It's always been fascinating to me how business, finance and weight loss parallel one another.

Take a personal bank account for instance. If you add more to it than you take out of it, your account will grow bigger and bigger.

The same is true with your body. If you put more into it through eating than you take out of it through activity it will grow bigger and bigger. That's a simple truth isn't it?

What about a business? If a business owner doesn't watch his business on a daily basis and take action when necessary his business will most probably fail.

The same is true with a weight loss program.

If it's not monitored on a daily basis and action taken when necessary it will fail. Most businesses fail. So do most weight loss programs. That's a simple truth also.

I've been an industrial engineer all my life and years ago I read a book that pertained to manufacturing by Dr. Eliyahu M. Goldratt, an Israeli physicist, entitled "The Theory of Constraints".

The core idea in the Theory of Constraints is that every real system, such as a profit-making enterprise, must have at least one constraint.

If it were not true, then the system would produce an infinite amount of whatever it strives for. In the case of a profit-making enterprise, it would be infinite profits.

Because a constraint is a factor that limits the system from getting more of whatever it strives for, a business manager who wants more profits must manage the constraint.

There really is no choice in the matter. Either you manage constraints or they manage you. The constraints will determine the output of the system whether they are acknowledged and managed or not.

There can be many constraints in a business but I found out in my engineering career there is usually a primary one.

All constraints must be managed but by focusing the most attention on the primary one, whatever is being strived for will improve. Perfection is never achieved but improvement can be accomplished.

It's a constant battle.

Does The Theory of Constraints apply to weight loss? Absolutely! If there were no constraints to weight loss then none of us would be fat.

Dieters can achieve improvement by focusing on their primary constraint the same as the business manager, even though all constraints must be managed.

It's a constant battle.

So what is the primary constraint to weight loss? I think it's universal to all dieters. The cartoon character Pogo, by Walt Kelly, said it best. "We have met the enemy and he is us."

Yep. The primary constraint to weight loss is between our ears.

We prefer sitting on the couch and indulging in the pleasures of the moment rather than striving for what we would like to have in the future.

As far as weight loss is concerned we might as well be hunting for unicorns or searching for pots of gold at the end of rainbows. We're just as likely to find them as to lose weight.

Good information on weight loss is abundant but to lose weight you must become proactive. Knowledge is not enough. You've got to work on that primary constraint. You've got to get off that couch and DO SOMETHING.

Jim Bolding is a freelance writer and the webmaste of http://www.cookie-recipe-club.com and http://www.beef-cooking.com