Why Diets Don't Work - Part 1

Well if diets did work wouldn't everyone be skinning. Diets don't work because of something called "diet backlash binge-ing". Sound like a mouthful and in reality it can be a mouthful of food.

Diets have a list of good foods. Foods you are permitted to have on the particular diet plan. They also have a list of "bad foods". These are foods that are the "no, no's". In addition the "bad" food side of the list is always extensive while the "good" food side of the list is so very short.

Dieting people find themselves on a pendulum, staying on one particular diet for a while, getting tired of the food limitations...binge -ing on the very foods the diet prohibits. Eventually making a decision to find a different diet, but again this diet has a list of "good" foods to choose from and a list of foods you are not permitted to eat. Swinging back and forth from one diet to the next.

What kid of crazy way is this for us to live? Ask yourself what kinds of diets you have been on, how have they worked in the long run? What kinds of foods do you deprive yourself of eating and how has that worked for you? Check back next week, I have a crazy answer for you.

Women Pull The Wagon

Why do we as women always feel we have to fix everything? Make it all good, handle all the problems, make our children happy, our spouse/significant other satisfied, our bodies perfect. We carry the weight of the world. For some reason we as women feel the need to make everything all right.

A friend was telling me about a poem that talks about a young girl pulling a wagon with a few things she has on her mind to work on. In the poem as she gets older the wagon gets heavier and heavier as it loads up with problems and things she wants to fix. Finally she is an old woman and the wagon is so heavy with all the things she has accumulated over the years, she can hardly move it. At the end of the poem someone says to her as she is dragging and pulling this heavy wagon..."why don't you just drop the handle and stop pulling?"

I absolutely love this idea, what if we stopped trying to take on the world and fix everything. I know it won't be easy. To be honest, I am not sure how much I can personally do but even if we gave one issue away think of the load off!

More thoughts on "I Just Had Sex"...

Here's another thought what do we look and think about when we see our men?

Love handles, wrinkles, sagging jowls, fat thighs...not usually. Except for maybe a pot belly most of the women I have talked to see our men without the stigmas of physical imperfections. They think of their men as good husbands, hard workers, good providers, great dads.

The men I have spoken to, as I mentioned last week, usually focus on our capabilities as women more so then our minute body parts. Our functions as moms, providers, care takers and of course the ability to satisfy their physical needs.

Time to change our thinking women...we are beautiful to our men as we are. We don't focus on their physical imperfections, they don't focus on ours. Ask yourself...

What would it feel like to stop fixating on our physical bodies and appreciate ourselves?

"I Just Had Sex"...did I get your attention

Last week, my daughter showed me a video of a guy singing this song titled "I Just Had Sex". Although the video wasn't explicit the words were more so. Basically the artist was singing about how happy he was that this woman allowed him to have sex with her. This got me thinking...

When women look at our bodies we are very critical, what I don't like here, what needs to be tucked in here, my fat....whatever?

When men look at us for the most part they are appreciative of our pretty face, our nice smile, our shapely figure but what they really want and think about is having sex. I would like to clarify that I said "for the most part". This may not be true for men in the 20's or powerful, successful men, their thoughts may lean toward the more material, using women as objects.

For the most part, men don't really focus on our fat body parts or anything else we don't like about ourselves. Why do we then focus on our defects? Our men simply want to be with us and if we allow ourselves to enjoy that and throw out our critical selves we will be much happier.

More thoughts on this to follow...

Be Consistent For Success

Do Your Clothes Fit From Last Season? This is sometimes the greatest seasonal challenge. Over the winter we are less active. Sometime you put on weight. Other times it is just the months going by and the pounds creeping up.

What a chore it can be to take some clothes out of your closet for the next season or year and have them too tight. Nothing sucks worse than that.

Like exercise consistency with eating is an answer that may help keep weight changes in check. Making a schedule to exercise each week. Look at your week ahead and plan what days you can move. Whether it is going to the gym, taking a walk or dancing around the house. Do it when you have it on your schedule.

Sticking to basically the same foods and eating times each day will help keep weight in check too. Make up menu ideas a week in advance. Take your food to work, plan snacks and treats throughout the day. Even picking 5 or 6 days a week and eating basically the same food thus getting the same calories.

Being consistent with your exercise and eating habits will keep those clothes fitting year after year.