It’s Diet Time Again

“A diet is a plan, generally hopeless, for reducing your weight, which tests your will power but does little for your waistline.”
~ Herbert B. Prochnow

It’s that time of year again – Diet time, weight loss resolution time, join the gym time.

The sheer volume of diet, exercise, and weight loss information – much of it conflicting – is overwhelming.

Bookstore shelves are full of the latest crop of diet books.

Magazine racks display titles with enticing weight loss promises.

Celebrities endorsing an array of weight loss plans stream across the television.

Oprah beats herself up for re-gaining weight before millions of viewers and vows to get back on the diet and exercise wagon.

The Biggest Loser gears up for another successful season.

And so begins another year on the diet, exercise, weight loss merry-go-round and somehow we think this year will be different. We’ve chosen a new diet plan, purchased the new diet book and are really, really committed. We race out of the starting gate with diet rules, restrictive menus, and exercise schedules firmly in hand.

For a while we are vigilant and may even drop a few pounds. Family, friends, and co-workers notice and comment on our shrinking waists. We beam with pride and reveal our latest diet secret.

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And then something happens – maybe we hit a plateau, maybe we succumb to a craving, we experience burnout, we tire of the deprivation and we give up. We return to our old habits, and we feel defeated and ashamed.

Once again we have failed the diet and the diet has failed us.

Or maybe we lose the weight, reach the goal, feel great, and slowly, steadily resort to old habits and before we know what happened, we are back at our starting weight, or worse – heavier than when we began. Or so it goes, for 95% of us.

How many times have you participated in this weight loss merry-go-round?

I began more than 30 years ago, when I was 14, and spent my summer subsisting on cottage cheese, fruit, and vegetables. A cycle of chronic dieting had begun.

Subsequent diets have included (in no particular order):

And not to mention the dozens of gym memberships, cleanses, and meal replacement plans I have purchased. Talk about exhausting and insane (I’m tired just listing all those diets)!

What is the definition of insanity? Doing the same thing again and again and expecting a different result?

Of course, as a chronic dieter, I didn’t feel insane or meet the exact definition, since I was always trying a different diet!

Then a few years ago, I decided to throw in the towel. I had discovered yoga several years previous and was feeling better about myself, so I decided to give up dieting and try a different approach – something radical.

I would try to trust my body and inner guidance to determine what to eat, instead of another ‘external expert.’ This was a risky prospect I would have avoided years earlier.

But this time I was ready to finally stop struggling and had recently read a few great books on intuitive eating:

Something amazing happened – my weight didn’t balloon. I lost weight and have kept it off, with relative ease!

I’m not skinny, but at a comfortable weight appropriate for my age. It’s been a few years now and I feel great and am able to avoid diet success smugness with the realization that menopause still looms before me. My weight naturally fluctuates by a few pounds. I don’t panic (most of the time).

I feel like I have learned a lot about dieting, diets, what works, and what doesn’t, during the past thirty plus years and hope that sharing some details might help you find your path to nourishing weight loss, self acceptance, and dietary peace.

To learn more about my happy, healthy slim program

Article by Martha McKinnon

Martha is a Healthy Weight Loss Coach and Cooking Coach who loves to share ways to make cooking and eating simple, easy, quick and delicious and help you stop dieting and instead discover the pleasure of happy healthy balanced eating, cooking and living.

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