Thin Mentality Eating

People frequently ask me how I can eat a hamburger or fries, or creamy clam chowder, or cake or whatever and still be slim.   I try to explain it in a sentence, but I never can.

It takes a long time to explain to hardened dieters that they have been doing it all wrong.  That is why I began this website and blog.

I once was a hardened dieter.

I knew the calorie count in every food I ate.  I could diet with the best of them.  But I was never where I wanted to be.  I was either heavy and miserable, dieting and miserable, or newly  temporarily “thin,” knowing I was going to lose control and gain all my weight back.

I also managed a Nutrisystem when I was in graduate school.  And I was an aerobics instructor for 15 years  and a spinning instructor for 2 years.

Believe me, I know the psychology of dieting and exercising.  I know the misery.  I know the failure, the frustration, the way dieting sucks your energy away from other important parts of your life, and how dieting  makes you want to skip social events and hide.

But I also know that if you can kick the diet habit, you can make peace with food.  You can make peace with yourself.  And your body can be thin, healthy and strong.

I have achieved this.  And I am rare.  I do not say this in an arrogant way.  I say this because it is true.  And I so want you to enjoy the same success.  It is wonderful.

It takes a different kind of strength than the strength that dieting requires.

You need to be strong enough to handle comments from your relatives like, “You’re gonna eat that?”  And you need to be strong enough to ignore the thousands of dieting messages you get every week from TV, the web, and your friends.

You also have to be capable of delayed gratification.   By that, I mean you have to take a long range view of your life.  This is definitely harder for younger people.  But I hope you can see that on and off dieting for the rest of your life is miserable.  And I am offering you an alternative that will set you free.

Start reading the section on my website called “Diets Are Fattening,” if you want more discussion now.  And check back tomorrow for more here.