For those of you still clinging to the hope that a diet will save you...

Please do me a favor and pick up a copy of the book In Defense of Food. I will confess that I am only 50 pages into the book, however, I have learned a ton about the U.S. culture of being concerned with nutrients and health, as opposed to taste, dining, the experience of food.

The author makes the distinction between real food and imitation food (margarine, Cheez Wiz, low-fat snack cakes that actually have a shelf-life longer than the warranty on my car. How certain macronutrients have been vilifies (protein by Dr. Kellogg of corn flake fame, fat as the scapegoat for heart disease and cancer even though there was good science to prove other wise).

The author puts forth the position -- Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.

What if you adopted this as your guiding principle? You wouldn't have to worry about what you were eating because there isn't a magic formula. You don't need to try to get the balance right because balance is inherently right. These are common sense thoughts -- not too much food -- make sure it is really food (at least most of the time). Eat a lot of plants.

If this was your criteria for eating, how would it change how you shopped at the grocery store? You would spend more time in the produce aisle. You might spend more time preparing your foods at home -- but honestly, it might be more energy preparing dinner but I bet it wouldn't be more time that it takes to run through the drive thru to pick up dinner and bring it home.

The author's principles would change how you looked at a menu at a restaurant. Gone would be the thought that this has too much fat and you just shouldn't have that. If you are eating 600 calories of something -- it is 600 calories and it doesn't matter where the calories come from.

I believe that your acheiving a healthy weight comes down to learning to enjoy your food more and eat less of it. No magic bean. No magic fat burning food combinations. As a nation, we eat too much. We don't eat what would really make our hearts sing, is fabulous. Go for fabulous, my friends. Open the menu and experience the pleasure of looking it over to see what looks the most delicious. Having high fat food won't kill you (otherwise there would be no one left in France) -- you just need to enjoy it more and eat less of it.

We have tried to eat less in the past -- maybe you should consider trying the "Eat only what is Fabulous" diet. If it doesn't look/taste/smell fabulous, don't eat it -- save those calories for something that is fabulous. Eat and enjoy.

Simplify

How much chaos is there in your life? Does your house or your desk at the office feel cluttered and chaotic?

How about your eating? Does it feel like you are always trying to make decisions between what you should eat and what you want to eat? Constantly trying to decide if you “can” have the desert or another helping of dinner?

If your office or desk is cluttery, what advice would you get from your friends? I would tell you to go through your stuff and throw out (or at least box up) anything that is not useful or does not bring you huge amounts of pleasure to see. All of the little knick-knacks given to you over the years that you didn’t know what to do with so you set it on your shelf and now there is a hundred of them (pain in the neck to dust under and you can’t even look at them individually because there is so many…sound familiar?) Get them put away and start over!

The same goes for eating. Lots of the eating we do is just because it is there. We don’t necessarily want to eat -- it is just the path of least resistance. It is not wonderful, it is just there.

My suggestion? Take a look at your food journal. Figure out what (or when) you have been eating that hasn’t been for hunger (useful) or truly brought you pleasure. “Box” those up those foods or times. Get rid of them! Make a commitment to eat only those calories that add value to your life.

Analyze what you are about to eat and ask yourself “Is this useful or truly going to bring me huge amounts of pleasure?” If it takes more than a split second to answer, you can safely say that food is neither useful nor pleasurable enough – it will just be adding to the chaos and clutter of your life. Throw it out. Simplify.