Weightloss and diet - Food & Feelings

How much you eat, and what kind of food will, in the long run, be
determined by your habits, and your feelings/attitudes, about eating.

It's quite possible to lose some pounds through a carefully crafted
program, but what about afterward? Are you going to follow this
carefully crafted program for the rest of your life?

Almost certainly, no.

Long term success will depend on adopting a good attitude, (and may I
say, a more correct attitude), toward eating.

Eating (and especially over eating), should not be used to:
* make your family happy
* be polite
* somehow tell the time (it's time for dinner!, etc).
* ease a broken heart
etcetera.

If you've just eaten, anyone should understand that it's not their
place to try and force you to eat again. For the sake of conversation,
you can always join the eaters at the table, and just enjoy a coffee /
tea / glass of wine.

If you waffle on this, you can expect (rather cruelly), that your
friends and family will expect you to "cave" in on this matter, every
single time in the future. "Of course he says no, but set a plate for
him - he'll eat". Amazingly, they will be quite angry if you then
don't cave in and eat with them, as they expect.

So be polite, but *be firm*. This is the one area where friends become
"friendly enemies", quite regularly. If they want your company,
they'll be fine with you just having a beverage. If all they want is
to insist that you flush your diet down the toilet so they can watch,
you may have to leave their home.

I don't know why anyone would act like that, but I've seen it many
times. Obsessive and disturbing is the only way I can describe it.

For a great example on video, watch "Exodus". Paul Newman is with his
new American girlfriend, and visits his mother. She goes "eat this
crazy" on the girlfriend (Eva St. Marie). Unbelievable, but all too
common.

Try hard to get your feelings out of your food you eat. Cleaning your
plate will NOT save the "starving children in China/North Korea/Sudan
(or anywhere else)", eating two dinners will not solidify your
family's love or bonding with your friends. It's what in your heart
and eyes, and helping hands, not what you succeed in shoveling down
your throat until you look like the Michelin Tire Man, that counts.

As your diet succeeds, you can be sure some few people will notice it,
and want to sabotage it, promptly. They may be the nicest people
overall, but you will see it. Some are jealous you succeeded where
perhaps they have not, or just don't like the idea of you looking
better than they do.

Whatever the reason, you WILL see this, aimed squarely at ruining your
diet. My advice is to keep your diet details (what you eat, how you
exercise, how much weight you've lost, etc.), to yourself. One tactic
they use is to severely criticize all your choices or results for the
diet. The more they know, the more they have to criticize your diet,
and you.

Yes, they know it hurts you, and no, they don't give a damn, thank you
very much. To a dieting question I like the "I decided to just go do
it" (the Nike Shoes theme). If they want more, tell them to read a
book on it.

If you haven't seen this yet, and you're diet goal is a lot of weight,
you certainly will, and it's quite the surprise. I thought they would
be glad for the info, and shared a great deal with a few "saboteurs".

Wow! What a rude shock I received from them! I SHOULD:

*eat only wild (never farm) salmon for dinner, as my meat
*become a vegetarian
*join a gym
*get Human Growth Hormone shots
*be losing weight much faster
*sleep less
*sleep more
*use the Atkins/South Beach/Neanderthal/Raw foods/etc. plan - any
other plan was junk.
*take this/that supplement

and so on. It was amazing how many acquaintances thought at least one
thing in my diet was "wrong", and had no shyness in proclaiming such.

I lost my 91 lbs., and they somehow managed to (mostly), GAIN a few
more lbs. of fat. Excellent job of shutting up the nay-sayer's. The
saboteur's also gave up in despair, eventually.

There isn't any one way to lose weight, but no matter what plan you
use, one important thing in any plan is to stop the unnecessary eating
in your life. If you count on food to ease your mind, make others feel
good about you, etc., you'll have almost no chance of keeping weight
off, imo.