You’re at a party and an old acquaintance casually sticks their finger in your midsection and says, “When ‘s the baby due?’

You laugh it off for appearances but deep down you’re seething.

So you go home and google “fast weight loss” and we’re off.

You jump on the latest “diet du jour” and start seeing results almost immediately.

Now, you’re running every day, skipping meals and buying new clothes.

“Why didn’t I think of this before?” you say.

You are balls to the wall for months and reveling in your new look.

Until someone says you might have lost too much weight and you don’t look very healthy.

You agree, stop running, put the scale away but still watch your caloric intake.

What could go wrong?

A few months later you’re at the the doctor’s office for your annual physical, you get on the scale and almost faint.

Not only did you regain the weight you lost, you gained an additional ten pounds. WTF?

It’s because your metabolism has been running the show most of your life and you decided to shock your system and completely overrule your metabolic guidance.

Metabolisms don’t like that.

If you had reduced calories slowly and sensibly, your metabolism wouldn’t have gone into shock.

But while you were doing other things, your metabolism was slowly and deliberately recouping its losses.

And then some.

Welcome to the boomerang diet.

Our bodies are wondrous miracles designed to keep us alive.

When it thinks you’re starving, it panics.

It temporarily shuts down.

And comes back with a vengeance.

The takeaway here is slow and steady wins the race.

Or you’ll be fainting at the doctor’s office like I did.