksgiving, and we tell ourselves, "I've worked hard, I've suffered (and indeed we have), I deserve to sit down to a nice meal and treat myself for my hard work." 

And we pull ourselves up to the bounty set before us and we dig in, and it is like taking a beautiful, euphoric swan dive off a cliff. Reality steps in and bites us on the ass. Six weeks later that 6-pound loss is a 10-pound gain. We look in the mirror, drop our head into our hands and exclaim, "What was I thinking?"

What are we thinking? The simple answer is that we are lazy. We are Americans, we want it fast and we want it now and we want it easy.  There is also the more insidious emotion of, "Why is it so hard for me when it's so easy for everybody else?" My answer: Because it is. Get over it. It's just another lame excuse for not getting off your butt and doing something about it. We all do it. I want to write a novel.  I complain to my wife constantly about how I wish I had more time to write. The other day she turned to me and said, "If you had written just one page a day for every day that you've been talking about this over the past year, you would have 365 pages to publish." AARRGGH! Why does she always have to slap me with the reality stick?  Because she can. And that's what I'm here to do to you.

Diets don't work. Excuses don't work. Pleas to the heavens above don't work. Rolling around on the floor kicking, screaming and crying, "Why me?" doesn't work. In fact it can make things worse.  Studies have shown that dieters tend to gain back more weight than they lose, after going off of a diet. But, you knew that, didn't you? Studies have also shown that a negative attitude has a negative affect toward weight loss. Ok, that's my own study, but I whole-heartedly believe it.

What does work? Thank you for asking. Common sense works. Making positive lifestyle choices works. Having a greater understanding of how food works, works. Knowing why you need/want to lose weight and making informed decisions based on that information works. I guess that takes us right back to common sense doesn't it?

I tell people that eating well is extremely complicated and incredibly simple. Over the course of the next few weeks, I will lead you through the complexly simple world of food and fitness (yeah, that too), so that you might find a way to love it again or at least give it some healthy respect.

It's not about denial, it's not about suffering. It's about making choices so that you can enjoy your life while still attaining your goals. Sound good?

Some of the topics we'll cover:

• Eat well before eating less
• Before you lose weight, stop gaining weight
• Lose fat, not weight
• Eat fat to lose fat and other fun food facts
• The wall of denial (you know what I'm talking about)
• Breaking set points (how to keep losing when our body doesn't want us to anymore)
• What is cardio
• Why strength train
• Putting it all together

Brian Abercrombie

Brian Abercrombie's career in athletics started at a very early age. At 10, he split his time between downhill skiing and gymnastics, eventually becoming a junior ski racer and working with gymnastics coaches in a bid to qualify for the Olympics.

Brian's career in training began in 1985. In 1997 he began working with amateur and professional athletes, in particular a stable of professional fighters. Finding their workout methods and beliefs arcane and out of date, he began a campaign to build a more efficient and superior method of training, and the seeds of P.A.S.E were planted.

To date, he has worked on studying and developing programs combining power, agility, strength and endurance to build better overall athletes and also applying it to help athletes perform at a higher level in their specific sport or endeavor. www.themtrain.com.