Eating: Self-Control Paradigm

Here is a link to a great article on changing your eating: Eating Right: a New Self-Control Paradigm.

I am reminded of how often someone asks me for an eating plan, nutritional guidelines, or a referral to a nutritionist. These can be useful components in changing your eating for the better. But just as often I suspect that a person is psychologically shifting the responsibility away from oneself.

"Help me help myself. Give me a plan that will make the difficult changes for me." What happens when the person gets a plan, looks at it, and decidesn the following?: "I don't want to make these changes. I am going to continue eating the way I have been eating."

The authors in this article raises many different strategies that a person can use to change their eating strategies. They some great tips. These include ways to delay impulses, distract yourself, and generally increase your willpower. They also make the important point that once you make and adhere to difficult changes, pretty soon the impulse to eat bad will be diminished.

Sure these strategies help, but at the end of the day you need to take responsibility for yourself. The thing I like is that they acknowledge you have free will, and you have the ability to make positive, healthy, correct decisions.

But I would add one more component to these tips and strategies: YOU have the ability to choose. If you WANT to eat better then you will. EVERYONE knows more about healthy eating than what they choose to apply. You don't have to be PERFECT, but you must have a good CONSISTENT COMMITTMENT to making positive change.

My clients who do this loose all the weight they desire.