With regard to weight management,
simplicity is a virtue.

Research exists indicating that
those who are successful at weight-loss
tend to focus on fewer rules than those
who fail in their weight-loss efforts.

It wouldn’t matter how simple or complicated the rules were,
if there were truly only one right way to eat for weight-management.
You would just have to do it.

But in fact, there are many different kinds of healthy diets.
Vegetarian, Mediterranean, low-calorie, low-fat,
“primitive”, low-carb, and various other diets
have been validated by scientific research.

However, it’s not only the food that matters.
How we perceive the dietary rules we live by
is also important.

So, we need to just choose one and start.
It doesn’t even have to be an official “diet”.
Some of the most successful dieters…meaning those who
have maintained a weight loss of at least 30 pounds for at least one year…
don’t follow a formal diet plan.

Instead they establish a handful of their own rules,
and work to follow them consistently.

Weight management is difficult for most of us, no matter what.
It requires resisting some “fattening” foods we like,
while also resisting the urge to overeat “healthy” foods.
Nothing can be done about these requirements.

However, it isn’t necessary to make weight management any more difficult
than it has to be, by forcing oneself into a complicated diet.
We can choose to keep it simple.

My latest recipe video, Chinese Chicken Salad,
is located here at DietHobby in RECIPES, Mealtime.

                             
Recently I discovered the Paleo writings of J Stantion,
and am in the process of reading some of his articles. 

His position on snack foods is interesting, and very on point.

He says:

The Magic Of Snacks: Taste Without Nutrition

"Just as a movie set’s only constraint is to look good
for a few seconds from a limited set of camera angles,
a snack food’s only constraint is to taste good
until it slides down your throat.

And that’s what technology allows us to do:
create products (“snacks”) that tickle our taste receptors
far more than real food can ever hope to—but
that don’t come with the nutrition that selected us
to crave those tastes in the first place.

This is the reason that the concept “eat whole foods,
minimally processed” is generally sound:

if whole foods taste good to us,
it’s most likely because they contain nutrients we need,
not because they’ve been engineered to tickle our taste buds.

(Note that all modern fruits are heavily engineered products
of thousands of years of careful breeding: read Dan Koeppel’s
fascinating book “Banana” for a look at one typical example.)"

This seems to hit the nail on the head.

Busy day, not much to say,
except sometimes Life is not a Bed of Roses.
But ... I'll bet you already knew that.

In my opinion, while the action of binge eating
does cause physiological stress (body pain),
The psychological stress (mental pain) involved with binge eating
comes from the self-berating that many people abuse themselves with.

Some people think that ‘self-sabotage” and self-punishment
is the cause of binge eating.
Some blame the nagging and berating voice in their head
as the “saboteur” that causes them to binge.

However, perhaps it is the food itself; an excess love of food…
a personal desire for the taste and for the feeling of full-ness
that is sometimes the true culprit.

I've had a lifetime of binge eating.
20 years of professional Therapy didn't resolve the activity,
however, it DID get rid of the "nagging and berating voice in the head".

I’ve come to a personal conclusion that it doesn’t much matter
what each individual CAUSE of binge eating is
because most of the circumstances around me aren’t under my control.
Good things happen. Bad things happen.
Strong feelings make me want to eat. Period.

I am aware of this, and I work not to follow those desires.
Sometimes I still Binge. . in that I engage in emotional eating to excess..
However, it not a form of "self-punishment",
and I don't hate myself for it.

My bingeing behavior is always going to part of me, lurking in the background.
I have learned to Accept

*  that, to date, I have done all I can to fix the problem;
*  that I'll continue to work to resolve it as much as I can;
*  that this behavior is sometimes part of who I am; and
*  that I'm still okay even when I make that behavior choice.

Sometimes we are own worst enemy.
We can choose to build ourselves up
with encouragement and motivational thoughts,
or tear ourselves apart for a perceived failure or mistake
which limits our ability to move forward.

Do you say things about yourself
that you wouldn’t say out loud to a friend?

I am choosing to consider myself worthy and capable,
and working to build hope and courage in my life
which helps me to pursue my goals.

  We can use our words
to help encourage and motivate ourselves.

If you want to start a daily practice
of working to fill your mind with positive thoughts,
perhaps it will help you to frequently run the following playlist
which automatically plays my positive sayings
back-to-back. It contains about 10 minutes of short videos
but, if you choose, you can watch only a little bit of it.

 To run the Playlist of positive sayings, click HERE. 

For those who are following my “Ask Grandma” videos
click to see my latest one: “How Much Is Enough”
which is located in DietHobby under RESOURCES, Videos, Ask Grandma.