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Are you trying to lose weight, but it keeps up your disordered eating? You may have to choose.

Now, don't get me wrong. This is not permanent. But for many disordered eaters, the only way to regain sanity is to put off your weight loss goals. Why is this?

Much is known today about eating disorders, including the fact that they are often caused by diets. Dieters with disordered eating will often redouble their dieting efforts, thinking the disordered eating will somehow straighten out after the weight loss. But it's a lie.

The diet industry has sold us a bill of goods. Diets won't cure anything, and for many of you, as long as you keep trying to lose weight, you will always be limited in your ability to regain normal eating.

Nobody is going to fix this for you, except you. Ultimately, you may be faced with a decision. Do you want your life back? Do you want to act like a normal person when you're at a party, eating what and when you like, removing all compulsion to binge in reaction to restriction?

It might be time for you. Have you hit rock bottom yet? If not, decide that you'd rather not wait until it's that bad. Instead, find the normal eating track, and put off your weight loss goals for now. You won't regret it.

Living life normally while overweight is probably far better than the roller coaster you're currently on.

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In the effort to control your weight, are you already doing your best? For many of you, you've been doing your best for years already. Is there anything you can possibly do that you haven't done?

Probably not. If you feel you're already doing your best to eat reasonable portions, to avoid overeating dessert, and to stop when you're full, then why are you still making yourself crazy with diets and watching the scale?

Here's an idea. Why not ditch the scale, and just rely on doing your best? It's all you can do, right? And that way, you can enjoy life. Hey, you're either doing your personal best or your not. Make up your mind.

Are you in therapeutic mode too much? Listening to everyone's comments as though all of life were milieu therapy?

If you listen to criticism about your weight, your food, your clothing, or anything else, why are you doing it?

All of life is not, after all, group therapy.

People with good self-esteem turn a deaf ear. Politicians, when criticized, turn a deaf ear. Great world leaders who improve things for us all often have to turn a deaf ear.

Normal living involves turning a deaf ear.

Let's look at our problems in a new way--perhaps our problem isn't so much our weight, or our lack of willpower, or some character flaw. Instead, perhaps our problems are really mostly an unwillingness to turn a deaf ear.

Learn to discern what to shut out. If someone you don't much care about criticizes you, or you see some skinny model you don't even know, or even if voices in your own head point out all your flaws, those are the times to turn a deaf ear.

Be discriminating. Pick a few people in your life whose wisdom and judgement you actually trust. Listen carefully to them. But even with those few select, filter what they say through your own best judgment.

That's how confident people live.

"You have such a pretty face." There is no well-intended compliment more universally despised by the community of weight strugglers than this.

Have you ever flinched when someone said that to you?

Let's look at this awkward compliment more closely.

At first blush, it looks like an ill-fated attempt to say something nice. After all, it's truthful, right? But of course, it leaves dead air time, about as dreaded as dead air time on the radio. Everyone's thoughts are hanging out there, waiting for a speedy change of subject.

Let's give voice to the silence.

"It's too bad you're overweight."

"It's too bad it's ruined."

"So, why did you let yourself go like that?"

"Heck, as long as people focus on your smile, they won't notice the rest of you."

"But that face is going to go, too."

Wouldn't it be a hoot if someone came up to you and said "You have such a pretty body"? But don't count on it. In our culture, it's unclear what that means anyway. We're better at faces.

Better yet, wouldn't it be great if people would stop complimenting you on your face?

So now let's come back to reality. How about this. The next time you get complimented on your face, say either aloud or to yourself "and it matches my beautiful body perfectly."

It's a defiant thing to do. But defiance, my dear friends, is one key to a fulfilling life. No kidding. Without defiance, you will always limit yourself.

By the way, you have such a pretty body.

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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.

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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Why is it that in a room full of people, we compare ourselves to the most beautiful one there? When we're at the pool, we pick out the one with the perfect figure, thinking "I'm supposed to look like that, but I don't."

Such grandiosity! In twelve-step rooms such as Alcoholics Anonymous, members are warned to be on the lookout for their own grandiosity. Twelve steppers understand that this frustrated self-aggrandizement feeds into their addictions.

Grandiosity really is a form of self-centeredness in which we believe we're supposed to be superior to others. For those of us with accompanying low self-esteem, it's the belief that we need to be superior to others just so we can measure up.

When we consider grandiosity in the context of dieting and overeating, we realize that grandiosity is especially toxic. Why? Because it's about looking perfect, which nearly nobody does. In our minds, looking perfect is about not eating. Not eating is unhealthy and extreme. We vacillate and can never win.

In addition, this kind of grandiosity sets us apart from others, weakening our ability to use group support to help us recover. We continue to think of ourselves as different, as some kind of exception--that we alone, must return to looking beautiful. How can we recover that way?

Does grandiosity set you up for failure? Why not start seeing yourself as a regular person with regular problems and a flawed figure, just like most of the rest of the world? Sobering, isn't it? And freeing.

Diana Fay of Massachusetts writes,"I finally saw your 'This is Me' video this morning. Thank you. Your words created a shift in my thinking/feeling (can't tell which, maybe both).

"[You suggested in the video] 'I would like to lose more weight but if I don't I can tolerate that.' Somehow that statement moved the BIG DEAL of my weight into the background a bit. Felt real good."

What is this BIG DEAL about the weight? All of us are talking at the surface about our hunger and fullness signals, but underneath it all, many of you want the weight loss so badly that you'd do just about anything to get it.

Of course you do. You want to walk so your legs don't bleed from chafing against each other. You want to keep up with your toddler without running out of breath. You may be unhealthy. You might even be risking a heart attack and death. And you'd like to look better too. Who could argue with you? You're entitled to these things.

Nobody is saying you can't have them. But for some of you, the weight loss is so big that it's really your only goal. You couldn't care less about intuitive eating, except that it promises to lead you to weight loss.

If I told you today that you could lose that weight permanently by drinking motor oil, would you do it? Would you jump at the chance to continue obsessing about food--bingeing, purging, getting depressed, but be thin? If the answer is "yes," then the BIG DEAL about the weight is TOO BIG. Unfortunately, your efforts are likley to backfire.

In fact, for many of you, the BIG DEAL about the weight looms so large that it is anxiety-producing. The prospect of losing weight vs. not losing weight is too high stakes.

And you know what anxiety leads to. Stress, panic, binge eating, overeating, soothing yourself.

You strongly prefer to lose the weight. That's good. You know yourself, and you know what you want. So how does one set aside the BIG DEAL of the weight just enough to think clearly? Two thoughts:

1. Learn to say "this is me now." You'll still want to lose the weight, but this self-talk will drive the adrenaline away.

2. Cultivate a desire to eat normally for its own sake. Eat intuitively again and again, simply because it feels great. It feels right. It's a kindness to your body. There's joy in it every day.

As Diana has done, can you move the BIG DEAL of the weight into the background just enough that it creates a shift in your thinking and feeling? That doesn't mean your desire will disappear, only that you'll tame it like a wild lion. Put it in its cage.

Thank you, Diana, for your permission to quote you.

Do you dislike your body? That could be the reason why your weight loss efforts never seem to stick. Self-rejection leads to panic. Panic leads to bingeing and compulsive behaviors such as unhealthy, extreme dieting.

Do you know the rock and roll song called "This Is Us"? The band sounds like Dire Straits, but I'm not sure. In any case, it's all about looking at photographs of "us" as a couple and saying "this is us."

Have you tried saying "this is me"? Accepting yourself just as you are may be the key to unlock your intuitive eating efforts. The panic will subside because the urgency is gone. Perhaps only then can you relax and find your intuition.

Join others who, just like you, would like to say "This is Me." We're on the Yahoo! Diet Survivors message board. See you in cyberspace!

Watch the video meditation on this topic: This is Me