Eleven plus years of working to maintain my weight within my goal weight range has taught me that the only right road in Maintenance is the one I create for myself. 

I research dieting issues, listen to dieting advice from others, and do various short-term-diet-experiments, but ULTIMATELY,  What, When, and How, I eat involves a continual personal evaluation and balancing of my own Values.  

DietHobby is my digital Scrapbook. It advertises nothing, sells nothing, charges nothing, and accepts no donations.  It is my own personal website which exists to help me further my own personal Dieting Hobby, and it reflects my personal experience in weight-loss and maintenance.

One-size-doesn’t fit-all, and I address many different ways-of-eating whenever I find them interesting or applicable to me.

For me, Dreams and Goals need to be based on REALITY, which means they need to be based upon a sensible and practical idea of what can actually be achieved or expected.

I have a clear idea of my own personal weight goals, and have an image of how I want to look and feel at my Ideal Weight Goal.  I also have an intense desire to BE there - not only Reach that Goal, but Stay there Forever. 

However, what I’ve learned is that ...
Life involves Balance and Trade-offs which are based on what each of us “brings to the table” (genetically & otherwise), as well as what each of us values the most. 

There are many different definitions of what is individually “beautiful” and also of what is “healthy”, and ….for many people here on earth,….. a BMI number doesn’t define either beauty or health. 

Not only do people define Beauty & Health differently, there are many differences in how highly various Food and Eating issues are valued within each individual life. 

Advertising, the media, and the Diet Industry tells us that “thin” is the most beautiful and healthiest body type. Most people who reach a weight at the bottom of their BMI range would be considered “thin”, and some might even consider those people to be the “healthiest” that they could be, because of their low weight.  However, there are others who define “Beauty” and “Health” differently, and THOSE people would prefer and choose different weight-goals.

Here is a picture showing my own personal ideal Weight Maintenance Range.



As part of my own “dieting hobby” I’m always reading and learning about various diet plans, non-diet plans, ways-of-eating, and lifestyles. My many diet experiments have helped me to develop a deep understanding of my own personal preferences. I like some diets and diet “experts” better than others, but I continually work to remain open to new or different possibilities.

The DietHobby ARCHIVES contains many articles that talk about the specifics of my own eating and weight struggles.  Every year I become more and more convinced of the truth of the following statements made by the obesity specialist, Dr. Yoni Freedhoff, M.D.:

"at the end of the day if you don't like the life you're living while you're losing weight, you're virtually certain to gain it back."

Physiologically, Plateaus don’t exist.  Unless it’s a TEMPORARY trick of the scale, …....... if you’re not losing, either you’re burning fewer calories than you think; you’re eating more than you think; or some combination thereof. 

However, although there’s no Plateau, there IS such a thing as a “FLOOR”. 
If you’ve truly stopped losing weight, there are really only two questions you need to ask yourself.

1. Could I happily eat any less?
2. Could I happily exercise any more?

If the answer is "yes" then you can tighten things up, but If the answer to both is "no", there's nothing left for you to do. 

This is because if you can't happily eat any less and you can't happily exercise any more -- then it's unlikely that this will ever become part of your permanent behavior.

For me, maintaining a large weight-loss involves striking a balance between how I want my body to look and to feel at a specific size; AND how little food I am prepared to eat indefinitely. 


But what’s personally important isn’t a Constant. As Life Happens our Values tend to adjust to fit into our present Realities. 


The body is designed to wear out, and if we live long enough, we will die from old age. 

Here in my 73rd year of life, my thinking and my goals are more short term than they were in my 60s, 50s, 40s, 30s, 20s, or teens. 

I find that now I tend to value my physical comfort more than my physical appearance, and that I’m far less willing to spend time experimenting with ways-of-eating that I don’t find enjoyable.

At this time I still place a high value of keeping my body somewhere inside my “normal” BMI range, and I am still willing to eat very small amounts of food indefinitely to do so. 

However, …. if the only way I could maintain that body size was to eat only 5 bites of food twice a day for the rest of my life, would I be willing to do that??? ….If the only way I could maintain that body size was to entirely eliminate specific foods from my life … whether it be sweets, carbs - refined or otherwise, meat, or dairy products like cheese or butter?????? 

My own personal answer is:  No!!!  

Neither of those things would be an acceptable trade-off for me.  It’s a matter of values.  
In order to be able to moderately eat those foods, I would choose to accept being a larger size.

   
................How moderate?  
................How much larger? 



That’s where the individual balancing of values comes into play.

Note to those of you who are interested:  This week I’ve started a different diet experiment which involves eating approximately six tiny meals per day, while working keep my calorie intake at or below my energy burn.  I plan to post food pictures here at DietHobby under the title: “Tasters Choice” which is inside my Photo Gallery, under the Heading RESOURCES.
 

Running to Dinner

For more than 10 years, I’ve maintained a very large weight loss. It took effort to lose the weight, and it still takes effort to maintain that weight-loss.  For detailed info see “My Petite Meals”.

My weight went up over the Holiday season, so now I need to work hard to get it back inside my acceptable maintenance weight-loss range.

I frequently experiment with various “Diets”, “Lifestyles”, and “Ways-of-Eating” randomly depending on my current interests and mindset. I’ve previously experimented with the 5-Bite Diet. For early 2016 detailed info see “Intermittent Fasting via 5-Bites”.

Sometimes I choose to share about my personal diet experiments here at DietHobby, and sometimes I choose not to do so.  Whenever I do share personal information publicly, I limit it to what I feel comfortable with sharing at that time.

For my post-holiday 2016 season… early 2017…, I’m modifying that previous plan. Instead of 2 meals of 5 bites each, I’ll be having 3 meals of 3 bites each.  Instead of “2x5”, I’ll be calling it “3x3”.   I’ll be working to: 

• Eat any kind of food I want, ignoring exact calories.  Take only 3 normal or small size bites each meal.  “My hand goes to my mouth three times and I am done.”  One bite should equal about 1 swallow.  If any meal serving contains food in addition to that amount, throw it away or store it for future meals.

I am posting some photos of my future 3-bite meals here at DietHobby, see: RESOURCES, Photo Gallery.
My Photo Gallery also has a file showing some of my past 5-bite meals.

This 3x3 plan is very much how I ate during the year immediately following my gastric bypass 25 years ago, EXCEPT for the fact that at that time my tiny amounts eaten seldom included sweets or fatty foods because my recovering body couldn’t tolerate them. During that post-surgery year, even a bite or two of those foods made me feel “lie-down-ill” due to “dumping syndrome”. 

During the months immediately after WLS, because of “dumping syndrome”, most of the time my tiny meals consisted of about 3 to 5 bites of some combination of foods like: meat, chicken, fish, egg or cheese; raw or cooked easily digestible vegetables and fruits; bread, potato, rice, pasta with a tiny bit of dressing, butter, or sauce. Occasionally I would have a bite or two of: fried food; sauce or gravy; candy; cookie; pastry, but I tried not to do this unless I had an hour or so of free-time and was near a readily available bed because This was a high-risk gamble.

While my body rejected specific foods during the year immediately after my gastric bypass, my body now accepts those same specific foods.  Since those specific foods are higher calorie, my past 3 to 5 bites of eating resulted in a lower calorie intake than my recent years of 3 to 5 bites of eating. However, 3 to 5 bites is a very small amount of food, so this higher calorie count still results in very few calories.

Anyone who has read very many of the articles I’ve posted here on DietHobby will understand there are limitations on the ability to count calories accurately. For me personally, the benefits outweigh the limitations, and I find knowing the approximate number of calories in specific foods helpful.   For basic information on my perspective of dieting, see my articles: The Essence of Diets - Part One and The Essence of Diets - Part Two.

I firmly believe that … due to many different reasons … EVERY Diet works for SOMEONE, but NO Diet works for EVERYONE.

NOTE:  Bumped up into January 2017. First posted on 12/28/2016.

As part of my dieting hobby,
sometimes I take pictures of my “Petite Meals”
and post them in various online groups. 

You can see some of those photos here at DietHobby
at RESOURCES, Photo Gallery.

Here’s a Comment from a member of one of those groups,
and my Response to it.

  Forum member comment:

“Wow that is so incredible.  Perfect portion sizes.

Phyllis, one question.
The small meals you post show they are often only around 500 calories total!
And yet you say they are near your own maintenance calories?? 
That is so little.

When I think of the holocaust victims they had so little food
which is really not much less than what you are having.

I can't get my head around this with so little calories
why you wouldn’t be losing at least bare minimum one pound each week. 

I am intrigued by your life journey with your eating and weight loss pattern.”

  My Response:

“Right now, my ongoing maintenance calories appear to be a bit under an 800 calorie daily average, so eating the small portions that I've been showing here is not a great deal below my maintenance average.

I think the holocaust victim scenario is inapplicable, since the majority of the survivors started out as rather healthy-and-fit young-to middle-aged men and women who had bodies that were able to tolerate severe physical conditions. It is my understanding that very-few-if-any small, inactive, elderly ladies survived the holocaust, at least partially because they were considered useless and therefore killed in gas chambers near the beginning of their captivity.

I have attempted to explain my understanding of how this works for ME, PERSONALLY, in many of my past posts here, and I've written tons about this stuff over at my website, DietHobby, but I'll try again to explain it as clearly as I can.

The normal weight management perspective considers the CURRENCY of weight to be “calories”. 

Although exchange rates vary between individuals, as well as between different kinds of food, what remains consistent is that each of us will always need our own personal calorie deficit to lose, and our own personal calorie surplus to gain.

Although calorie counting will always be approximate, at this present time, the term “Calorie” is the only useful way we have to mentally define and describe energy use. 

My detailed past computer-food-journal-records indicate that for the past year, I have maintained my current weight while eating a bit under 800 calories per day. Therefore, it appears that my current maintenance calorie level is somewhere around that number.

Using the “standard-rule-of-thumb” theory …. which is that one pound of fat equals about 3,500 calories or less,…. it would then necessarily follow that eating around a 600 calorie daily average should create somewhere around a 200 calorie daily deficit, which should result in an average weekly weight loss of about ⅓ pound.

HOWEVER, it is important to understand that:

People are NOT walking math formulas, whereby if they have 3,500 more or less calories than they burn, they’ll gain or lose a pound; AND, Different people have different caloric efficiencies whereby they are seemingly able to extract more calories from food or reserves than others and lose weight with more difficulty (and gain with greater ease).

Here are a few facts to consider.  Typically… all other things being equal…, males lose weight faster than females; younger people lose faster than older people; larger people lose faster than smaller people; fatter people lose faster than thinner people; athletic people lose faster than sedentary people; people who have gained weight after maintaining a lifetime of “normal” weight lose faster than people who’ve been fat for a long time.  When people become lighter, their bodies require less fuel to function, and therefore after successfully dieting, they must continually eat less than they did to maintain their old weight. 

In addition to the facts mentioned above, different people of the same age and same size can naturally have different metabolic rates. The two main formulas that cite Metabolic rates, and list weights and calories together, are the Harris-Benedict formula and the Mifflin formula. 

These formulas are similar in that their numbers are based on AVERAGES… which means that there are many people ABOVE that number, and many people BELOW that number. The standard deviation of the Harris-Benedict formula is about 14%, and it is not uncommon for people to be 14% above or 14% below that Average number.  Also, the studies include  “Outliers” which are people who are situated away or detached from the main body and differ from all other members of a particular group.  An Outlier has a metabolic rate very much higher or very much lower than the rest of the Group.

It is important to understand that the calculators, charts, graphs and predictions we see online are based on the Averages used in the above-mentioned formulas, and although they are a good place to start, they may not apply exactly to you personally.  AND, even if they apply to YOU personally, it doesn’t mean that they will apply to EVERYONE personally.

FOR PERSPECTIVE: 
To bring my own personal calorie counts into proper perspective... note that the well-known and often-used  Mifflin formula gives an "AVERAGE" person of my age, size, and activity level, a Total Daily Energy Expenditure (TDEE) of 1150 calories, and a BMR of 985.

BMR is the basic metabolic rate number that occurs just because we are alive. TDEE is our BMR added together all of our extra activity. So, the number 985 would be like, in a coma, and the number 1150 would be the total of all our moving-around activity number added together with our in-a-coma number.

I've been keeping computer records of my calorie intake & weight every day now for about 12 years, and so I know that my own personal TDEE runs about 200 to 300 calories or so below the "AVERAGE”.

Women who are younger, taller, heavier, and more active often have very little understanding or knowledge of how LOW the average TDEE is for a short, light, inactive elderly woman... and of course, it is even less for a "reduced obese" one.

For those people who think my personal TDEE calculation is far too low.... HERE's a little personal lesson. Follow this link to an online calculator that uses Mifflin to determine both BMR & TDEE. 

http://www.calculator.net/calorie-calculator.html

If you are interested, use that calculator to run your own numbers. After you've done that .... change your own age to 71, and move your activity level to "Inactive"... Look at your numbers change.  Now, change your height to 5'0".... Quite a difference, right?...  Now give yourself ...as an elderly, short, inactive person... a BMI of around 22.5 (which is somewhere near the middle of a "normal"  BMI)  by setting your weight at 115 pounds.... Now, look at the resulting numbers.... they should be around 985 BMR, and 1150 TDEE.


24 yrs ago =271 lbs=BMI 52.9
12 yrs ago =190 lbs
10 yrs ago =115 lbs
Past 10 yrs =110-130 lbs maintenance

For more information about my personal dieting history,
read my DietHobby section:  ABOUT ME.

Note:  Originally posted June 24, 2016 - Bumped up for new viewers.

I recently received the comment:

Phyllis Collins, I've been following you and have been a fan of yours.
Have u tried the 24 or 36 hour fasts? Was wondering what your experience was?

I've done quite a lot of experiments with "modified" fasts --- like JUDDD & EOD, and with total water fasting as well. I’ve written quite a lot about this already. To easily find some of them here at DietHobby, …go to the right side of the page about half-way down.... for BLOG CATEGORIES, Fasting, ……where you can easily find past articles I've written about my thoughts and experiences with Intermittent Fasting.  

Once you’ve arrived at the “Fasting” category, the best way to find relevant articles is … go to the bottom of that page, below the 5 blog articles, where it says “Page 1 / Page 2 / …. Oldest", and CLICK the link to the Oldest.  Then work your way forward, from the past to the present.

Many of my previous blog articles discuss, in depth, my own experiences with various types of intermittent fasting.

The Donkey, the Stick,
and the Carrot,

an allegory applicable
to Intermittent Fasting.

"A farmer wants the donkey to take the load and travel. 


But, the donkey does not move.
He hits the donkey with a stick, but it still won’t move. 


So, he ties a carrot to the stick  and holds it in front of the donkey, just out of reach. 


The donkey wants to eat the carrot and moves forward. 


At the same time, the carrot also moves by the same distance.

The donkey cannot eat the carrot, till the farmer reaches his destination."

The Donkey is me, or another “intermittent faster”.

The Stick is Fasting = eating zero or very small amounts of food on “fasting” days or times.

The Carrot is the Promise of eating whatever you want on non-fasting days or times.

"Just get through today, and tomorrow you can eat whatever you want."

The promise of days or times of unlimited, unrestricted eating is a Carrot that lures one to an Intermittent Fasting diet, but unfortunately, …for many of us, …. that Carrot proves to be nothing more than an alluring, false promise.

The Truth is that on “tomorrow = the non-fasting days or times”,  you CANNOT eat what you want, in the amounts that you want…unless what you WANT is merely the same as what a naturally thin person consistently eats in order to maintain a normal weight.

Success with intermittent fasting requires the zero, or very-low-calorie, "fasting" days to be balanced together with days or times of eating at or near one’s maintenance calorie level … in other words, the restrictive days or times need to occur alongside the kind of “healthy” moderate diet that is followed by the naturally thin. 

However, If I WANTED only “normal” amounts of “healthy foods", obesity would never have become a problem for me.

The issue is calorie balance.  The calorie number of the fasting day or time gets added to the calorie number of the non-fasting day or time with that Total number being divided by 2. When this Averaged calorie amount creates an ongoing calorie deficit, weight-loss will result from the ongoing calorie deficit.  However, this ASSUMES that an unmonitored participant would NOT follow a “binge-fast” pattern.  For example, a fasting day or time  of 20% with a non-fasting day or time of 200% (instead of 110%) would be a “binge-fast” pattern, and a calorie Average that would result in weight-gain.

The most extensive scientific research on Intermittent Fasting to date was done by Dr. Krista Varady.  This research is frequently quoted by Dr. Jason Fung to support his own fasting viewpoints.    For a limited time, a limited number of people “moderately fasted” = i.e. ate 20% of their TDEE on one day, and ate “normally” which turned out to be 110% of their TDEE on the following day.  

Personally, I question Dr. Varady’s conclusion that the non-fasting day 110% calorie total was a “naturally occurring” limitation.  Since those people KNEW they were being temporarily watched as part of a diet research program, one could reasonably argue that … despite being told to eat “normally” on non-fasting days, they were highly motivated to “not overeat” on “normal” days during that limited time period … which resulted in a modification of the way they would probably choose to normally eat, long-term, when not being watched by scientists.

For larger, younger people – especially males -- whose daily calorie burn is between 2000 to 2500 calories, Intermittent Fasting can be relatively easy…IF… their normal way-of-eating is to  “normally” eat around that amount; and …IF…they don’t tend to be “binge-eaters”, which means that they usually only eat VERY-high-calorie on limited special occasions.


However, I am a small, elderly, inactive,"reduced obese", female whose “normal” daily calorie burn is a bit under 1000.  It is a continual struggle for me to keep my food intake within that “normal” range, and for me … the reward of getting 1000 to 1200 calories the following day doesn’t seem like much of a Reward after a day of eating only 250 to 500 calories. So, far, despite my best efforts, my results on the up days are often 1500+ calories … which tends to cancel out any weight-loss results of the 250 to 500 calorie “modified-fast” days, … while STILL being FAR LESS than the amounts I really want to eat after a day, or alternate days, of calorie deprivation.

Dr. Jason Fung, M.D. - who is the current medical guru on Fasting - recommends fasting as a fix for “insulin resistance” . However, I do not have any type of Diabetes, and my blood sugars are in the normal range. Although I am a small, “reduced obese”, inactive, elderly female with a very low metabolic rate, I don’t appear to be “insulin resistant”. 

Dr. Fung also says the nature of obesity is “multi-factorial”, and that “the key to understanding obesity is understanding that many different things can contribute to the development and the treatment …. Obesity is not a single problem. There is no single solution.”

There is no one perfect “diet” for everyone.  My problem is that I find Fasting to be … in and of itself…. "a form of suffering”, and I know that weight that is lost through suffering tends to comes back when I get tired of suffering.

I agree with Dr. Yoni Freedhoff, MD when he says:  "If you don't like the life you're living while you're losing, eventually you're going to find yourself going back to the life you were living before you lost. " Doing this will cause your body to re-gain the weight-loss.

Nevertheless, Fasting is an interesting issue. As part of my dieting hobby, I expect that I will continue to learn more about it, and find new ways to experiment with Intermittent Fasting concepts. 

NOTE:  Originally posted on 8/23/16, Reposted for New Viewers

                    
There is an Alternative to Dieting.

Essentially, It is:  Stop Dieting. Stop trying to lose weight.  Start understanding that dieting is NOT a solution in that it’s very unlikely to make you thin for longer than 2-5 years at the very most - and actually, it’s much more likely you’ll end up heavier than where you started.  .. and begin relying on your Internal Wisdom. 

There’s plenty of Marketing for this Alternative, and a hefty hourly fee… will get you help in the form of individual online contact, from one of a multitude of “dubiously licensed online counselors”  who charge about the same hourly rates as the professional Therapists and Psychologists who are licensed through State, Federal, or National medically-recognized agencies. 

Will this Alternative result in getting you Thin or to a “Normal” BMI weight?
Perhaps…. If your body is already in the “normal” or “overweight” range and has always been there. However, if your body has ever been well inside the “Obesity” BMI weight range for more than one or two years, it is Extremely unlikely.

For almost everyone, what happens is that a “successful” implementation of this alternative process will result in your body weight returning to, and settling at, its highest individual Set Point. For more information on that future probability read these articles: 
Set Point, and Running Down the Up Escalator.

Here's the Bottom line.

Below is an article in support of the Alternative to Dieting.

Why You Think About Food Day and Night & What to Do About It.
                      by Vania Phitidis of Peaceful Eating. co.uk

"Do you think about food first thing in the morning and last thing at night (and about a million times in between)?

Do you wake up worrying if you’ll be able to control your intake,  go to bed at night evaluating your day and judging yourself based on how you managed your eating – and then making promises about how you’ll eat tomorrow?

Do you perpetually feel guilty for eating?

Why??????? 

The one reason you’re crazy around food is because you want your body to look different than it does.

That’s it. Simple.

And… you have bought into these beliefs:

•  controlling how much or what you eat – or both of these – will give you the body you desire, make you a better person, or likely both.
  
  
•  your size defines your acceptability, your health, or both
  
  
•  you can control your biology and influence your genetic make-up.
  

Almost every woman I’ve worked with has realized that if she’d never gone on her first diet (to try to change her body size) she would never have developed a dysfunctional relationship with food. Ever thought to yourself you wish you were the size you were before you started dieting?

 Why you want to change your body in the first place.

The primary reason you want to change your body is because you fear not being accepted.

Acceptance/ belonging is a primary driver for human behavior. Without acceptance, we are outcasts. Alone. Unable to find a mate to procreate, or a community to help us when we need it; to provide comfort, solace, connection and play.

Bottom line: we are social creatures and we need acceptance to survive.

Everyone I’ve ever worked with received this message at some point in her life. It appeared in different voices and with variations in language (verbal and non-verbal):

If you’re fat/big, you’re unacceptable (which translates into unlovable).

In westernized culture – and indeed increasingly in others, there is a rare body shape that is particularly coveted. A small percentage of people naturally have this body shape – which is slender, slim hipped (though the latest requirement is with some curves, but only in the ‘right’ places) and long limbed. It’s rare because these people don’t have ‘thrifty genes’ which store fat easily. In past millennia, few of them would have survived.

People want what’s rare. We desire what is scarce. Marketing strategies feed on this! If you can achieve, accomplish or acquire what is scarce, your status increases and hence your acceptability. Think of Ferraris.

Insert this into the very real, growing culture of weight stigma and its associated interwoven social issues: Fatphobia, Thin Privilege and Diet Culture.

And let’s not forget the role of our economic system: capitalism works on selling stuff! The way to sell stuff that doesn’t meet our basic requirements, is to create a perceived need by preying on our basic human need for acceptance and belonging. The global market for weight loss was estimated to reach $586.3 billion in 2014!

Doesn’t the dieting industry employ a brilliant business model? Look at all the repeat customers who think they are the failures (because they can’t get or stay thin), rather than the product! Imagine buying any other product, say a kettle that didn’t work… would you keep going back to buy it again and again?

  It comes to this.

Because you have wanted to change your shape to gain a greater sense of belonging, you’ve engaged in trying to manipulate your weight. And you’ve done that through restricting.

The trouble is that if your body is put through unsubtle and sustained caloric deficit, you will crave food. The longer this goes on, the more your brain will fixate on food and eating – which makes complete sense – because if our brains didn’t do this, our species wouldn’t survive.

The truth is – you can’t control your biology.

Any ‘successful’ attempt at weight loss has undoubtedly failed eventually, or you wouldn’t be here reading this. Our survival instinct is very strong – and our bodies work incredibly hard to maintain homeostasis – also known as your set point. Our bodies have a range they like to stay within – based on our genetic make up (though influenced by our history of dieting). Dieting slows your metabolism, making your body become more efficient at storing anything you ingest. It also raises cortisol (stress) levels which slows digestion, and signals the body to store fat.

But it’s not only the physical deprivation that creates this fixation.

It’s also the perceived deprivation which is created by the thoughts you have about food and eating that may not have anything at all to do with what you’re actually consuming.

Any judgments you have about food and eating, any demands you make about how you ‘should’ or ‘shouldn’t’ be eating, and any guilt or shame you feel associated with your eating or your body, will create a deprivation mindset – even if you’re not physically restricting those foods!

If you’re familiar with the story of Adam and Eve, you’ll know about the ‘forbidden fruit.’ Eve was not going hungry: she wasn’t physically deprived of food, but couldn’t resist the apple simply because it was forbidden. She fell from grace – and took Adam along with her.



The way out of this madness.

It’s simple, though that doesn’t mean it’s easy.

Stop trying to change your body. Leave. It. Alone.

The truth is that trying to manipulate your weight has failed in the past and will fail in the future. This is true for 95% of people who do it. If you were boarding an airplane and were told there was a 95% chance it would crash, would you embark? One of the most consistent predictors for weight gain is ever having dieted!

Stop physically restricting calories or types of food.

If you keep doing this, you will stay fixated on food, and you will have urges to binge.

Drop all judgments about food.

That means nothing is good or bad (including you).

Drop all rules about food.

Give yourself permission to eat any food, without guilt, preferably when you’re hungry.

Drop all your judgments about bodies.

This means all bodies are good bodies, whatever their shape and size. All bodies are valuable and worthy and deserving of respect and care.

Disengage from diet talk and extreme fitness & exercise regimes.

Stop following the diet gurus! Throw out your scale and every dieting book or magazine you own. Move your body in ways that make you feel good. Disengage from diet talk at the office, with your friends and in your home.

Remove the words ‘should’ and ‘have to’ from the way you speak about your eating or exercise (and anything else!).

So you want to lose weight for health reasons?

Unfortunately there is a lot of myth in the public realm about the connection between health and weight.

I saw a funny though sad cartoon the other day of a big-bodied man at the doctor’s with a stake through his chest. The man shouts ‘Doctor! I’ve been impaled!’ The doctor looks non-nonchalantly over at him and says ‘Well, maybe you’ll feel better if you lose some weight.’

There is undoubtedly weight stigma within the medical profession – and that’s truly awful for people in large bodies.

That said – here’s what I know:

•  Not everyone who is so-called ‘overweight’ is unhealthy.
  
  
•  Not everyone who is of so-called ‘normal weight’ is healthy.
  
  
•  Weight loss will not improve every health condition, and it’s certainly not the cause of all health problems!
  
  
•  Attempting to lose weight through dieting for any reason – health or not – is likely to fail!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The reasons for wanting to lose weight do not change the fact that dieting increases your chances of gaining weight!
  
  
•  You can improve most health markers without dieting or losing weight – by moving your body in ways that feel good; and by eating according to your hunger, fullness and what makes your body feel energized and balanced – as well as for pleasure.
  

If you have health problems and you’ve been told you should lose weight to solve them, please educate yourself about weight and health.

  But will I lose weight?

I have no idea. You might, and you might not. It depends on your genetic make up, how long you’ve been dieting, how committed you are to not restricting – and a bunch of unknowns about bio-chemistry and the mind-body connection.  I know people who have. I know people who have not.

But what I can promise you is you’ll feel free and relaxed around food, your sanity will be restored and your quality of life improved – not just around food! You will stop waiting for a number to be reached before you start to live your life and do the things you want to do.

Plus – you will become an advocate for the solution, instead of contributing to truly terrifying statistics – like the fact that 81% of American 10 year olds fear becoming fat, and 71% of 7 year olds are dieting. You will become an advocate for people of all shapes and sizes to be treated with equal respect.

Each time you engage in trying to alter your body, and judging any body (as good or bad), you’re contributing to these growing social problems. I’m not saying this to guilt trip you. I’m saying it because it’s true. Otherwise it’s like saying ‘I stand for the abolition of slavery!!!! But I want to keep mine…’

Although it’s simple – it isn’t easy. Accepting ourselves, and belonging to ourselves first and foremost is not easy to do in a culture that is obsessed with the thin ideal, in an economy that cynically undermines our unquestionable enoughness for profit. It’s hard to do when every which way you turn there’s a new diet, a friend who’s lost weight (and getting approval from others because of it), advertising that bombards us with messages that our health and happiness are tied to a number on the scale, or a doctor telling you everything will be better if you drop a few pounds.

It’s impossible to do without knowledge, a radical paradigm shift, support and community. Even with these you’re swimming against the stream."

The article above is an Excellent depiction of support for the Alternative-to-Dieting choice.

                       
Whether our Choice is Dieting or the Alternative-to-Dieting, everyone wants our money. Not only do numerous Marketing interests .... (which includes the medical profession) .... want to sell us "Help" to get our bodies Thin, they want to sell us  "Help"  to emotionally adjust to staying Fat.

The author of the article above, Vania Phitidas, is one of the multitude of online “Life Counselors” specializing in “Intuitive Eating”, and “Body Acceptance”.  She Blogs at "Peaceful Eating".

She appears to be a normal-weight female in her mid 40s, a former bulimic, with no personal history of obesity.

Like most of the current "online life counselors", she has no actual credentials or licensing except for the fact that she is registered somewhere as an “Intuitive Eating Counselor”, a “Mindfulness-Based Eating Awareness Training teacher”, and “Self-Esteem teacher”, who is involved in a “More to Life” program.

A resident of the United Kingdom, she appears to be college educated with an undergraduate degree in Psychology and a Masters in Education for Sustainability.  Apparently she charges about $120 per session, which appears to be the usual rate for the majority of similar "life counselors".

Each of has has the freedom to choose any form of  "HARD" that seems personally right for us as individuals, and I see ALL of the choices available as equally valid ones. 

My own personal choice has been to choose to Embrace Dieting and make it into a Hobby that is enjoyable much of the time. However, part of that very Dieting Hobby is to become aware and to consider Alternatives to Dieting.   It is not a one-size-fits-all world, and what is the right choice for ME, may be the wrong choice for YOU.  Also, what is the right choice for TODAY, may not be the right choice for TOMORROW.  Those who want to know more about me, and my dieting and weight history can read the article ABOUT ME here at DietHobby.