Yesterday I wrote about dieting and the resistance to dieting.  Think about it. How many times have you decided to go on a diet on Monday? But when Monday comes, you have an excuse not to start.  How many times have you started a new diet and by Thursday you are off the diet because of, oh let’s say, and office party?

What is at play here? You make a decision or choice to change a habit (albeit well established habit) and at a minor circumstance, you give up in frustration. It is the “I can’t, because __________.”

Your doctor can give you all the reasons to attain and maintain a healthy weight. You doctor can give you a list of benefits that you will experience if you live at your healthy weight. These are all in books and groups like Weight Watchers and Prevention, etc. You can write these down. You may be able to recite from memory all of this stuff.

What holds you back? What snags you as you are beginning?

Habit. Very simply, habit. Food and eating are primal. What I mean by that is food is at the base of our ability to survive. Our early food habits are so ingrained.

When I was grown up, our meals were mostly casseroles. Our dinner plate would consist of casserole, potato and vegetable. There was always bread and oleo. It was cheap. We had 10 people in the house and all those starches filled the meal.

I decided to become a vegetarian at about age 18.  I studied about food and nutrition and what it took to be a vegetarian. I noticed that after 20 years of not eating meat, I still thought that my dinner plate should have meat/casserole, potato and vegetable.

Write down how you used to eat at a kid. Do breakfast, lunch and dinner as well as snacks. Also writed down how you have currently been eating. Where is it different. It isn’t so hard to add things to a diet. However it can be very difficult to take food away.

Do a little journaling and soul searching.

Blessings, Mary Pat

Mary Pat FitzGibbons RN MS writes on weight and health issues concerning Baby Boomer Women.