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15 WEIGHT LOSS: pART 5 Of 5 you should now be clear that you can lose weight, have a realistic goal, and given some careful thought to how you are going to achieve your goal. We have discussed the bIG THREE principles (arithmetic, Low GI, and Low-fat Quality-fat). We've discussed the merits of exercise, support groups, and medical help. you have understood the evils of crash dieting and fad diets. finally, let's consider how we feel about food. fOOD IS fULL Of fEELINGS the relationships we have with our food can be so very complex and so very powerful. here are some of the more common scenarios seen: • Comfort eAtiNg. Many of us find comfort in food and it is true that the body relaxes while eating. For some people, eating is a coping mechanism and the more stress, the more eating… The solution lies in identifying this pattern and finding other ways to cope, relax, find comfort, etc. • guilt. Many of us have a deep-seated hatred of waste (usually from our early childhood experiences and how we were raised) and we feel that we must finish every plate of food, always. We feel guilty about leaving anything uneaten. So we actually force ourselves to eat more than we need to or want to… The answer lies in understanding this behaviour, finding ways to control what gets onto our plates, and deciding that it's a bigger waste to ruin our health by over-eating. • feAr of fAilure. Nobody likes to fail. Weight loss is hard (not impossible but hard). So perhaps we just decide not to even try, so we do not have to fail… The reality is that not trying is just another form of failure (guaranteed failure actually) and once we see this, we may find the courage to try. • proCrAstiNAtioN. "On Monday" and "Next week" and "Maybe when I am less stressed" are all ways of delaying what we know we need to do and what we actually want to do. Understandable maybe (we all do it) but hugely counter-productive surely. Success starts with starting.

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