Have you ever tried to lose weight simply by deciding that you are going to stop being a junk food addict? You finish the last 4 Oreos in the bag and then spend the next three or four days eating nothing but yogurt, chicken, and bland salads. So what happens? You find yourself opening a new bag of Oreos because you feel like life isn’t worth living if you can’t be happy with what you eat.

Don’t worry. This happens to most junk food addicts because they think that they can only lose weight with willpower and an abrupt change in their diet. Although this looks great on paper, it doesn’t work for most people because the focus is what we call cold turkey. Change needs to happen gradually for it to work in the long run.

First face the facts. You are a junk food addict. You have been eating junk food for a long time and it is extremely difficult for you to eat a carrot instead of those tasty McDonald’s fries. It has taken you years and years to lose your shape and become sedentary. If it happened overnight, you would have noticed. No one can easily break a long-standing habit.

For someone to lose weight and keep it off forever, they must lead a healthy lifestyle. Knowing this is important because it is the ultimate goal of anyone who wants to lose weight. Leading a healthy lifestyle includes exercise, proper nutrition, and a sense of well-being in the areas of your life that bring you joy. All on a daily basis.

Your first thought is probably that it takes a lot of work to kick the junk food addict habit and lead a healthy lifestyle. Exercise every day? Who has the time and energy for that? And proper nutrition will get you back to those bland salads, right? Wrong! People who lead a healthy lifestyle eat McDonald’s fries and Oreo cookies. They just don’t eat them all the time.

When it comes to exercise, all a person needs to stay fit and active is 30 minutes. Walking, running, biking, dancing, skating, skiing…it doesn’t matter. If you can’t set aside half an hour each day to ensure the health of the only body you have to take care of in your life, you need to make more changes than just lose weight!

What does all this have to do with how you can stop being a junk food addict? Much! Now that you know that living a healthy lifestyle is the ultimate goal, you can set a roadmap to get there. Everyone wants to be there overnight, but setting a realistic time frame for achieving your goals is a more effective and productive approach.

Your parents probably told you to eat your vegetables when you were a child. Somewhere along the way, he decided to eat for himself, and junk food replaced what he always knew was a healthier option. The impact of going back to eating those vegetables without continuing to eat the junk food will not seem right to you. I say keep eating your junk food.

What? Still eating junk food? Yes, that’s my advice. But here is the catch. Instead of eating junk food every time you sit down for a meal or snack, choose one meal a day that you’ll trade for better food choices. I told you this would be gradual. If you normally eat Cheez-its every day at 3:00 pm for a snack, have a bowl of granola cereal instead.

After making this small daily change for a few weeks, discipline yourself to take it to the next level. Now that you’re okay with eating well once a day, go for two! This could be two snacks, two meals, or one snack and one meal. I would go eat this time because it will speed up your weight loss more than changing your clothes every day.

So after a month of this, you’re really not eating junk food all the time, are you? You’ve probably lost some weight, but you can still have pizza every Friday night. Hmmm…interesting how this works. Now that you’re well on your way to eating right without giving up the foods you love, it’s time to think about exercising.

We’ve already established that you don’t have 30 minutes a day to sweat on the treadmill. Okay, how about 5 minutes? Everyone has 5 minutes to walk around the block. Spend 5 minutes a day doing this for a week. Once you start to feel better, which you will, you’ll want to do it more often. I can almost guarantee that you will find 10 minutes in your busy schedule.

Keep going at this speed. Increase your exercise time each week by 5 minutes. After a month and a half you will be up to 30 minutes and that’s it! Whether you want to continue to improve your health is your own choice, but for the most part, people only need 30 minutes of sustained exercise a day to maintain a healthy weight.

Even if you’re reading this and you know you can eat better than one meal a day, or exercise for more than 30 minutes, don’t. You’ll just burn out like all the other times you’ve tried to lose weight. Keep it gradual and eventually you’ll get to the point where you actually exercise and eat healthy most of the time without a second thought.

This approach worked for me 15 years ago and I have maintained a 70 pound weight loss ever since. I had severe asthma and couldn’t exercise at first, but as my body became healthy, I suddenly found myself without medication and out on my bike every day. Words cannot describe how happy I am to be able to do this now and breathe properly now.

For things to change, you have to change. Just remember that kicking the junk food addict habit doesn’t have to be overnight. In fact, the more gradual it is, the more effective it will be in the long run.