May 2007 Archives

While writing my book about normal eating, my copy-editor worked diligently at cleaning up all the minor glitches and colloquialisms I seemed to produce.

But then she flagged an interesting phrase. I had mentioned in several places this expression "lose the weight." I may have said something like, "You may still want to lose the weight..."

My copy-editor pointed out to me that the correct expression is "lose weight."

I didn't want to change it, as I felt it would change the meaning. But why? It got me thinking.

Imagine two overweight people. Go ahead. You know at least two overweight people. Imagine that each one will speak to you. We'll call them Alice and Amy.

Alice says, "I'd really like to lose the weight."

Amy says, "Id really like to lose weight."

What impression do you come away with from each individual? Do they have different characteristics?

I'll tell you my own impression of Alice and Amy, based solely on their use or omission of the word "the".

Alice is self-rejecting. Alice has never accepted her weight gain to begin with. She feels that her weight is in charge of her. She bases her view of herself on her current weight. She's perhaps been on many diets, maybe has developed an eating disorder along the way.

Amy views her weight as only part of her. She has good self-esteem, and accepts her weight and body image. She has many ambitions in life. She'd like to lose some weight because she knows she'll be healthier and more comfortable.

What is it about the word "the"?

When people say they want to lose the weight, they are detached from it, as if it's some kind of disease they've caught that's messing up their lives. They don't wish to accept their own bodies as they are now. They don't plan on being self-accepting until the weight is lost. In a sense, they've never found the weight to begin with.

In books about normal eating, we talk about self-acceptance before losing weight. Some folks seem to be able to lose weight before self-acceptance, but others never succeed. Instead, they pressure themselves again and again, losing the weight, then gaining, then losing, then gaining. They seem to sabotage their own efforts.

It may be too much pressure for them, and if you're reading this, it may be too much pressure for you, to have everything, including your own self-love, riding on your weight loss.

For you, accepting your body first may really help you, in the long run, to lose weight.

In Diet Survivors we learn that beneath all lifestyle changes, which I like to call technical changes, lie the adaptive changes. Adaptive changes are changes in the way we think.

Try today to change the way you think about your weight. It may sound ironic, but making it more a part of who you are, accepting your body size as it is, may help you in the long run.

Are you a person that says "I'd like to lose the weight"?

Practice saying this "When the time is right, I'd like to lose weight." Leave off the the. See how it feels.

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Click on the book cover for more information

This blog is a companion to the free Yahoo! Diet Survivors message board and the free Diet Survivors newsletter.


Find out more about Linda Moran's book, How to Survive Your Diet.

Karen R. Koenig, author of two books about intuitive eating, recently said this on the Diet Survivors message board:

Oh how true her words are! But does it churn up objections? Questions such as: Why should I have to do all this work? Normal eaters don't have to work so hard!

The more accurate picture is that everyone struggles with certain things. Everyone has areas of difficulty, and overcoming them takes hard work.

It just so happens that for those of you reading this, food is one of your struggles.

An alcoholic has hard work to do and an uphill battle in order to get well. That alcoholic will still have rocky times, but can lead a good life.

Same for you. How about aiming for APPROXIMATING normalcy? Can that be sufficient for you? Especially because so many dysfunctional eaters tend to be perfectionists and b/w thinkers, I would suggest that the
goal of approximating is a worthy one, if for no other reason than the fact that a goal of imperfection may be a new idea for you.

The reason black and white thinkers fail at their goals is that they have no sufficiency barometer for themselves. They do either all or nothing.

So start today. See if it's okay to live a life in which you do things reasonably well, and sufficiently good enough.

It's a new way to live. And once you catch on, it's both a relief, and a surprise, that more of your dreams come true.

Are you waiting to be normal, like other people? Wait no more. You've been kidding yourself all this time. Nobody's normal.

Dysfunctional eaters tend to want to put themselves in a different category than everyone else, perhaps because their psychosis many times, although not always, shows a little more (in the form of overweight).

But everybody's normal til you get to know them, and now that's even the name of a book.

Did you know that, just as eating normally seems difficult to you but simple to other people, other people struggle in areas too:

1. Some people can't seem to take a single drink without overdoing it.

2. Some people can't decorate their own homes to save their lives (yours truly being one of them).

3. Some people struggle to learn simple social skills, and they may never feel they've gotten it right.

4. Some people struggle with being believed, finding love, and being themselves.

5. Some people can't distinguish their right from their left hand. I know such a woman. She has a PhD.

6. Some people can't whistle.

7. Some people can't grow a plant.

8. Some people may be thin, but have hidden, devastating addictions.

It's a waste of time, and too much pressure, to expect yourself to become normal. Just go from where you are, and find a way to make your personal dreams come true. Forget normal.

Are you entitled to be happy as you are? Have you been unhappy because you figure you're supposed to be?

If so, what law says you must be unhappy? Will the fat police come to your house and arrest you for happiness while under the influence of overweight?

Will someone accuse you of being cluelessly happy when you're clearly not entitled to be? Obviously you must not know you're overweight, or you wouldn't have that smile on your face.

But wait one darned minute. Whose decision is it, anyway, whether you find happiness today? Have you been putting off contentment for too long, waiting for something that may or may not come?

The heck with everyone. If you're fed up enough with waiting for happiness, you'll realize that it makes no sense for other people to give you the green light. And is it possible you might be in such a sadness habit that if you ever did lose the weight, you still wouldn't be happy?

Choose happiness now. It won't stop you from losing the weight. They have little to do with each other. But I'll tell you this--finding ways to finally please yourself and no one else will help pave the way, eventually, to permanent weight loss, or at the very least, to great joy.

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Click on the book cover for more information

This blog is a companion to the free Yahoo! Diet Survivors message board and the free Diet Survivors newsletter.


Find out more about Linda Moran's book, How to Survive Your Diet.

You're learning normal eating, and now you're wondering..."How many books should I read?"

Many folks come to normal eating after years of diets, memberships, numerous different sizes of clothing, special foods, and more. They have these concerns:

1. I've already wasted thousands of dollars on my diet life. Must I buy books about normal eating?

2. I became addicted to my diet books. Will I become addicted to my normal eating books?

3. How will I know when I've learned enough? How will I know when to stop reading?

4. How will I ever live normally without a focus on food and diets? Will I become a no-diet crazy as much as I was a diet-crazy? Is it inevitable? Is that what I want?

These are all valid questions, and they have more to do with internal, adaptive change, than with any external or even lifestyle change.

And that's precisely why they are worthwhile questions to ponder for you. Because dysfunctional eating is less about what you do than it is about how you think. Faulty thinking is what leads to years of diet craziness.

To undo dysfunctional eating, therefore, requires new self-talk and new thinking.

That's where the books come in. Normal eating books will help you toward normal thinking. Some of them will even model it for you. To the extent that you need to change your self-talk, you need to do some reading. In fact, you may need as many sober words to become a normal eater as you needed distorted words to become a dysfunctional eater. For some of you, that's a lot of words!

The upshot is there's no right answer for anyone. So instead of focusing on the externals of how many books, why not ask yourself as you read:

1. Am I learning to talk the talk but still avoiding the walk?

2. Is it possible that less is more?

3. How many words do I need to combat the years of irrational thinking?

4. Am I hiding behind my books to avoid living life?

When you are able to believe that you can be a normal eater, when you are able to believe in your own good judgment and food wisdom, when you know in your heart whether weight loss is right for you or whether it's better for you to focus on weight acceptance, these are signs of healthy thinking.

After healthy thinking, consider giving up the books and moving on to normal living.

Limited budget? Not a problem. Nobody has to buy anything. Diet Survivors materials are free. All you have to do is print them on your computer's printer. Use them as though they were a book. They're written by the author of How to Survive Your Diet.

Free Diet Survivors meditations
Free Diet Survivors newsletter

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Click on the book cover for more information

This blog is a companion to the free Yahoo! Diet Survivors message board and the free Diet Survivors newsletter.


Find out more about Linda Moran's book, How to Survive Your Diet.