Dieting is like cutting weeds with nail clippers...you'll never get to the roots

By Michelle May, M.D.

Original content found at http://www.eatwhatyoulovelovewhatyoueat.com/2011/02/dieting-is-like-cutting-weeds-with-nail-clippersyoull-never-get-to-the-roots.html

Why can't I stick to a stupid diet?

• Why did I eat that candy? I wasn't even hungry.
  
• Why did I order the burger and fries? I was going to order a salad.
  
• Why did I eat that whole bucket of popcorn? The movie hasn't even started.
  
• Why did I eat so much? Now I feel miserable!
  
• Why did I hit my snooze alarm? I was going to get up early and go to the gym.
  

Sound familiar? These are the result of habits that keep you stuck in your eat-repent-repeat cycle. By definition, a habit is a recurrent, often unconscious pattern of behavior that is acquired through frequent repetition.

The problem with any habit is that it takes away your options. When you act out of habit, you continually recreate the past. No matter how motivated you are, new patterns cannot emerge from old, often unconscious, beliefs, thoughts, feelings, and behaviors.

You may already know that these are habits and you may have even tried various diets to try to break them. But that's a habit too! Dieting is like weeding your garden with nail clippers; it's a difficult, endless, futile chore that will never get to the root of the problem.

Until you know the real answer to why?, you're doomed to repeat those behaviors again and again (and again and again). Difficult. Endless. Futile.

The Missing Structure

What you're missing is the necessary structure for getting to the root of the problem. Once you know and understand the missing structure, you can make your ineffective beliefs, thoughts, feelings, and behaviors conscious. Once they are conscious, you are able to use specific processes to systematically replace them with effective beliefs, thoughts, feelings, and behaviors.

Without this structure, the whys? like those in the examples above are sources of recurring frustration. Try as you might, the solutions are out of reach. With structure however, the answers and solutions are clear and often quite simple.

For example, each of the questions above is addressed by the processes in each of the six stages of the Mindful Eating Cycle™ (in order):

• Why do I eat?
  
• When do I eat?
  
• What do I eat?
  
• How do I eat?
  
• How much do I eat?
  
• Where do I invest my energy?
  

The structure provides you with the flexibility and freedom for lasting change.