Diet With An Attitude

10 Days to Permanent Weight Loss, Day 9

2006-11-26T11:40:00.000-08:00

How much weight can you lose on your program? How much do you want to lose? Keep going until you are where you want to be.

Now what?

Well, you have a choice. You can throw caution to the winds, discard your intermittent feeding program, and eat your way back to your old self, or you can opt for maintenance.

If you'd like to stay at your goal weight, you'll need to experiment a little, always with a keen eye on your trusty scales. If you settled at 3 days of stringent dieting a week, drop back to two and see what happens. If you're still maintaining, drop back to 1. If you've really cut down on your portions and streamlined your intake, you may be able to return to eating 7 days a week. But keep that hawk's eye on the scales and immediately add back a day of deprivation if you gain 2 pounds or more.

Also experiment now with the different quickie diets you've become familiar with. Some will be more effective for you than others so stick with the ones that give you the most bang for your buck.

Next: The final takeaway.

Virginia Bola http://www.DietWithAnAttitude.com/index2.html

10 Days to Permanent Weight Loss, Day # 8

2006-09-01T05:58:00.000-07:00

We've talked about what a large selection of foods you have for your diet days, those 1 to 3 minimal intake days a week when your weight loss spurts. What to eat on your "off" non-dieting days?

Again, it's all up to you. Initially, you may want to eat whatever you normally eat (no playing "catch-up" for your day of deprivation success, mind you!). As you progress through your program, you will start to find yourself unconsciously lowering your intake because your old portions now seem too big. If you're strictly dieting 3 days a week, you've cut your overall weekly caloric intake by up to 43% so naturally your body no longer craves the amount of food it demanded in the past.

If you want to be even more virtuous, you may elect to concentrate on highly nutritious but low calorie foods on your "off" days also - fish, poultry, vegetables, rice, fruit. The important thing is to eat things you like on those "off" days. The thought that gets you through the painful diet days is that "this is only for a day, 2 days, 3 days." If you don't have fun "off" days to look forward to, you're back to the old endless deprivation mindset, you'll get sick of the whole thing, and relapse stares you in the face.

Next: Making it last.

For more information:

http://www.DietWithAnAttitude.com/index2.html

10 Days to Permanent Weight Control # 7

2006-08-20T09:43:00.000-07:00

You may wonder if the diet you pick makes a difference. Not for this program. There are literally thousands of "quickie" diets ranging from a minimum of 6 or 8 hours to as long as 7 to 10 days. Some are obviously more nutritionally balanced than others. Canned formula programs or mix-up shakes are usually quite complete while tomatoes and cottage cheese or cabbage soup routines may be deficient in many nutrients.

However, this is not a lifetime eating plan - you are eating unnaturally for only a few days at a time. Your body and digestive system can survive almost anything, including the complete absence of any nutrients, for a few days. What is important is that the diet be a true fad diet - stringent, Spartan, a minimum in calories of any kind.

The most effective approach is to mix and match. One week you might drink fruit juices for a day, then go on straight protein for a day, and lettuce and tomatoes for the third day. The frequent changes keep your body off balance and head off that dreaded "famine coming, famine coming" reaction which slows your metabolism to a crawl so your body can hang on to its dearly beloved fat stores.

Find new fad diets wherever you can. There are hundreds on the Internet, books and pamphlets galore, and every woman's magazine hosts its diet o'the month. You can try a total fast if you'd like but it's better to either limit that to 24 hours or to occasionally extend to 4-5 days as the second and third days are really tough while by the fourth and fifth days, any sense of hunger has completely gone. Don't go any longer than about 5 days unless you're an experienced faster or under expert supervision.

Pick whatever you like and what works within your food budget: buttermilk, cottage cheese and grapefruit, eggs and tomatoes, fish only, milk and bananas, yogurt, rice, raw food - there is a fad diet for almost anything you can imagine.

Keep trying new things to maintain your interest.

Next: Handling the non-dieting days.

More info: http://www.DietWithAnAttitude.com/index2.html

10 Days To Weight Loss # 6

2006-08-14T05:55:00.000-07:00

You know what you're capable of handling and what is just not acceptable. Use your personal level of tolerance for discomfort to determine how you combine your eating and dieting days.

To minimize the chance of relapse, start off a little more slowly that you think you can handle. You can adjust your program at any time and, in fact, after the initial success, you are likely to keep raising the bar as your belief in yourself blossoms and a kernel of pride starts to germinate.

For the first week, for example, you may select one day in which you will observe an extremely stringent fad diet for 24 hours. You survive that one day of deprivation because you know it's only one day and you have had the opportunity to plan it out ahead of time to minimize distractions and temptations.

For the few days after your 1 day diet, feel the glow. You may, or may not, have actually lost weight - it is the feeling of success that we are seeking and you need to relish that feeling for all it's worth.

If you believe you can do it, stretch the one day to 48 hours the next week (or stay at the 24 hour per 7 day schedule for a little while, constantly building your ability to do this). It's up to you whether you want to set it up for 48 straight hours or make it 2 sessions a few days apart.

Make sure you give yourself credit for what you are doing. It may not show immediately on the scale but you have actually cut your food intake by initially 14% and now 29%!

When you know you're ready, and only when you know you're ready, move up to 3 days per week! Again, it's up to you whether you pick a 3 day diet or intersperse 3 different dieting days throughout the week.

Next: which of the diets shall I pick?

http://www.DietWithAnAttitude.com/index2.html

10 Days to Weight Loss #5

2006-07-22T06:26:00.000-07:00

We can repeat the short bursts of pain from stringent food restriction in a well-organized long range program.

We know the quick "fad" diets work because they have worked for us - in the short term. The problem is that we then return to our old eating habits and those ugly, temporarily jettisoned, pounds pop right back.

If our goal is permanent weight control, we need to map out a campaign that combines short bursts of progress with longer periods of regular intake.

If you remember, our memories of pain fade quickly so a return to a short period of deprivation is no more difficult than the initial jolt.

It is this seesaw between tough days and satisfying days that lets us stay with the program and maintains both our momentum and our motivation.

Next: Mapping out your schedule.

http://www.DietWithAnAttitude.com

10 Days To Weight Loss - Day 4

2006-06-04T10:15:00.000-07:00

We can keep the pain of dieting sharp but short. We find it
much easier to handle even intense pain if the duration is
limited. We'll accept the sharp pain of lancing a boil or a
blister, knowing that it will be over in an instant and will
resolve that dull discomfort that has existed for days.

Likewise in dieting, we find it easier to be strict, even
tyrannical, on our food intake for a very limited period of
time. It is far easier to accept fasting, or a liquid diet,
or a single food item only regimen, if it is just for a few
days. That is the basis of the continued popularity of the 3
day - 7 pound "Hollywood" and "Celebrity" diets. It is the
reason people go to fat farms or fasting spas for a week.

We can deny ourselves almost anything for a few days. It is
the long-term denial, even of only a few items, that saps
our energy and destroys our resolve. The long, slow, weight
loss programs so loudly recommended lead, for this reason,
to inevitable relapse.

Ten Days To Permanent Weight Control - Day 3

2006-04-28T11:00:00.000-07:00

We can't avoid some pain, at some point, in our journey to lifetime thin-dom. Those pictures of happy, laughing dieters are a myth! If the diet is as easy, tasty, and fun as it's cracked up to be, it won't work.

Let's face it. You will never get the same thrilling shiver of delight from a celery stalk that you get from a box of Godiva chocolates. You will never salivate for hours at the thought of a broiled veggie burger as you may at the prospect of a perfect Chateaubriand or an enormous lobster tail. Wake up and smell the decaf - denying ourselves pleasure is tough. And repetitive denial just gets tougher.

So what can we do?

We can manage the pain by planning our attack in several different ways.

Next: Relief is on the way.

This is a section of a 10 mini-course outlining a plan to lose weight rapidly and permanently. For more information, visit: http://www.dietwithanattitude.com/index2.html

Ten Days To Permanent Weight Control - Day 2

2006-04-07T06:21:00.000-07:00

At some time in our lives, we have all suffered pain. There is the dull, throbbing ache of a migraine or a stubbed toe. There is the sudden sharp pain of a pulled muscle or cracked rib. There is the breath-stopping severe pain of childbirth or a herniated disc. There is the miserable, unrelenting pain of severe injury or deliberate torture.

Astonishingly, we manage to survive whatever our body dishes out. Even more surprisingly, our memory of pain fades rapidly. If we accurately recalled our experience of pain, we would thread our way through life with undue caution and a smidgeon of paranoia, desperately seeking to avoid injury of any kind. We would never return to the dental chair or the operating room. No woman would give birth to a second child.

Why this rather gruesome discussion of pain?

Because losing weight is painful!

It stresses our bodies to have their comfortable routine upset. It stresses our minds to accept the negative changes we have to make. It stresses our emotions to refuse what we so dearly crave. It stresses our self-esteem when we have to confront what we have let ourselves become.

Next: Managing the pain of dieting.

This is a section of a 10 mini-course outlining a plan to lose weight rapidly and permanently. For more information, visit: http://www.dietwithanattitude.com/index2.html

Ten Days To Permanent Weight Control - Day 1

2006-03-21T02:39:00.000-08:00

We are overweight because we eat too much and move too little. It therefore logically follows that if we eat less and move more, we'll lose weight. Those are the simple and accurate recommendations of the professional experts: dieticians, nutritionists, fitness trainers, and doctors. It sounds so simple and so "right."

But we don't do it!

Why?

Because . . . it means changing our comfortable lifestyle. It means enormous personal effort for an agonizingly slow loss of pounds. It means changing routines and getting sweaty and fatigued. It means a lifetime commitment when we can barely concentrate on anything beyond next month. It means a boring life of counting calories and measuring walking distances. It means never having your diet end so you can finally eat what you've been craving for weeks.

It presents as an unappealing future, much like starting a long series of dental treatments that will involve a certain degree of pain and discomfort, at regular intervals, over weeks, months, even years.

A forbidding prospect, isn't it?

Next: How to make an end run on the pain of losing weight.

This is one section of a 10 day mini-course outlining a plan to lose weight rapidly and permanently. For more information, visit: http://www.dietwithanattitude.com/index2.html

Is Losing Weight Worth The Trouble?

2006-03-12T06:29:00.000-08:00

Every day, in newspapers, magazines, television, and online, we are exhorted to lose weight. Alarming statistics about our national overweight and obesity rates are regularly revisited and the dangers of carrying too many pounds are trumpeted by dietitians, nutritionists, medical specialists, and the weight loss gurus on their talk show tours.

They don't have to keep trying to convince us that ideal weight is healthier; we know that. No one has to point out that life is more fun when our activities are not hampered by fifty pounds of excess fat; we know that. The joy of accepting that we look attractive and slim doesn't have to be hammered into our brains; we know it already!

We know the problem. We try to solve it by starting one of the thousand of diets floating through the media. We shell out our money for supplements, pills, support meetings, and online weight clubs. We know what we need to do and desperately try to follow through.

None of us start a diet intending to fail. The money and time we spend is part of a genuine effort to lose, not merely throwing away excess funds to assuage our conscience. But why is the problem getting bigger all the time when millions of us are following the advise we're being given?

Losing weight is terribly hard. Even more difficult is keeping it off. So we yo-yo our way through life, eagerly embracing every new program that comes along, believing the promises and testimonials we read, and waiting impatiently for the silver bullet we pray will appear.

After years of recurrent failure, we start to feel hopeless. Our dreams are repetitively battered on the rocks of dozens of unsuccessful diet attempts. We begin to wonder if all the effort is worthwhile. Before we throw in the towel and surrender ourselves to a lifetime of fat, let's look at the process of weight control and see if it's worth giving it one more shot.

"I want to lose forty five pounds." A statement like that is usual at the start of a diet. We are willing to take whatever action is needed to get started on our quest. We may try a particular program or a pill or a general cutback in food intake. Whichever approach we take, we are focused on our need to lose forty five pounds.

The first week we lose three to five pounds and we are ecstatic, smiling down at our scale as if it were an ancient genie oozing out of its magical bottle. The second and third week, the loss continues although at a slower pace. We're still happy and enthusiastic; it is all working as it should.

Somewhere around the fourth to eighth week, we hit the first major hump. We are following our program religiously, resisting the temptation to cheat even when alone, and keeping our eye firmly fixed on that forty five pound goal. One or two weeks go by and the weight loss stops. We tinker with our program, cut our intake to the bone, force ourselves to exercise. Nothing works - the scale mockingly reflects the same numbers we've been staring at for three weeks.

The weeks of deprivation, physical pangs, and unfulfilled emotional cravings appear to be worthless. A little voice starts babbling inside our head: what's the point of the physical and mental pain if it's not getting us where we want to go? Maybe it's not the right time or the right diet. Maybe we're destined to be overweight and nothing we do is going to change that. Maybe our body's quirks will thwart any diet we try.

We're on the skids, ready to fall off the straight and narrow. Feeling desperately sorry for ourselves, we allow one little treat to ease the disappointment. One treat leads to another, and another, and another.

Suddenly, we're back where we started, with another two to three pounds to boot. Frustrated, angry, and overwhelmingly guilty, we look at ourselves in the mirror and bemoan our apparent destiny: to spend the rest of our lives fat.

What happened? We started out with such high hopes and strong motivation. We played by the rules but the rules didn't work. We tried, terribly hard, but our bodies sabotaged our strongest efforts. We feel worse about ourselves than when we started. Is another try even worth it?

Yes! It's always worth trying again if we really want to succeed. It is the sum of our efforts that counts if we are to reach our goal.

Remember that goal of losing forty five pounds? We still want to do it but we need to modify our mental approach. Let's put everything into a new perspective. Let's restate our goal as wanting to lose five pounds per month. That equates to sixty pounds per year - fifteen pounds beyond our original goal!

Once our goal has been reframed, it lifts the pressure of "I've got to keep losing" and reduces the burden to a mere five pounds per month, manageable by almost all of us. Depending upon the kind of person you are, you can dive right in, jump on the diet of your choosing, and lose five pounds the first ten days. Then you just have to maintain for three weeks until the first of the next month. If you're a procrastinator as I usually am, don't worry about anything until the 20th of the month. Then take stringent measures to make sure you attain that five pound loss before a new month dawns.

What typically happens is that you grow impatient with this rate of loss. You decide to keep going and lose more. If that happens, so much the better, but limit the mental pressure to that magical five pounds a month. If you end up losing six or eight pounds over the month, don't fret if the scale needle starts to stick because you've already exceeded your goal by 20% to 60%! Celebrate your victory with an ego-building (non-edible) treat.

The reframing of your weight loss objectives in this fashion has unbelievable psychological rewards. You are no longer mentally beating up on yourself for not moving fast enough towards that forty five pound loss elephant, but are feeling so good about yourself for meeting, or even exceeding, that five pound goal that you feel like bubbling over.

And make no mistake about it, feeling good about yourself is absolutely critical in weight loss. We who constantly wage the battle of the bulge are famous for our poor self-image and diminished self-esteem. We hate every roll of fat that pokes over our too-tight waistbands. We wince when the mirror reflects flabby arms and saddlebag thighs. We suck in our tummies until we can no longer breathe, turn sideways, and are still uncomfortably aware that the image we project bears little resemblance to the image in our minds.

We need, desperately, to increase our self-respect and our sense of self-worth. We need to nurture our self-image and self-appreciation. We need to enjoy some continuing successes that can rebuild our battered egos and keep that constant guilt and self-reproach at bay.

Changing the syntax of your weight loss goals can lead not only to a more successful weight loss campaign, but can restore your self-belief and heal the psychological damage caused by too many diet failures over too many years.

The Psychology Of Diet Preparation - Part 3

2006-02-19T06:54:00.000-08:00

Here is the conclusion of the article I wrote for an unnamed publication. I hope you enjoy it.

3. Our sense of self-efficacy.

Self-efficacy is a term used in psychology to describe an individual's belief that any action they take will have an effect on the outcome. It is not self-confidence, nor a belief that one is competent to do something, although it may involve both. It reflects our inner expectation that what we do will effect the results we want.

If I lack this belief, then I fear that whatever I do will not bring about my desired goal. Bordering on helplessness, it leads to self-defeating thoughts:

"No matter how carefully I diet, I don't lose weight . . ." "I could work out every day but I'll never get rid of these thunder thighs . . ." "I try to eat healthier foods but my hips just keep on spreading . . ." "No matter what techniques I try, nothing is going to keep the wrinkles away. . ."

If I have a strong sense of self-efficacy, my belief system and thought patterns will sound like:

"All I have to do is get motivated and I can whip my body into shape in a few weeks . . ." "I just need to pick a date to start my diet and I'll be on my way . . ." "I may have neglected myself for a while but some hard work will bring me back . . ."

Whether or not we start a diet, decide to get in shape, or start taking better care of ourselves is, ultimately, a personal decision which may, or may not, be made as we have planned. The difference lies in the expectation of success and it is always easier to set out on a journey we anticipate will be successful than it is to drag ourselves toward a goal where failure is the most likely outcome.

How can we combine these concepts to work for us in our desire to become slim, fit, and attractive?

We begin by examining our self-image and how we appear to others. Merely asking others "Do you think I'm getting too heavy?" doesn't work unless you have a brutally honest friend or you ask someone who dislikes you. Most of us are culturally trained to spare others' feelings so responses to such a question are more likely to be polite than true.

Concentrating on specifics can produce better feedback. Tell everyone that you're completing a survey for a class you're taking. Hand out a brief one page questionnaire requiring that each friend or coworker list three adjectives to describe different aspects of your physical appearance. Complete one of the sheets yourself. Make sure that the answers are anonymous by requesting that no names be used and having someone else collect the completed sheets.

Once you have the responses back, compare them to your own answers and see where the descriptions diverge. You may find yourself becoming a little defensive: "My hips aren't that big . . . my clothes do too make me look slim." This isn't an exercise to make you feel bad about yourself nor for you to gloat over the unexpected complimentary remarks you received. It is an organized effort to help you identify where your self-image and your image-in-the-world move apart. Those areas of divergence are a place to start in the effort to make the two images overlap.

Once the areas where work is needed have been identified, it is time to call on the immeasurable strength of our wonderful mind to start imposing the structure and organization we are going to need to effect the desired changes. Our mind can only get us where we want to go if it is supported by a belief in our ability to bring about a successful conclusion. Now is the time to dismiss any expectations of failure. There may have been many unsuccessful dieting and fitness attempts in the past. Leave them in the past. We are not somehow doomed to continue unproductive behaviors forever. We possess that jewel of evolution, the human mind, which is capable of just about anything. If we set our mind to any task, it will accomplish it, if our doubts and misgivings don't get in its way.

We build up our positive expectations by exploring our memories to pile up a long list of prior successes. There may be major benchmarks such as bringing about a promotion we wanted, orchestrating a fantastic event, or working ourselves into an intensely satisfying relationship. However, the small personal triumphs count the most but are usually quickly forgotten or discounted as unimportant.

Studying hard and obtaining a good grade in a difficult class clearly demonstrates your ability to bring about the results you want. Go for quantity: the day you smiled at someone across a smoky room and ended up with a brief but lovely affair; the report you brought in on time which no one expected; the night you mastered a spin on ice skates. Keep going: making the drill team, shooting a stolen basket, making your own prom dress, dying your hair a wonderful color in your own bathroom, catching a fly ball, figuring out new software on your computer, burning your first CD. The list can be endless and will be, as you keep remembering snippets of the past that you had long buried under more important things.

Keep this list close by and read it regularly. It is your personal self-efficacy pep squad.

You now know the areas you are going to work on and are developing a belief in the effectiveness of your own efforts. Now you need to identify the internal rewards that successful weight loss will bring. Feeling good about yourself, enjoying stepping on a scale, and easily zipping up your clothes are easy starters. Unselfconsciously walking to the pool in a brief suit is a reinforcement to dream about. Making a sales presentation with the confidence that you are looking your absolute best is an image to relish as you fall asleep. Seeing someone you love watch you admiringly, or seeing your competitive coworker jealous, underscores your resolve and keeps you going through the discomfort of dieting and the demands of boring exercise routines.

You know where you're going, you know what it's going to take, and you know you're going to be successful. Your mind is fully prepared, simply awaiting your day of decision. You'll make that decision whenever you choose because you are now in control.

The Psychology Of Dieting Part 2

2006-02-03T07:47:00.000-08:00

This is another in a series of articles I wrote for a magazine. It was rather long so I have split it into distinct parts. This is part two. I hope you like it.

Body versus Mind dominance.

We all wage a lifelong internal battle between our body and our mind. Each is dominant at different stages of development. As infants, we are little more than a collection of sensations. We explore the exciting new world around us through touching everything within reach, tasting everything we can put into our mouths, watching the movements of everything around us, and listening to all the sounds we hear until we eventually learn to imitate them.

As we move into our early school years, we start to concentrate on our minds. We voraciously devour immense amounts of information. We learn to read and our world expands its boundaries by a thousand percent. We learn to use the Internet and a limitless universe is at our fingertips.

Then we move into puberty and, overnight, our appearance becomes the dominating factor in our everyday lives. We navigate the pitfalls and pleasures of adolescence where popularity and being cool are so much more vital than mere learning or mental development. We spend an inordinate amount of time on our bodies. We try new clothes, new hairstyles, and new makeup. We have body parts pierced and undergo the pain of a tattoo because it will make us stand out. We primp, and groom, and force ourselves into the styles our peers have judged as “in.”

As we mature, we seek to balance our mental and physical selves. While our bodies reign supreme in the attract-a-mate environment, we need to exercise our minds to advance our careers and to develop deep relationships that move far beyond mere physical attraction.

It is when we settle down, and start to build the good life we want, that our efforts and energies turn towards things outside ourselves: children, significant others, friends, family, and work pursuits. We have so much happening around us and so much to do that we lose touch with both our bodies and our minds. We slip into our own comfort zone where so many of our needs are fulfilled by food. It eases our anxiety, relieves our frequent frustrations, and makes periodic bouts of the blues bearable. It oils our social interactions. It becomes a vital cog in how we demonstrate affection for those we love. We continue to see ourselves as we have always been and ignore the love handles and pockets of fat that attach themselves to parts of our body we resolutely ignore. Our bodies, and our internal image of our bodies, become more and more discordant.

*****

I'll continue with the rest of the article later. See you then!

No Show Apology

2006-02-02T14:05:00.000-08:00

Sorry, everyone. I have not been to my blog in a month,
courtesy of the IRS who pulled a field audit on me and
caused me to lose all sense of focus for a while.

I'll be back shortly.

The Psychology Of Dieting Part 1

2006-01-02T08:52:00.000-08:00

This is another in a series of articles I wrote for a magazine. It was rather long so I have split it into distinct parts. This is part one. I hope you like it.

The Psychology Of Diet Preparation I

We decide to lose weight because of any number of reasons: we don't like the way we look, our clothes don't fit, our health is in danger, our significant other is wandering, our job is at risk, or our kids are embarrassed. We tend to think of weight loss as something that involves only our body; surely no one ever decided to lose weight because of a fat brain or a bloated mind.

Yet "we decide" is a mental function. When and why we make such a decision depends on our mind, not our body. We may make the decision when we are five pounds heavier than we would like, or after passing the two hundred pound mark and entering true medical obesity. The actual size of the body does not trigger the decision to lose weight, such a choice in made in the brain.

Since the start (and the continuation) of a diet program is a mental process, it would seem to be worthwhile to explore what factors might trigger such a decision.

1. Self-Image.

Each of us has a dual image: the face we turn to the world and our internal idea of how we appear. Although we dress and groom ourselves in an effort to be seen as attractive by others, we are far less influenced by others than by our satisfaction, or dissatisfaction, with ourselves.

Explore this concept by observing yourself and others over the course of the next week. You will notice that you often receive compliments on clothes you wear that, to you, don't feel "quite right." Wear a favorite outfit that fits perfectly, that you think looks outstanding, and that makes you feel especially dashing - and no one notices! The same phenomenon occurs with a hairstyle. One morning, rushed for time, you can't get your hair to do anything so you angrily pull it back with clips and hope that no one important sees you looking so awful. Voila! Three people comment that they like what you've done with your hair.

There is the same disconnect when it comes to our weight. If we look good in our mind's eye, we don't feel fat, even if friends and coworkers are whispering about our steady weight gain. However, if we see ourselves as overweight, no amount of reassurance from those around us is going to make us feel less fat. Carried to the extreme, this mental picture of our body size can lead to the eating disorder anorexia nervosa in which painfully thin individuals continue to dangerously restrict their caloric intake because they consistently see themselves as too heavy.

We decide to go on a diet, therefore, in response to our internal self-image. Some of the benefits we envision that go along with being slim and fit do take others into account: I will be more attractive to the opposite sex; I'll be noticed at work when it's time for a promotion; my family and friends will be jealous and will have to re-evaluate me as a stronger person than they had thought. But the real payoff for getting in shape is what it does for us personally. It is the desire to feel great about ourselves that carries us through the pain and monotony of diet and exercise. It is the future vision of ourselves in our mind that spurs us toward our goal.

Losing that vision, or concluding that we won't feel that much better about ourselves, are the reasons we give up and fall back into the relative comfort of settling for just "okay."

*****

I'll continue with the rest of the article later. See you then!

Lifestyle Under Construction

2005-12-17T08:25:00.000-08:00

Good morning, everyone. Here's another article that was designed for the same magazine as the last post. I hope you like it!

Weight Loss: Tweaking Your Lifestyle

Despite our national propensity to overeat, under-exercise, and grow steadily heavier and more out of shape, we all yearn to be slender, fit, and attractive. Our culture rewards the thin and the beautiful; look at how we devour celebrity gossip, mesmerized by the looks and energy of our current favorites.

Why the discrepancy between our aspirations and our reality? There are a plethora of reasons, most of which can be traced to the simple fact that life gets in the way.

"I'd love to cut back on my food intake," we think, "But I have to attend all these work functions and have little control over the meals that are served." "I would really like to get in shape," we complain, "But there's no free time and I can't afford a personal trainer like the movie stars I see." "I really want to take care of my skin and my body," we wail, "But I'm so busy that a quick shower and a slap of moisturizer is all I can fit into my schedule."

It would be so wonderful to have loads of free time: to plan our days; to cook low calorie, healthy meals; to exercise without time constraints; to be able to pamper ourselves without the pressure of deadlines. Unfortunately, our lives are too hectic for that to happen in the foreseeable future. We can throw up our hands in frustration and join the legions of the overweight and the unfit, or we can work out a personal plan that fits within our lifestyle, taking us where we want to go, albeit not quite as quickly or completely as we would prefer.

Your life, your time, the demands and responsibilities you face, vary on an individual basis. You will need to calculate what works for you, and what cannot be realistically accommodated. Here are some ideas to consider:

1. Diet

Eating on the run, at your desk, or on the rubber chicken circuit, wreaks havoc with even the best-laid diet plans. If you weigh even a pound more than you'd like, try to identify where you are going astray.

If fast food on your way to an appointment is your downfall, look at what you order. Almost all drive-thrus these days offer salads. The problems with those salads can be minimized by throwing away the little bag of croutons (fried) and omitting the packaged dressings (loaded with fat). Carry your own individual container of low calorie dressing, opt for (unsweetened) ice tea, black coffee, or a diet soda, and avoid those sugar-laden colas like the plagues they are.

If you lunch at your desk, ask yourself what are you eating? If it's takeout, by all means have a cheeseburger or a sandwich. Just discard the bread or bun and eat with a plastic knife and fork, cut into raisin-sized pieces that will fill you up fast. French fries and onion rings? You just don't want to go there.

Is your office always filled with snacks and treats (as most of them seem to be these days)? When the snacks come by, go to the bathroom or, better yet, take a brisk walk around the building to beef up your "won't" power and clear the vision of goodies from your head.

If business lunches, dinners, or those awful meeting banquets are your obstacles, plan ahead. Lunch is relatively easy: salad (with your own dressing, of course) or fish and cottage cheese are available almost anywhere. For dinner, try two low calorie appetizers instead of an entrée. Best of all is something that you have to work at - crab legs, unpeeled shrimp, an artichoke (hold the hollandaise) - it will take a lot of time and no one will notice how little you are actually eating.

Banquets are particularly difficult because a plate is plunked in front of you, filled with food you would never order by choice. Cut whatever protein and vegetables there are into little pieces and chew slowly. Spread the rest out over your plate and play with it to delay the onset of a syrupy dessert. Get a cup of black coffee and place it squarely in front of you to thwart that eager-beaver waiter who keeps trying to slide a plate of pie onto your table.

Entertaining in the home creates a different set of problems because usually you know the hostess and want to avoid creating any bad feelings. Fall back on allergies as no one wants to see you break out in hives in the middle of their party. Carry a club soda or mineral water with you and no one will notice that you're not drinking.

Over a period of time, these little changes can have a significant impact on your weight. If you're hungry when you get home, make sure that you have some liquid protein or a health shake available to complete your daily nutritional needs.

2. Exercise.

With the best of intentions, millions of us purchase gym memberships. If we all actually used them on a regular basis, as we promise ourselves we will, there would be waiting lines spilling into the streets. Health clubs can keep signing up more and more members because they know that the number of regulars will stay about the same as the new enrollees will show up in a burst of initial enthusiasm but within a few short weeks will gradually fade away.

Unless you have a job with very regular hours, something few of us enjoy these days, it's difficult to commit to going somewhere on a regular basis. We mean to go but then an important meeting comes up, our significant other asks us to do something, or the kids pester us to drive them somewhere.

Our high demand lives almost force us to obtain our exercise at home. Television is replete with home equipment that promises to flatten our abs, define our pects, and re-sculpt our entire bodies. Despite their assurances that the equipment easily folds away, we know our apartments can never accommodate a Bowflex or a Nordic Track. Where do those buyers live? In the suburbs, we suspect, where the expensive equipment is soon relegated to the basement or the garage to gather dust until some future yard sale comes along. Equipment, except for minimal contraptions such as elastic bands and hand weights, are just too much trouble, and setting them up takes too much time.

Slipping exercise into your schedule is most easily handled (and therefore more likely to be regularly repeated) by pursuing activities that can be initiated without any preparation time, special clothes, or long periods free of interruption. The old standbys of pushups, situps, stretches with weights, yoga, and calisthenics have stood the test of time for a reason. They can be inserted into your crowded schedule at odd moments of the day and require no preparation except a short warm-up. Some of the newer programs: callanetics, pilates (some), killer exercises, and video workouts also fit these requirements.

When you unexpectedly find a secret half hour free, take a walk and, if you can, magnify its benefits with an occasional bout of sprinting.

Such a plan may not make you into a Mr. or Ms. Universe but it will keep you limber and semi-fit while avoiding that energy-devouring guilt you develop when you set your sights too high and then fail to follow through.

3. Taking care of yourself.

We have all read the accounts of Cleopatra bathing in asses' milk to bleach and smooth her skin. But she was a Queen, for heaven's sake! She didn't have to get up at the crack of dawn to fight the traffic into the office. She didn't have to take care of a husband, a house, or a child. You'd have the time to leisurely bathe if it weren't for cleaning the house, washing the clothes, finishing that report for the office, helping the kids with their homework, cooking dinner, and picking up Aunt Mildred at the airport.

We know we need to take care of ourselves. We want to perform the routines that will stave off the signs of age that wait just around the corner. We would love to take a long daily bath or shower, polish our skin to perfection with a loofah and scrubbing powders, envelop ourselves in skin softeners and lotions, and pamper our face and hair with special cleansers, masques, and skin brighteners.

Again, our lives get in the way. We work out a minimal routine of makeup remover, toner, and moisturizer. We shampoo our hair when we can and occasionally find the time for a special oil treatment or facial. It is hard to be fully motivated when the signs of age are brief and fleeting. When I have more time, we tell ourselves, I'll work on it. Twenty years later, the wrinkles have set in, the jowls have puffed out, and our skin carries the scars of sun, wind, and gravity. Then we bemoan our lack of care through the years and try to minimize the ravages of time already indelibly imprinted on our looks.

By all means, stick to your rapid daily routine. Sure, you could get up earlier in the morning and have time for more self-care but you're already, like most working-age Americans, sleep-deprived.

One solution is to identify one period a week when you can steal a couple of hours for yourself. Women, especially, shortchange themselves, too busy taking care of everyone else and ignoring themselves. Stake out your claim to that two hour window as if your life depended on it. Use it only for you. Use it to take deep treatments for your face or your hair. Use it to practice relaxation, listen to music, or walk in the rain. Use it to pamper every part of your body and spirit. Use it to think about yourself, and your goals, and your dreams. Use it to appreciate yourself and the good things life has brought you. Use it to lay plans for future self-development and use it to become your own best friend and confidant.

Our lives are so filled up with what we have to do that our wants and internal needs are often unmet. In even the busiest and most demanding schedule, there are moments we can carve out for ourselves, but only if we absolutely insist on it. Right now is the time to become assertive about your own self. You too deserve a brief moment in the sun.

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Dieting: The Harsh Reality

2005-12-11T09:10:00.000-08:00

I wrote some articles with a particular magazine in mind but apparently they aren't interested enough to respond to my query! Licking my wounded pride, I'm sharing them here. I hope you enjoy them - let me know, would you?

Here's the first one:

Life Is One Damn Diet After Another

A common expression is that we’re “going on a diet.” The phrase suggests that, like a vacation trip, there is a beginning and an end. We dream of the day we will reach our weight goal and how wonderful it will be when we don’t have to lead a life of painful deprivation.

In the back of our minds, there is a comforting little tape playing, promising us that when our weight loss campaign is over, we’ll be able to stop counting calories, carbohydrates, or fats. We long for the day when we no longer have to clench our teeth as we refuse a favorite dish that always causes us to salivate in our sleep. We reach for the carrot and celery sticks without anticipation or enthusiasm while torturing ourselves with visions of the special treats we’ll enjoy when the diet is over.

Uh, hello?

Allowing ourselves to think of a diet as a delineated, restricted period within our total life span is a sure avenue back to tent city (that refers to what we wear, not where we live). To have any hope of attaining permanent weight control, we must approach it as a lifelong effort, watching our intake day after day, week after week, year after year.

You feel your heart sinking in your chest. You think “If I have to live like this all the time, it’s just not worth it!” That little voice promises you that you are different. You can relax because now you know how to lose weight, you can do it anytime you want. Gain five pounds and you’ll go back on your diet and be back to goal in no time at all.

But you won’t! Think back over your chequered weight history. We all believe that once our weight is down, it will be so easy to go on a short diet if we gain back a few pounds. It doesn’t work that way, though, does it? We start gaining a pound here and a pound there, but then there are some special events coming up and a diet would be so inconvenient. We don’t go back “on” our diet until we’ve gained enough weight to develop the self-disgust that warrants a new period of serious deprivation. We have become a full-fledged member of the yo-yo club, that vast majority of dieters who cannot keep the weight off for more than a few weeks.

The reasons we go “on” and “off” diets are numerous: they are boring, depressing, and very uncomfortable. They set us apart from friends, family, and coworkers who continue to snack, to feast, and to celebrate. We resent how diets make us feel and how they impact our daily lives.

Let’s look at the whole picture from a different perspective for a minute.

Instead of “a diet” envision a way of eating that involves living on a diet for the rest of your life. While the prospect may appall you, don’t say you can’t do it just yet.

First, consider another wide-spread concept many of us accept. To lose substantial weight in a relatively short time, we need to select the diet that seems to fit us and then stay with it, religiously, until we’ve reached our goal.

Let’s now take these two concepts, squish them together, and then turn them upside down.

We are not “going on a diet.” We are starting our diet-for-life. We then pick a diet, any diet at all, and make the commitment to stick with that diet for one week, and one week only. At the end of the week, we are going to pick an entirely different diet to which again we only commit for a one week period. This continues for virtually the rest of our lives with selected diets changing on a weekly basis.

What does this accomplish? A whole bunch of things:

1.

By selecting a different diet each week, it removes those common misgivings that maybe we should have gone in a different direction. We worry that we’re not getting the right nutrients or that we’re going to get sick or develop a rare disease. We read the diet ratings and panic at the warnings posted for all the popular programs. With our new approach, you don’t have to fret about if you made a good or bad choice because you’ll be making a new choice in a week.

2.

If there are particularly painful “No-Nos” in this week’s diet, resolve to try something next week that allows a currently forbidden fruit. For example, a primarily protein regimen has been found successful for many participants who often lose five or ten pounds in a week. However, they miss the vegetables and salad they enjoy. The next week could then be a vegetables and salad only routine, also successful for rapid weight loss but a bit lean on the protein you body needs for self-repair.

You may then find yourself craving some good bread so you switch to the Subway diet for a week until your craving is satisfied. Move on to something completely different – the cabbage soup diet or liquid shakes. Since there are literally thousands of diets, a few are bound to include the food you crave.

You are never more than a week away from having what you feel you absolutely must have in order to keep going. You can include spartan fad diets that move fat quickly and you can include calorie counting or Weight Watcher diets that allow almost anything so long as you adjust your intake to stay within the totals specified.

3.

The frequent changes in your eating patterns keep your body off-balance. Give the body enough time and advance notice and it will adapt to anything, turning protein into carbohydrates and storing even low calorie carbohydrates as little pockets of fat. By totally changing what you eat on a regular basis, the body gives up trying to figure out how to thwart you and spends its time efficiently processing what you give it. You are effectively using your smart little mind to outmaneuver your smart not-so-little body.

4.

The constant changes force you to buy food in smaller packages. It’s pointless and wasteful to buy those family packs of anything. That will help you with overall portion reduction, a must for any serious dieter. Your shopping goal is only to purchase items that you can consume within a week. If you see something that you particularly want but is not on your allowed list, make a mental note to find a diet for next week that can accommodate it.

5.

The need for a new diet each week requires that you read and research a lot of diets. The reading acts as reinforcement for your goals and will assure your continuing education on nutrition and fitness. When you see something that intrigues you or just makes a lot of sense, try it out. Perhaps one week will involve barely restricted eating but require a lot of exercise. Go for it – it’s only a week.

6.

You are in the happy position of having wide choices available but also the needed structure of an organized plan to follow. The regimented eating is within each week’s diet; the power of choice is operative when you decide what the next week’s program will be.

7.

Can you stay on a diet permanently? Yes, you can, because you’re not restricting yourself from anything for life, just for a week at a time. Should you stay on a diet for the rest of your life? Yes, you probably should as long as you are getting a balance of foods from an intelligent mixing of alternative diet plans. If you like one diet more than another, or if one particular program works exceptionally well for you, by all means cycle that diet into your routine on a regular basis. Just make sure you don’t use the same plan more than once a month or your body is going to be ready for it and Zap! you find it no longer works so well.

8.

Can you over-diet? We have all seen (although they seem to be harder to find these days) overly thin, cadaverous dieters with sunken cheeks and loose skin. That can be avoided by making your selected diets very diverse so you are never without needed nutrients for very long. For example, many retirement homes and assisted living co-ops produce thin seniors with pallid skin and protruding abdomens. Replace their mushy, high starch meals with any of the myriad high protein and vegetable-fruit diets and their color will improve, their energy increase, and their tummies fade.

9.

Can you ever be too thin? Visit an eating disorder facility and you will see the results of anorexia nervosa, not a pretty sight and highly dangerous from a medical standpoint. If you have a history of overweight, you may tell yourself that being too thin will never be in the cards for you. However, there are not infrequent cases of the perennial heavy who becomes anorexic through dieting too much with resulting anxiety about gaining back even an ounce of the flesh so painfully discarded. If you have a distorted body image, and reliable friends are concerned about your being too thin, get professional help.

10.

It all comes down to using your brain intelligently. When you are at your heaviest, with the most to lose, the logical choice is a rather spartan program that will get the fat moving quickly. As you lose, more moderate programs can be interspersed so that your skin and cheeks have a chance to adjust and fill in as your weight stores become redistributed. If a particular part of your body is resistant to reduction, exercise may become a more important part of your plan than simply a dietary approach. Once you are hovering at your ideal weight, simple calorie counting or support group involvement may be all you need.

The secret is to be rational about it all and use that wonderful mind of yours to set the program for your not-so-intelligent body with its insatiable appetite and poundage conservation cravings. Don’t try to cheat unless you want to cheat yourself and then be honest and admit that, for whatever reason there is, you want to avoid further weight loss. When you want and need to lose fifty pounds, an ice cream and chocolate diet is not rational. When you are at ideal weight or below, a stringent fad diet makes no sense.

Will all this mixing of diets result in consistent weight loss? There is never consistency in weight loss because there are just too many factors involved: water retention, digestive inefficiencies, the amount of energy expended, and individual body quirks. Over time, you will lose steadily but there will always be some ups and downs along the way.

Once the concept of “going on a diet” has been discarded, a lifelong eating plan can be embraced, guaranteed to leave you in control of your weight for the rest of your long slender life.

P.S. If you think you're up to the harsh reality of real weight loss, try my free mini-course at: mailto:10dayminicourse@aweber.com or jump feet first into the diet wars with http://www.dietwithanattitude.com/index2.html

Creating Choices

2005-12-01T06:04:00.000-08:00

It's 11:30 AM. You've been up since 5 o'clock and the hunger meter is on high. "What to eat?" you think to yourself.

You pore over the menu for the deli downstairs but nothing you can allow yourself looks that good. Sure, you could go out for fast food but there's a meeting coming up and you don't really want to move your car and then have to find a new parking spot when you return.

So you decide not to go out. That leaves eating in.

You look at your choices, wishing you'd had the foresight to bring something from home. There's the vending machine in the break room, filled with plastic-wrapped, rubber-textured sandwiches, bagels, muffins and Danish. Ugh, you keep spinning the carousels, hoping that by some miracle, there will be a vegetable snack plate or something half-way decent. You narrow down your choices to a cup of noodle soup or a chicken breast sandwich.

Now you have another choice: eat something to take the edge off or power through the minutes of temptation until you are sitting in your meeting and eating is out of the question. After an hour of dreary, repetitive discussions, your hunger may have calmed down.

How you handle it each day, depends on your mood. Often, if we can get through that one tempting half hour, we're set for the afternoon and can easily wait for our well-planned light dinner. On other days, you know in your heart that if you don't eat something, you won't be able to concentrate on your work because all you can think about is food while you try to conceal the embarrassment of a gurgling stomach.

On those days, take the chicken sandwich, remove the bun, and microwave the miniscule piece of chicken provided. Then cut it into tiny pieces and eat slowly with a plastic knife and fork. If you can make the pea-sized pieces last for 15 or 20 minutes, you'll feel like you've actually eaten an entire meal and be on your way to a pleasant non-food-focused afternoon on a very limited caloric intake.

If you truly want to control your weight, you can do it anywhere. The key is never to eat until you've had a lengthy internal dialog with yourself that forces you into a full awareness of your food intake and then select the lesser of all evils and consume it as slowly as you can manage.

Even trapped in the office with nothing more than a killer vending machine, you can turn bleak choices into a self-esteem building triumph.

Weight: The Thanksgiving Hangover

2005-11-26T06:46:00.000-08:00

The feasting is over. The turkey has disappeared: roasted and hot, microwaved leftovers, then cold sandwiches and eventually croquettes or thrown into soup.

You climb on the scale with trepidation and breathe a long sigh of relief when the dreaded poundage fails to appear. Before you relax and think you got away with it, remember that your sneaky little body is playing its usual tricks. Two or three days of Spartan eating will make you feel virtuous again -until you step on the scale and find you've gained 5 pounds. "Fraud" you shriek. "I've been so good!"

Remember the holiday feast? It has finally caught up with you as you knew, deep down, that it would.

What to do?

We all need brief periods of self-indulgence - it's part of the human condition. Expect a setback on your weight loss goals and let that knowledge mitigate your disappointment. Then continue on your diet with the assurance that a special occasion blip doesn't define your future. Enjoy the memories of a family gathering while carefully planning your next week's intake.

Appreciate what you have accomplished so far and avoid loading yourself down with guilt and self-reproach.

Get back on your program as quickly as possible because (sorry to bring this up now)Christmas is coming and the goose is getting fat.

Eating Outside The Box.

2005-11-16T06:41:00.000-08:00

So often our daily menus are repetitive and predictable. We eat certain foods for breakfast: eggs, bacon, sausage, toast, cereal. Lunch is often fast food, cafeteria meals, or sandwiches. Dinner consists of either microwaved ethnic specialties or the more traditional protein entrée, some kind of potatoes, a helping of vegetables, possibly soup or salad, topped off with a sweet dessert. Even when we go out for dinner, the routine is similar although the choices may have more variety.

Try shaking up your standard routine to inject some novelty into your life and to totally confuse your body. Keeping your digestive system in a state of confusion may lessen its efficiency and prevent it from noticing that you're losing weight, thereby bypassing its usual goal of maintaining your fat stores at all costs.

Have eggs for dinner. Skip the dripping fats of bacon and sausage in favor of a vegetable omelet. If you enjoy chicken or seafood for dinner, try them in the early morning with fruit and cottage cheese. Lose the fast food and sandwiches at lunch and have a bowl of cereal with yogurt or a helping of appetizers. Totally break out of the mold by trading in the pizzas for rice bowls, the pasta for sushi, burgers for noodle soup, and French fries for a plain baked potato.

Eliminate desserts from every meal by topping off your repast with a totally different flavor that will not encourage your sweet tooth to take control. Try coleslaw as a crispy final course, a handful of sweet cherry tomatoes, a few ounces of nuts or sunflower seeds, or a crisp sour pickle and you'll find them strangely satisfying and pleasant.

Ice Cream In The Break Room At 3 PM.

2005-11-06T18:42:00.000-08:00

The e-mail comes out at noon. "To celebrate your hard work this week, there is cake and ice cream in the big kitchen at 3 today. Be there!"

The universal reward for hard work always seems to be food: cake and ice cream, a catered lunch for in-service training sessions, pizza for the overtime crew, bagels and cream cheese to brighten up a bleak Monday morning.

Food seems to be the perennial favorite for any kind of work reward because it is universally accepted. Some of us (we hard core dieters) may pass on the sweet stuff but usually find something allowable. In a world where two thirds of us are overweight or obese, is there nothing else available as a gift that cuts across our individual interests?

Recently, we had a whole week at my company devoted to employee appreciation. The primary rewards were, of course, food but other things were added: a company baseball cap, a hiking water container, a lunch bag, and a handwritten note of thanks to every employee from their supervisor. The cap was a bust for those of us with any modicum of fashion sense; the insulated flask and bag were food related, and the handwritten notes were superfluous - good supervisors show their appreciation of hard work constantly while a handwritten note from a harsh supervisor, no matter the "thanks" stated, means diddly squat to a resentful employee.

There HAS to be something else, doesn't there? We human beings have few things totally in common and eating is the primary universal. Other shared bodily activities such as urination and defecation are not easily translatable into some kind of reward system. We are all involved in physical activity, to some degree, but that is often more a chore than a delight.

When it comes to our other senses, we all differ so much that one person's pleasure is another person's pain: music, perfume, pictures, or massages are differential tastes rather than general givens.

Money is almost always acceptable but the small amounts that would be individually generated to replace a free dessert or snack would be so minimal that their reward value would be insignificant.

So what can those of us on a permanent diet, and alarmed about our coworkers' increased girth, suggest?

How about plants? Small individual pots or a larger department shrub would save our waistlines while adding to the health and esthetics of our environment. I calculate, just within my call center, that if a plant had been given to each department, instead of an edible goodie, for celebrations over the past 5 years, that I would now be working in a lush rain forest of exotic plants where the stale re-processed air conditioned air would be purer, more humid, and a thousand times fresher. Morale booster and health benefits in one fell swoop!

How about the gift of time? In our overly busy pressured lives, who would not be immensely grateful for a free hour here or there. Rotate it through each department, letting one or two people leave early on a Friday afternoon. That would means something and would carry no cost so upper management should be ecstatic.

Instead of a handwritten note, how about getting Supervisors to perform their subordinates' work duties for an hour or so, once in a while? Can you imagine the morale boost for an employee to get off the telephone, or the machine, or the computer, and shoot the breeze with friends for an hour while their duties are performed by their supervisors? And if mistakes are made - so much the better. It creates a sense of equality and inter-relationship between workers and supervisors that is generally lacking in a corporate environment.

How about free "Get out of jail" cards for every line worker? Each person gets one free card and additional cards can be given by supervisors for outstanding work, ensuring that the better workers have more cards. The cards can then be used as excuses for small transgressions - coming in a little late, leaving early, making minor mistakes. With the use of the card, a worker avoids verbal coaching, warnings, or being put on report. And let employees donate their cards to coworkers who need them - think of the teambuilding that would accomplish!

Flexibility of hours, assignments and days, is another area where workers will universally respond: not to money, or food, but to accommodation of individual needs. Give each employee a wish card and then allow them to use it to get something they need.

What does all of this accomplish? It allows for employee rewards without fats and carbohydrates. Now isn't that worthwhile?

P. S. I'm recommending this to my company. I'll let you know if they buy it!

The Diet Bore.

2005-10-30T07:08:00.000-08:00

You probably know a diet bore: there's at least one in every office, every group, and at every get-together. It's almost always female - men lose weight too but don't seem to feel the same compulsion to convert the entire world. Blame it on our innate female need to change everyone else.

The diet bore is the one who knows the caloric count of every morsel you eat, and makes sure you know it too. She can expound, at length, on the relative merits of sugar, salt, protein and carbohydrates. She actually knows the difference (and explains it ad nauseum) between mono and unsaturated fats, transfats, and essential fats. She knows what's good for you and what terrible things will happen if you actually eat what's on your plate.

She's the one who makes you cringe in a restaurant as she meticulously quizzes the poor waitress about how everything is prepared and cooked. She demands special substitutions and omissions and then complains that her meal is bland. She carries salt and sugar substitutes in her tote along with her trusty food value books and a calculator to loudly total the calories and carbs she (and you) has consumed.

She causes more of us to fall of our diets than Ronald McDonald and Colonel Sanders combined because she makes the whole concept of losing weight so damned boring that we don't want anything to do with it.

As we happily pig out on our spaghetti and meat balls (with garlic toast), we can take comfort in noting that the diet bore, despite the breadth of her knowledge and her too public weight control efforts, is always a little heavier than she should be.

Maybe she bores herself too?

Why Dieting Is Keeping America Fat.

2005-10-24T06:23:00.000-07:00

There are literally hundreds of diets available to suit everyone's taste: Atkins, Zone, South Beach, low carb, low fat, liquid mixes, vegetarian, and all protein. Millions of us are on these different diets. So why are we still fat?

The key is our relationship with food. There is just so much of it available: fast food outlets clog our streets, television commercials and 24 hour cooking channels whet our appetites, super chefs tempt us to labor long hours in the kitchen to create our own culinary masterpieces.

The different diets all have one enormous component in common -they continue this infatuation with food. What can I eat? How many carbs? How many calories? What is allowed? How can it be made to taste as good as possible?

Our behaviors continue, even the self-destructive kind, because we receive some pleasant reward known in psychology as reinforcement. We continue to overeat because of the emotional satisfaction of devouring good tasting food. We will never slim down until we find satisfaction in something other than food.

Young lovers forget to eat because they are consumed with other passions. Gamblers neglect meals because the psychological thrill is in their games. Alcoholics and drug addicts almost never eat because their primary relationship is with their drug of choice. Corporate ladder climbers and entrepreneurs are slim because they are emotionally invested in their careers and their businesses and nothing else matters.

To pare off fat, we have to focus on something other than food. Focus on some aspect of your life: your family, your community, your job, sports, social welfare, sex, school, hobbies, anything important to you, and you will start to regard food as something that has to be consumed to stay alive but also as something that interferes with your life, to be avoided except when absolutely necessary.

Psychologically distance yourself from food and one day the commercials, the endless burgers and fries, and watching people eating in public will seem totally alien as if a parallel world exists with which you have no connection. It is then that you will be on the way to controlling your weight.

For more diet ideas, go to:
http://www.DietWithAnAttitude.com/DietReportSignUp.html

Give Us Something To Shoot For!

2005-10-14T09:22:00.000-07:00

We have all seen the new Dove commercials that feature "real" women rather than the impossibly "ideal" models that are usually selected. While the Dove girls are universally attractive and fit, they also reflect different sizes and shapes, designed to represent the average American woman.

Is that what we want?

Glorifying our diversity seems like a positive development which should lead to increased self-content and improved self-esteem. Comparing ourselves to the imperfect bodies displayed is supposed to lessen our self-criticism and sense of inadequacy.

Does it?

We are a race of strivers, constantly seeking to better ourselves. Self-improvement is the biggest marketing niche of the Twenty-first Century, from books and classes to online information products, magazines, and television. The gurus of our day, from Oprah, to Martha Stewart, to Dr. Phil, to Donald Trump, all entice us towards improving ourselves, our looks, our relationships, our finances, our surroundings -- our whole life. We are dissatisfied with ourselves as we are because we have caught a glimpse of what we can become.

To keep us motivated in that direction, we need a vision of perfection to work towards, even if we know we'll never quite get there.

When it comes to weight control, what will keep us riveted on our goal? To look as gorgeous as the cover models on Cosmopolitan or the chunky figures in the Dove Ads?

We don't want to be patronized by the marketing mavens. We don't want a subtle reminder that we need to set our sights lower or aspire to something less than excellence. We want a dream that soars, that inspires us to unbelievable heights. We want a vision to move towards, no matter how unlikely it is that we will reach that destination.

So keep your condescending "Go ahead and settle for this" approach away, please.

Robert Browning suggested: "Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp, or what's a heaven for?"

I Can't Afford To Go On A Diet

2005-10-06T19:40:00.000-07:00

We are so eager to lose weight that we swallow the promises of every diet guru on the planet and eagerly plunk down our hard earned cash, praying that this time it will work.

What are the costs of the popular diets? The initial cost is to buy the "Bible" for the diet or join the program. Those initial fees range from $20 or $30 for a book to several hundred dollars for a personal program.

Then there's the food. Studies have shown that the average cost of a week's food purchases, per individual, is slightly above $50. To start the South Beach Diet, tack on an additional $25 per week. For the Zone and Weight Watchers Diets, add in about $40, for Atkins $50, for NutriSystems almost $60 and for Jenny Craig about $85.

Wait a minute, you say. I'm losing weight by cutting back on eating. Shouldn't that SAVE me money?

Looking at it logically, you would certainly think so. But we don't try to lose weight logically, we approach the whole process through our emotions. It is our emotions that lead us to buy things on impulse, to sign up for programs we know we'll never complete, and to join projects we'll never actively pursue.

Our emotional thinking is our weakness and it has nothing to do with intelligence or education or social level. We all get suckered into scams at some point in our lives and we all occasionally suffer from buyer's remorse -it's a part of the human experience.

The marketers and ad men know it well and spend their days devising tricks for which we all too often fall. How often have you eagerly dialed an 800 number during one of those brilliant infomercials only to receive something that doesn't work as it did on TV, is either shoddily made or just too complicated, and you stick it in the back of a cupboard where it gathers dust until you finally toss it?

When it comes to our weight, our emotions reign supreme. We so desperately want to be more attractive, more respected, more desirable. We will even subject ourselves to painful and sometimes dangerous surgery to bring our reality closer to our ideal. And we will rob our piggy banks, deplete our bank accounts, and run up our credit cards for anything that promises us a slender future.

Do we get what we pay for? Sometimes. There are a few successful disciples in every program. It is their pictures and stories that are prominently displayed in promotional literature. It is the old "before" and "after" trick that sucks us in. Our logic (and a tiny footnote) tells us that the featured results are not typical.

The wary left side of our brain wonders if a little airbrushing might have been employed. Then the right side explodes, filled with desire, well-meaning intentions, and an overwhelming urge to believe. And we fall for it again.

Notice that we never hear or see about the failures, the hundreds of thousands who start a diet with such high hopes yet live the rest of their lives overweight. All the diets have their failures but never bother to mention exactly what their percentages are. They may caution that their program must be followed exactly if it is to work, but let's be realistic: how many of us can follow an unswerving routine for the weeks, months, or years it is going to take to reach our ideal weight? We may be creatures of habit but life seldom fits into one unsquishable box for very long. We adapt the routine to meet our immediate needs and everything falls apart.

Sadder, wiser, guilt-ridden and self-critical, we vow to start again until, eventually, we give up. Is there a better way?

We can start by realizing that it really doesn't matter what diet we choose. The secret is to address our emotions, that infatuation with food that has, nationally, reached crisis proportions. We have to break off our affair with what we eat and restore food to its rightful place - something that keeps us alive and healthy, not our primary source of excitement and self-satisfaction.

It's Even Worse Than We Thought!

2005-10-04T06:38:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone -- I have been so busy pursuing other directions that I have been neglecting my blogs -- next week I'll be back on track.

In the meantime, here is a scary study on our chances of getting more and more overweight as we age.

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/9583615/

We have to take action now! Try this link and see if you like the new additions:

http://www.dietwithanattitude.com/index2.html