A multitude of diet plans promote a "eat a lot of food, lose weight" or something along those themes. Lately I've been wondering if that is one of the problems with the diet industry. We all know that the formula for losing weight MUST have a eat fewer calories/burn more energy aspect. That's simple biology, it's how it works. So most people, in an effort to not be deprived want a program or a diet that allows them to eat more food with fewer calories. This isn't necessarily a bad thing if the lower calorie foods are the highly dense nutrient packed type like spinach and other fruits and vegetables.

The problem with this is that it is catering to our need to be eating large and frequent meals. We want to eat because of the emotional satisfaction we get from eating.

My hypothesis is that we have to reduce our emotional need to eat large amounts of food. We have to eat smaller, delicious, rich, filling meals. We need to work on reducing our need to fill ourselves up with food to tamp down our emotional issues. We have to work on minimizing our compulsion to eat when we are bored, we have to eat smaller meals.

So large huge massive salads may be jam packed with nutrients however realistically they take more time to eat than many people have. If the program doesn't fit in your life you won't do it. Plus we don't want large amounts of salad, we want large amounts of the comfort foods, the junk foods, pasta, icecream and chocolate.

What if instead of finding the diet that allows us to eat the most while still losing weight, we focus on eating until we are satisfied, eating even the nutrient dense foods in moderation and picking up our activity level.

This is where we need to find tools to work on ourselves not on our diets. Let's face it, we all KNOW what we need to do. We need to work on setting ourselves up to do them.

I believe the the key lies in our subconscious and that the only way to have success retraining the subconscious so that it helps us on our path to optimal health and ideal weight.

My suggestions are hypnosis, affirmations(particularly as you fall asleep), energy work, meditation, stress management, adequate sleep, hormonal balance, and regular activity and exercise. A complete lifestyle change is in order that focuses less on food, less on diet, more on self fulfillment and balance.

Affirmation: I will focus on retraining the voices in my subconscious to accept that I am filled up by life and not by overeating.



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When searching for a particular diet what I'm finding is that almost all of the diets allow you to eat "as much as you want" of a certain food group. The Atkins Diet says as much meat as you can eat is OK, Eat To Live says "eat a BIG salad" but limit other things. It appears that we all want a diet that lets us eat a LOT of some food, big helpings to satisfy our need to over eat.

In spending time thinking about how diets work(or don't work) I've come to the conclusion it's because they do not help us deal with the thoughts that are in our mind that say we need to eat a large quantity of food to be happy and satisfied. There is no way around it. We need to eat less food. If we cannot get our mind around that idea and then do things to reprogram the messages of excess we've been given over the years, we will fail over and over again at having a healthy relationship to our food.

Upon reading the book French Women Don't Get Fat I've discovered that the general culture frowns upon over-eating. Servings are much smaller and often people leave much of it on their plate. I remember years ago going to a very nice "fine-dining" restaurant and having my then husband complain about the size of the servings. However, we both left that restaurant quite satisfied after several courses. A small salad, a small entree meal, cheese and dessert. Very small servings of absolutely delicious food! And of course a glass of wine. We were satisfied and happy. The food, the experience, all were very positive. And no all you can eat buffet! Who would have thought.

When I think back to that meal I understand, what we need to do is find absolutely the highest quality food, eat small amounts of it slowly and enjoy it immensely.

I believe if we go back to the time of the depression we can gain an understanding of what makes us as North Americans want more food than our body needs. We were raised by children of the depression with an understanding that we have to eat all we can now while it's here because the depression left many of our parents and grandparents fearful of starving again. I certainly see that with my mother in law who grew up in depression ravaged Saskatchewan. Encouraging the children to finish all their dinner or they'll get no dessert, to eat as much as possible is certainly how she was raised. She is very moderate in her own eating however and I notice how small her servings are. She often doesn't finish all the food on her plate yet somehow feels the children should. I wonder how much she realises what she's doing.

I've made an effort to make reasonable size portions and to stop when I'm full and satisfied. I've found it's easier for me to put smaller amounts on my plate to start with and go back for a bit more if I'm not quite full than to have the food on my plate. That's when I end up over-stuffed.

I'm also making an effort to moderate the language I use with my children. I talk about being satisfied, rather than full, I do not make dessert contingent upon an empty plate and it's not a reward for a job well done eating, but rather just a part of the meal. My daughter who has the larger appetite does not eat many vegetables but she eats a lot of fruit and I let it go. My daughter who has a small appetite eats vegetables but only picks at her meals. She loves her ice cream for dessert however really doesn't like other sweets such as candy. She will eat a chocolate chip cookie.

What I do notice with both of them is they will leave ice cream in the dish when they are full, the will leave half the cookie behind. They are self-regulating their portions and that makes me happy.

As part of my growth in this journey to understanding my goal is to stop the pattern of disordered eating I'm seeing in myself at me. I will teach my children differently and help them understand, their body knows what it needs, to listen to it and to eat a comfortable amount of food that doesn't stretch and distend but rather fills and satisfies. And that high quality foods make this easier to accomplish.

Affirmation: I now only put superior fresh, seasonal food into my body, in amounts that satisfy me physically.



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Is there such a thing? I believe that we can become, as human beings, addicted to anything. Whether it's psychological or physical or a combination, I'm unsure of the physiological aspects of it. I do know that I hear a lot of people say they have a sugar addiction so if they are identifying with that and it's true for them I will not argue that. The problem occurs when we use the "addiction" as a reason that we must continue on the same destructive path. People often beat addictions, I've known many recovering and sober alcholics and people also overcome drug addictions,even the worse ones like crack cocaine. Easy, no, possible, absolutely.

And on a personal level I do understand is that addiction can be overcome. I know I can overcome addiction because I have in the past. I've given up smoking. I've also in recent months found the motivation to quit artificial sweeteners which was difficult in lieu of my relationship with diet pop. But it's gone and I very much doubt that I will ever taste aspartame or splenda again.

For all of the things I have given up I've been able to find compelling overwhelming reasons, health reasons, to do so. In the past I have a lot of trouble reconciling that sugar has to be banished from life and I also have trouble reconciling that I will never get to have a cookie or cake or anything like that without experiencing extreme deprivation emotions. Is this addiction?

More recently, I am starting to encounter some compelling reasons to drastically reduce the amount of refined white sugar I'm consuming. A new book called "Skinny Bitch" has fascinating and compelling arguments for a very clean, very low-sugar diet and I have trouble not agreeing with everything written in the book about keeping sugar intake below 15g per day. Where my trouble begins is in actually doing it.

But I've decided that I do need to drastically reduce the amount of refined sugar I consume. One day at a time, starting today, I'm removing it from my diet completely. I no longer crave cigarettes because I gave them up, one day at a time, I no longer crave diet pop, because I gave it up in a similar fashion. Is it possible that I can give up refined sugar and eventually get to this same place without the feelings of deprivation I think I'll experience? I think the answer is yes.

I will never know until I try though. I will retain honey in my diet for now. Natural unrefined, raw honey in small amounts. I will also eat fruit, again, natural source sugar.

So one day at a time I'm going to remove the sugar. I'll keep you apprised of the journey. I'll be honest and straightforward. I'll rant and rave to you as I go through the withdrawal, but I hope you bear with me until I get to the point where it's no longer a battle but a way of life. And if you choose, I welcome you to join me in this journey.

Affirmation: I no longer need processed sugar in my life. My body deserves the best and most natural forms of food I can give it and the gift I give it today is optimum health through natural unrefined forms of sugar.


Namaste`

The very first step in a healthy diet is identifying what are healthy foods. Someone told me the other day that how she identifies them to her kids are by referring to them first as living or dead. Living foods are fruits, vegetables, beans, etc. Anything that is right now alive or able to be alive. She says that most of our diet should be living foods. She and her family eat salad twice a day with lunch and dinner.

Then there the dead foods. Which doesn't mean they are bad,just not alive. Everything else, that is not alive is in this category. Meat, eggs, milk fall into this category.

I think that there is a third category. This one I call processed foods. These are foods that you buy that are already prepared. These are not terrible foods and there are some processed foods that I happily eat(pasta is an example)and there are some that should be only eaten in limited quantities, highly processed to the point of being unrecognisable to its original form. I think Pringles, there's so little potato in those chips there is a debate as to whether they should be labelled potato chips at all.

And of course there is the 4th category. Foods we consume which are not food at all, serve little to no nutritional value and provide nothing but calories. Commonly called "junk" food, I prefer "fun" food. Soda pop, and candy fall into this category.

Of course the problem with weightloss is not that we don't know what to eat. It's that we choose not to eat it. However we want to categorise the food, the food is not the problem. The problem is the inability we have to stay away from it.

I'm a night time eater. So I think that's where I have to focus my energy. I am a night owl, I have tons of energy and ambition to work at night however with two little girls in bed I don't get to expend it there and that leads to the boredom that leads to the overeating.

I know this about myself and now the next goal is to work on ways to avoid the trap I fall into every evening.

This is a beginning. Just a beginning so bear with me as I figure out ways that work for me. I welcome you to share what works for you as well.