Paint your decisions with a small brush

Paint your decisions with an itty bitty little paintbrush. Why would you do that? It's probably the opposite of what you've been doing. When it comes to reversing the diet mentality, choosing a few opposites can be an eye-opener.

What is meant by painting with a broad brush anyway? It means sweeping changes, grand decisions. It means:

1. Starting tomorrow, I'm going to eat healthy all the time.
2. That's it. I'm never eating sweets again.
3. As of this weekend, I'm going on a full cleansing fast, and then I'm going to start eating intuitively.
4. Today I threw out all my large plates. From now on, I will eat all my meals from a teacup saucer.
5. I'm making myself save up for a nutritionist. Then I plan to put all my eating decisions into the hands of a professional.
6. From this day forward, I will only "cheat" with my hunger and fullness plan when I'm eating out.
7. By next year, I'm determined to drop this extra 100 pounds.

Why should you abandon a big plan for healthy eating? Isn't it good to have plans and goals?

These thoughts, although some have the fragrance of intuitive eating, are all really a rehash of the black and white thinking, or "all or nothing" thinking, that accompanies the insanity of the diet life.

Dieters tend to think in terms of putting themselves on one overall plan which, if only they would stick to it, will result in their happiness. But it never seems to work, does it? Human beings aren't built that way.

People need warm up time before they can change. They need to dip their big toe in the water. They need to conduct small experiments. And mostly, they need to be in charge, play by play, over their decisions. When you make some big plan, you're dooming yourself to feeling controlled and unable to decide for yourself, in the moment, what's best. It's a way to put a harness on yourself, and it's destined to backfire.

That's how the "on again off again" craziness of dieting evolves, eventually snowballing into the desperate insanity that seems to take over the dieter's life. It even sometimes leads to a binge-starve cycle.

So, if you already know that painting your eating life with such a broad brush will fail you, what's the alternative? Try doing precisely the opposite. Paint each new decision with a fine brush:

1. As I continue my eating life, I'd like to wait just long enough for hunger, but not too long. I'm aiming for the "sweet spot" in-between. I'd like to try this for lunch today.

2. I'm interested in exploring the old foods--that is, some foods that I used to like before I banned them with my diety thinking.

3. For the next meal (perhaps tonight), I'd like to eat just a tad slower, and see if I can begin to sense when I'm getting full. It's just an experiment right now.

4. I just ended a binge about an hour ago, and don't yet know why it happened. I'd like to understand it, but I also know that setbacks are normal. So if I get right back on track by waiting for hunger, it's all really okay, since it will probably take a very long time to get hungry again.

5. I'm thinking that maybe therapy would be helpful. Maybe I'll make small decisions leading up to my first therapy session, such as talking to friends about the possibility, pondering it a while, making some phone calls to inquire, and making an appointment to try out a therapist. But right now I'm content to be at Step One.

6. Tomorrow night I'm eating out. Wouldn't it feel good if I just stuck with my usual waiting for hunger, and stopping when full? I'm already used to it. I'm thinking that at this point, it may not be that hard to do.

7. I know I'm an emotional eater, and I have stress right now. What I'd like to do, the next time I'm stress-eating, is to recognize it dispassionately. Maybe after a few times of recognizing it, I can stop, look at my food which really doesn't taste good since I'm not hungry, and put it down. Wouldn't that feel pretty good? But I'll make one decision at a time.

What makes real lasting changing in a person's life is a long string of good decisions, dictated by his or her good judgment and circumstances. And happily, the string never has to be perfect to get a good outcome. Like a cultured pearl necklace, the string can have a few flaws. But if there are a SUFFICIENT number of pretty good pearls, the necklace is beautiful.

One more thing. In addition to a fine brush, be sure and paint your decisions in many shades, including pale, bright, dark, in every color of the rainbow. Ditch the black and white, in favor of every shade and hue possible.