The Rules

All diet plans have a set of rules. Hmmm. So let's make some rules for our diet plan, which is really not a diet, it's a way to change a fat mind into a thin mind, so the body will follow. So I guess our diet is a diet for your mind. :)

Anyway, I hate diets and I have always hated diets because there are so many "don'ts." (I guess I'm just a little rebel. But I saw Kirstie Alley on Oprah last week and she said she didn't want people telling her what to do any more, either. Go Kirstie! I think she's gonna make it this time.) So I like to put my rules in terms of what you can do. However, I do have 2 rules which are in the negative. Here they are:

Rule #1: Never eat unless you are hungry

Rule #2: Never eat before going to bed

That's it!

Of course, Rule number one has a corollary that is pretty cool (you're gonna like this one): Always eat when you are hungry! Talk about a great diet! That's pretty liberating!

I want you to work on understanding this, grasshopper. Meditate on it. Embrace it.

There is only one caveat: you have to eat real food. No preservatives. No junk. (We'll talk more about this later.)

Even Rule #2 has one exception: If you really are hungry, you may eat salad. Put dressing on it, of course. We are not rabbits. But no preservatives in that dressing, please. Be good to that body of yours.

Rule #1 and Rule #2. Get to know them. Get to love them.

Til next time,

Aren

I like to buy cheap videos at thrift stores.  One day I found one I couldn't resist.  It was made in 1990 and it's called, "Eating.  A Very Serious Comedy about Women and Food."  First let me say, it is not a comedy.  (That's an understatement.)   That said, I want to say what food is not, based on what the women said in the movie.

Food is not your lover (one woman called it an abusive lover).  Food is not your companion (another woman said it's like someone to come home to).  Food is not your friend (maybe a back-stabbing friend).  Food is not the answer to life's problems  (anger, depression, loneliness, anxiety, job stress...)

Food is, simply, FUEL.  That's all.

Please try to get your mind around this, because you will never be able to move on until you do.

Ok, I hear you saying, "but I really love to eat!"

Yeah, I know that!  Don't we all.  But you are so far from enjoying your food it's not even funny.  You will never "enjoy" your food until you de-personify, de-toxify, de-criminalize it.  After it becomes "just food"  then you can start to enjoy it the way normal people do.

I'm gonna use that word "normal" a lot.  Because you know and I know that thinking of food as a lover, a companion, an answer, is not normal.  

It's just food.