How to Diet Successfully

There are endless diets to chose from and endless pieces of advice that you can get from everyone around you and anything you read. But unless you take stock of your eating habits and the psychology behind what made you become overweight in the first place, you are in for a yo-yo rollercoaster ride. Tap into your diet psychology, fine-tune your weak areas and put your body back into the shape you always knew you had.

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• A personal notebook
• Honesty

1. Decide what your weakest trouble spots are and devise a plan to counter-attack them.

2. For example, if you are a night eater, fight the urge by deciding on a closing time for your kitchen, much like a restaurant. Your kitchen may be "closed" by 7 p.m., not allowing you access to further eating.
   If that proves too tough and you are just in love with munching at night, then replace your habit with a healthy one. Fill up a bowl of carrots with fat-free dip, have air-popped pop-corn, raw veggies or small amounts of crunchy fruit in a bowl to satisfy your urge.

3. Figure out what your "trigger foods" are and banish them from your house. If brownies cause you to eat 10 servings in one sitting, or a bag of chips becomes empty in your house after an hour--these are your trigger foods. Trigger foods are the ones that you can't just eat one of-they cause you to binge. Never buy them and you will never have to resist the temptation. Instead, when you want something decadent indulge in it-and only ONE serving and you will be in control. Eating one serving of a rich ice cream will be less fattening then if you have a trigger food around that causes you to eat three times as many calories as your one non-trigger food.

4. Call a friend before you feel yourself slipping. Simply calling them to announce that you are about to bake brownies or order a large pizza for yourself brings your behavior "out of the closet" and into the light. The very act of doing that will cause you to re-think your actions.

5. All studies show that writing down everything you eat is one of the most successful diet strategies. Why? It keeps you in check. It draws your attention to your habits so you can no longer do mindless eating.

Tips & Warnings

• Buy a cute little notebook that fits in your purse or briefcase so you enjoy opening it up and writing down your foods. Pick the best method for you--if you don't like doing a tally by meal, do a tally by day or a tally by emotions (when/where you ate) to mix it up a bit.
• Only weigh yourself once a week and at the same time. Do not let a setback be an excuse to relapse. Pick yourself up and carry on in your battle against the bulge.
• Always consult a doctor before embarking on a weight-loss program.