STOP USING FOOD AS MENTAL NOURISHMENT

If you're like me, it's very easy to use food (or alcohol) as a reward for a good day - let's celebrate - or solace for a bad one - I really need that drink! How many times have we heard, and used, those justifications? Give all that up. Food is about physical, not mental, nourishment. 

EATING AS A HABIT

Understand that a large part of your eating is a matter of habit. We're used to having a cocktail before dinner, or a cookie with our lunch. Replace bad habits with new, and better ones. Sugar, for instance, is a habit, and an addiction. Know that you can break that habit, or that addiction, in a matter of (for me, at least) less than a week. Once you've been consuming healthy food for six weeks, you will have established new, and better habits and be well on your way to losing weight and living a better, healthier life style..

BE "IN" YOUR PROCESS, NOT "OF" IT

Once you're started your diet program, Instead of saying that you're "going" to lose weight, assume you're losing it. Use active verbs: "I'm losing weight." Tell yourself this every day and the weight will come off. Be IN the process, not OF it.

WEIGH YOURSELF

In my days at Weight Watchers, we were weighed every week but, in my book, that's not good enough. If I weighed myself only once a week, I couldn't adjust my daily intake based on what my weight told me. Weighing yourself every day, at the same time, and under the same conditions, will help to guide your through your daily routine. If you find that you've gained a pound or two, you can be more careful for the next few days. Weighing yourself every day prevents losing control over your weight loss. And it's a daily reminder of your dedication to your program.

DRINK LOTS OF WATER

Medi-fast recommends that you drink eight to ten glasses of water every day. This is much easier than it sounds. If you take pills in the morning and at night, as I do, drink a whole glass of water each time. At twice a day this is already 25% or the recommended amount. Then drink a full glass with lunch and one with dinner and, if like me, you have a mid-morning snack and a mid-afternoon one (to keep your metabolism revved up), drink a glass with each of those. I just keep a glass of fresh water with me all the time, drinking at regular intervals. Water flushes out the system, and while it may take you to the bathroom more often than usual, revel in all the lost weight that is going down the drain. Drink LOTS of water. (It's also good for the complexion.)

Stay tuned.

"ADVERTISE" THAT YOU'RE LOSING WEIGHT

"Advertise" that you're losing weight or, if you haven't started, that your going to. Tell your friends and family. They can help, instead of hindering, your progress. And you'll find your commitment to yourself strengthened by your avowed, and public, commitment to others. Tell every body.

BE PREPARED FOR MINOR DISAPPOINTMENTS

Most goals, whatever their nature, are not achieved in a straight line but deviate, from time to time, into the many miscellaneous curves of life. Understand at the beginning of your diet that somewhere in the process you'll probably plateau; there may come a time when no matter how dedicated you may be, you'll seem to be stuck and the weight is no longer coming off. Don't be discouraged. Just keep on keeping on. You'll find that suddenly, you'll lose some more pounds, and perhaps a lot of them.

On the other hand, you may also be tempted to deviate from your diet by something so attractive you just cannot resist, like me, with my recent indulgence in a tuna noodle casserole. Even though it had all the essential elements of good health - protein, dairy, vegetables and carbohydrates - the combination was not a recommended meal. Still, I couldn't turn it down.That's okay, so long as you (and I) don't do it often. But when you fall, get right back on the horse. Don't allow a momentary indulgence seduce you into stopping your program.

Be prepared for minor disappointments. Accept them and move on. (I think I'll go prepare some Medi-fast mac and cheese for lunch.)