Sometimes the things we want are mutually-exclusive.
Here is a common statement made by dieters:

“I am excited about dropping my extra fat,
and I want to stop dieting and obsessing over every bite.
I think about food and weight loss all the time.
I want to just be free of that and eat normally.”

The….draw….of many diets is the desire for two distinctly separate things,

* to lose and maintain weight.
* to be able to eat “normally” without having to think about it.

 These are two separate goals,
and for almost every obese or reduced obese person,
these goals are Mutually-Exclusive.
Meaning that if you have the one, you can’t have the other.
You can’t have them both at the same time.

These conflicting desires are exploited by modern marketing
which promises us that we can have both of these things together,
but it’s a false promise,
an insidious lie that raises unreasonable expectations
and tends to doom us to failure.

Many people spend their lives
trying to force that square peg into a round hole,
refusing to ACCEPT that universal truth.

In our current modern society, difficult day-to-day food choices
which require thought and self-discipline,
will always be an ongoing part of one’s way-of-life
in order for an obese person to become normal weight,
and for a reduced obese person to remain normal weight.
 We will never be able to automatically eat like a "normal" person.

While we can develop positive habits that will help us in that task.
Developing habits takes a great deal of effort,
and although, after these habits are established, 
certain habits might help reduce a few of our conscious food choices,
it won't resolve the problem.
Specific eating Habits might make some eating choices easier,
but it won't eliminate the continual thinking and choosing process.

That dieting Truth doesn’t have to be a negative.
Make it a positive. 
 Dieting can become an enjoyable Hobby.

For those interested in following my Diet Recipe videos,
I recently posted a new one: "Crispy White Pizza",
which is located here at DietHobby under Recipes, Mini-Meals.

I will be off-line during this Holiday weekend.

Those of you who would like immediate inspiration
can find it here in the Archives, which holds
seven months of daily posts.

Or you could take this time
to review the rest of this site.

For those who are following my “Ask Grandma” videos
click to see my latest one: “Kpop Music? Still like that old time Rock 'n Roll”
which is located in DietHobby under RESOURCES, Videos, Ask Grandma.

Avoidance of regaining lost weightis the primary goal of weight-maintenance.

Recently on a forum I frequently visit I read a post by a person who is working to maintain her weight-loss.  She had gained 5 lbs over time, and said:

“I can’t believe I let myself slip”

  I considered that statement and compared it with my own experience.
Over the past three years, my body has added about 5 - 7 lbs to its stabilized weight.

All the while, I’ve been working hard to keep that from happening, and I’m still working to lose that regain and to avoid gaining more.

In my own case, I wouldn’t call it “slipping”.  I didn’t “slip”.  It’s more like my body was being pulled along a surface by an unknown force,
while I was desperately working to cling, grasp, clutch, and hold on to any surface that would stabilize me and keep me from moving.

This process is still going on. Every day I work to keep my body at its “normal” weight, here in my maintenance weight range near the 115 lb area,even though my body thinks “normal” is over 200 lbs, and seems to inch my weight higher despite all my best efforts to keep this from happening.

Based on my past experience, I am well aware that if I chose to stop continually and consistently working to maintain my current weight, it wouldn’t be like missing my step
and falling off a curb to land on a nearby surface.
It would be more like jumping out of a plane without a parachute, my body rapidly hurling a long distance toward my potential destruction.

I’ve now been maintaining near my goal weight for 5 years and 7 months, and it takes more work to do it now than it did the first two years. It’s not surprising to me that less than 5% maintain their weight-loss, what surprises me is that the percentages are that high.

Some might think that this article is negative thinking,but I believe that   Acceptance of Reality is a positive and helpful thing. I am grateful that I was able to reach my weight goal,and I am grateful for every day that my body stays near it.

The Reduced Obese are constantly being lied to by the media, and marketing interests...including the medical profession, which serves to instill false expectations.

Weight loss is not easy, and long-term Maintenance is even harder.
It is a mistake to believe that maintaining a weight loss is easy, and that someday in our lifetime we can do it without a struggle.

   We need to get over it.  It ain’t happening.

With regard to weight management,
simplicity is a virtue.

Research exists indicating that
those who are successful at weight-loss
tend to focus on fewer rules than those
who fail in their weight-loss efforts.

It wouldn’t matter how simple or complicated the rules were,
if there were truly only one right way to eat for weight-management.
You would just have to do it.

But in fact, there are many different kinds of healthy diets.
Vegetarian, Mediterranean, low-calorie, low-fat,
“primitive”, low-carb, and various other diets
have been validated by scientific research.

However, it’s not only the food that matters.
How we perceive the dietary rules we live by
is also important.

So, we need to just choose one and start.
It doesn’t even have to be an official “diet”.
Some of the most successful dieters…meaning those who
have maintained a weight loss of at least 30 pounds for at least one year…
don’t follow a formal diet plan.

Instead they establish a handful of their own rules,
and work to follow them consistently.

Weight management is difficult for most of us, no matter what.
It requires resisting some “fattening” foods we like,
while also resisting the urge to overeat “healthy” foods.
Nothing can be done about these requirements.

However, it isn’t necessary to make weight management any more difficult
than it has to be, by forcing oneself into a complicated diet.
We can choose to keep it simple.

My latest recipe video, Chinese Chicken Salad,
is located here at DietHobby in RECIPES, Mealtime.

                             
Recently I discovered the Paleo writings of J Stantion,
and am in the process of reading some of his articles. 

His position on snack foods is interesting, and very on point.

He says:

The Magic Of Snacks: Taste Without Nutrition

"Just as a movie set’s only constraint is to look good
for a few seconds from a limited set of camera angles,
a snack food’s only constraint is to taste good
until it slides down your throat.

And that’s what technology allows us to do:
create products (“snacks”) that tickle our taste receptors
far more than real food can ever hope to—but
that don’t come with the nutrition that selected us
to crave those tastes in the first place.

This is the reason that the concept “eat whole foods,
minimally processed” is generally sound:

if whole foods taste good to us,
it’s most likely because they contain nutrients we need,
not because they’ve been engineered to tickle our taste buds.

(Note that all modern fruits are heavily engineered products
of thousands of years of careful breeding: read Dan Koeppel’s
fascinating book “Banana” for a look at one typical example.)"

This seems to hit the nail on the head.