The Best Diet for YOU!

It seems folks are frequently looking for and trying a new diet. From Atkins to Zone, there are an infinite number of diets. What occurred to me in the past couple weeks in talking with people was that of the infinite diets we can learn, hear, or read about; they are ultimately the view of the person who wrote them.

So for fun I figured I would create a list of diets from A to Z. That didn’t take very long! Atkins, Beverly Hills, Cabbage Soup, DASH, Egg & Grapefruit, Fit For Life, Gluten-free, Hacker’s, Intermittent Fast, Jenny Craig, Keto, Low-fat, Mediterranean, Nutrisystem, Organic, Paleo, Q, Rotation, South Beach, Tongue Patch, Undiet, Vegetarian/vegan, Whole 30, X-Factor, You On A Diet, Zone.

These are all helpful in losing weight in the short term. But in the long term, following a diet that comes from outside yourself is like following a wardrobe someone else creates for you without meeting you. Or someone telling you what home to buy or how to decorate it. Or someone telling you what should be on your playlist. Or which spouse to marry, friends to have, or career/job to pursue.

When it comes to diets, it’s really like we each need to write our own book. No two people can ultimately have the same “diet book”, not in the long term. How would we write our own book? It would consider these questions:

• What foods work for me and which ones don’t?
• Which foods make me feel healthier, more energetic, full and satisfied?
• Which foods make me feel tired, depressed, hungrier?
• What places are best for me to eat? Does it work for me to eat at the kitchen table? Dining room table? Standing up? On the couch? At my desk? In my bed?
• How much food leaves me feeling well as opposed to too full or still hungry?
• Does calorie counting work for me?
• Does weighing my food on a food scale work for me?
• What times of day work for me to eat?
• Does it work for me to eat for reasons other than hunger, like boredom, stress, social pressure?
• Would learning to eat more mindfully be helpful to me?

The questions are universal but the answers are unique. It can be hard to find your answers. And it can be hard to follow even when you know what your answers are. By reviewing your past, especially your recent past when it comes to what, when, where, how much, how, with whom and why you eat, and what works and doesn’t work *for you* (not for anyone else) you can begin to form a rough draft of your own diet book.

Patrice and I can help you edit it, and then help you follow it.