Ask Grandma: Episode Fifty. 
Your online Grandma answers questions from her Grandbabies

                                                                                                                        
DietHobby exists because I've found being online helpful in my success with weight-loss and maintenance …. and this has become part of my Dieting Hobby.
I enjoy visiting, and sometimes participating at, other websites and in various diet forums, and over the past seven years, I've developed some online relationships that I value highly. A problem I've discovered during my years of such participation on other websites happens when someone asks a question or makes a comment, or a discussion occurs about topics that are of ongoing importance to me. I'll spend a very long time researching and preparing an answer or a comment on such issues, but the nature of online websites and forums is for new data to replace old data, and so a few months later, when I'd like to refer to my previous answer or discussion, to help someone else with a similar issue, my answer is buried and difficult or impossible for me to find. Also, other websites are not under my control, and those websites can change their formats and/or delete or edit posts.
After a few years of online participation, I began creating word files, and saving my own posts, along with helpful posts of others, but this was rather a cumbersome task, and saving posts in no particular order still made them difficult to find when I wanted to refer to them.

DietHobby was my solution to that problem. It contains place for me to put my thoughts on issues related to dieting and maintenance in an organized, searchable way which is helpful for me, and also for others. My past articles can be found in a list within the top ARCHIVES heading, or individually by previous months in the right-side-page-Blog Archives. My recipes and inspirational videos are categorized and readily available for review by me or by others. My personal history is a part of RESOURCES in the About ME section.

Some of my articles and videos are specific and some rather general, but most of them are timeless… and old entries are as relevant now as they were when I first made them. They are a reflection of me and my values. Who I am and what I think. I hope that this collection will be helpful to others, but I KNOW that it is helpful to me…. and that's really the point, isn't it?

I've decided to experiment with the No S Diet again. I feel like I need some clarity with my food right now, and a simple, but well-defined, eating plan.   I've been very attracted to the plan for several years, but have been unsuccessful with it except for a few days at a time, because I've been unable to sustain a desire to overcome my habit of eating frequently.  I'm going with my own individual No S three meal per day plan, meaning that I am including a daily calorie maximum, and will continue to track all of my food intake in my DietPower software program.  Yesterday... Day 1.... was successful.

Reading the forum posts of others is a helpful weight-loss and maintenance tool for me. Most of us share common problems in our quest to follow ANY diet or food plan, no matter which one we independently choose. One of my favorite weight-loss forums is the No S Diet Forum, and I've put a link to it here, under RESOURCES, Links.

One of the threads I read there today talked about feeling resentful because we can't eat whatever we want, whenever we want. This is a common problem for almost everyone … including me. The following quote from a forum member on that thread gives excellent advice.

"The resentment comes from a part of your brain that doesn't work on logic and reason, it's more instinctive than that. I have heard it described on this board as the "tummy toddler". Like a toddler, it wants what it wants, RIGHT NOW, and you can't really reason with it. But also like a toddler, it can't be allowed to do whatever it wants whenever it wants, because that's not good for you (and therefore for it, since it's part of you).

The resentment does go away, but it takes time for that to happen. The worst of it for me was in the first couple of months.

One thing that can help is to keep your expectations reasonable. Don't expect quick weight loss, or to adapt to new eating habits overnight with no resentment or screw-ups. Habits just do not work that way. If you expect them to work that way, you're going to get frustrated, and it's not going to help anything. That would be like dropping a glass and expecting it to hover in front of you, rather than falling down, and getting upset with yourself or with the glass when it doesn't do that. Or, to keep going with the toddler analogy, it's as if you had let your toddler eat only junk food, decided that you were going to try to get him or her to eat healthier food, and expecting the toddler not to complain about the change.

You're changing your eating habits. That's a hard thing to do. It just is. Don't beat yourself up over it if it doesn't come easy- it doesn't for the vast majority of people who have ever tried it." 

                                                   
This past couple of months I've been extra busy with the details of life, but this weekend, I've finally found some quiet time to reflect on my personal weight-loss and maintenance goals and what behavior I'm willing to choose in order to achieve them.

 Today I did some catch-up reading at some of the forums I frequent, and one Thread particularly interested me. It is the journal of an intelligent and insightful person who has a great deal of difficulty with Denial. During the past several years I've watched as Flashes of Truth break through that Denial. Unfortunately, shortly after I see a Flash, each time it becomes lost again, buried in that Denial Abyss.   I feel certain that if this person could just retain those Truths for any length of time, she would achieve the weight-loss she so desperately hopes for.

One such Flash of Truth was a statement which was buried within her last month's posts:

"My goal has not been to lose weight or to eat less food,
it has been to desire to eat less food."

In essence, she describes an enormous stumbling block that most dieters encounter. Practically everyone with a weight problem would …. more than anything … like to rid ourselves of the DESIRE to overeat. For, of course, if that DESIRE left us, we would eat only the amounts and kinds of food that we need to sustain the body size we wish to have.

However, to actually WANT less food than the body needs to sustain it's current weight, is a goal that is ultimately impossible for almost anyone to achieve. Our bodies are designed to want to retain and store fat, and each of us has a built-in starvation response that triggers a desire to eat more whenever weight leaves our bodies. If that desire ever does leaves us…. it won't happen until AFTER our bodies have achieved weight-loss and adapted to that normal weight condition.

This is like an alcoholic saying that when they stop wanting to drink, they will quit drinking. Will never happen. First you quit… then, after years of not drinking, perhaps the desire to drink will also leave.

Another forum member did respond to her with the quote:

"Make peace with what is, and look to where you want to be."

 Acceptance wisdom.

Our overeating desire is something we cannot change, so it needs to be Accepted.
Our overeating behavior is something we can change, so we need the Courage to Change it.