Hi ,

As I write this, it's the day after Christmas and many people are feeling a bit disgusted with themselves. They've been indulging in holiday goodies for weeks now and guilt and panic have begun to set in. With these feelings comes the plan to begin to diet in January. 

Dieting in January is a yearly ritual for many, yet the majority of people are never able to keep the weight off successfully. The culture reinforces this ritual at this time of year with endless ads about weight loss etc. The diet industry is a multibillion dollar industry and is based on failure. If you didn't continually fail it wouldn't be so successful.

What is never pointed out is that if you changed your relationship with food, you wouldn't have to diet in the first place. 

Changing your relationship with food is a process and most people opt for the easy solution: just focus on and change what you're eating. The problem with that is it never gets to the root of the problem and just keeps you on the endless hamster wheel of dieting/gaining the weight back/dieting again. 

After years of this, most people's metabolism is screwed up and they've not only regained the weight but are now even heavier than before. 

It's human nature to want everything to be quick and simple but at some point most people will realize that dieting is doing them more harm than good and it's time for them to do something differently. 

Changing your relationship with food also means changing your relationship with yourself. If you're a master of self-neglect, you will need to learn to nourish and nurture yourself in other ways besides overeating. 

I often tell my clients, if you had a small child and every time they came to you with a problem, or they were upset or stressed out about something, instead of listening to and nurturing them you stuffed them with food, would that be kind?

They always say, "Of course not! That would be abusive!" Yet, they're doing the same thing to themselves. Instead of acknowledging and working through their emotions and taking care of themselves in a healthy manner, they stuff themselves with ice cream, cake, etc. 

The problem with this is not only does it not resolve any of their issues, it creates another problem in the form of unwanted pounds. 

Learning to listen to yourself, making a space for your emotions, and learning better strategies to take care of your needs goes a long way towards changing your emotional responses towards food.