Normal weight loss

In the world of weight loss, the tide is turning from dieting to non-dieting. But what does this mean? Depending on whose book you read, and whose message board you join, you might be told it means quite different things. Some non-dieting gurus won't even let you utter the words "weight loss." Others point to a more natural means of releasing weight. Still others fall somewhere in-between.

Our free Yahoo! message board, Diet Survivors, points its members to themselves for the answers, not to some external rules. Everyone who joins wants to quit the diet life, but they all have their own goals and desires.

Some of us want to concentrate on another way to lose weight. Others want no more of weight loss. They instead want to find body acceptance and self-love. They want to move on with their lives. Still others might prefer to lose weight, but are not attached to the outcome of becoming normal eaters.

At Diet Survivors, all are welcome, all goals are welcome, and all members' personal food wisdom is honored. Nobody tells you what to do there, but we do help you to know what normal eating, and even normal eating, might look like.

Are you ready to ditch your diet but you still want to lose weight? It may help you to investigate what normal weight loss looks like.

I'll describe my recent weight loss as an example. As some of my readers already know, it's been five years since I've been in the diet trap. I've maintained a good healthy weight since learning normal eating. That is, I eat when hungry, and stop when gently satisfied.

But in the last year, as I'm nearing the age of fifty, I'm finding my clothes getting tight. Keep in mind I had to learn normal eating first, I had to find my sense of hunger and fullness, and for a while, I even had to ignore the weight issue. All that happened over four or five year's time.

Then there came a time recently when I was ready to do something about my weight slowly creeping up.
Here is what I did:

1. Thought through in a sober way how I've been eating in the last year. Is there something simple, like too many desserts? The answer is yes.
2. Asked myself what I could do that would be livable for me, now knowing myself well. Asked myself what kind of old-fashioned advice I might give myself.
3. Asked myself whether it really makes sense to lose a few pounds. I decided I'd like to try to drop just a little bit, but if my body refused, I would take it as a sign not to try too mightily.
4. I decided to cut back on the desserts and sugary stuff. I still put real sugar in my coffee in the morning, (I love my coffee sweet and light) but after my morning coffee, if I want something sweet, I can make something healthy, such as a cup of warm milk with a touch of honey, or I can have a small glass of juice.
5. I decided that I'll have desserts sometimes, but not every day. I didn't come up with any kind of schedule for dessert-eating. My schedule is "sometimes."
6. I made no changes in my fat intake and didn't doctor any foods. I reduced the amount of cereal I'm eating, which is loaded with sugar.
7. Remembered that as I hit mid-life, my body may want to gain a little bit. I decided this is okay with me.

As a result of these little tweaks in my eating and my thinking, my clothes now fit nicely again. I have no idea how many pounds I lost and I don't care. Certainly not a lot.

What matters to me is that I accomplished this with sober thinking and a self-awareness of what I could tolerate in terms of slight changes. I had no number-goals, no obsessions, and no bad foods. I'd like to now stay a little more aware of the amount of sugar and desserts I'm getting. I feel great.

What I've described to you is just one example of how a normal eater approaches normal weight control. I'll give you one more example, which I refer to in my book.

My neighbor explained this to me, "Sometimes I will have eaten a whole sandwich, and I won't feel as though I've eaten at all. At that point I say 'I gotta get outta here.'" Then she runs out of the house!

That's my neighbor's approach to normal weight control. It works for her, and it certainly doesn't govern her life. Just once in a while, she runs out of the house, or at least imagines herself doing so. I guess sometimes she just runs out of the kitchen, or out of the work cafeteria.

Do you have an approach to normal weight control? Tell us about it on the board!