Diets Don’t Work

I thought I’d start this “re-launch” with a few posts about major influences.

The idea that restrictive, low-calorie diets are not particularly effective for long-term results is pretty mainstream thinking now (in spite of the the new crop of diet books that sprout every January as predictably as the daffodils in March).

Back in late 1984, however, when I participated in my first Diets Don’t Work workshop, it was pretty revolutionary.  Imagine my surprise years later when I found that these ideas were originally published around the turn of the century by Wallace Wattles!

Here are the practices in a nutshell:

1. Eat only when you’re hungry.
2. Eat exactly what you want.
3. Eat and enjoy each bite consciously.
4. Stop eating when you’re no longer hungry.

Simple enough, and the DDW approach is about so much more than just a different set of rules.  Because it’s totally possible to follow the practices with the same old diet mentality and experience the same diet burnout.

The beauty is in using the practices to learn more about your relationship with food, to examine those stories and to learn to become someone for whom this is the natural way of  being with food.

Try one on: Which practice sounds easiest?  Which one sounds hardest?  As you pay attention to the practice today, what do you notice about the thoughts/beliefs you have about food?