You want to lose weight. You need to eat and you should enjoy eating, so why feel shamed? What does guilt  do for you   anyway? It’s not as if the guilty feelings have prevented you from eating; guilt is only experienced while you are actually eating food or after eating. Guilt achieves nothing other than making you feel bad about eating.

And surely eating something really  luscious should make you feel good, not bad? After all, you eat for sustenance and when you are feeling well nourished you feel good. Enjoying good food is part of enjoying life. It should satisfy your taste buds as well as your need for nourishment.

I have heard  a lot of  people comment upon  how unfair it is that so many thin people seem to have the ability   to eat food which is heavy  in fatty calories and yet still stay thin , whilst they themselves manage to gain  weight simply by looking at a plate of lettuce leaves! But is this genuinely the case? Can you really eat any diet which you choose without thinking  about calories and still lose weight ? 

Yes, individuals  are subject to their own metabolic differences, which are also related to the amount and types of exercise which they partake in. But metabolism is not the only reason why some people put on weight and some  others do not.

Let’s examine ï»¿ for a moment the habits and thinking processes of those people who seem to eat whatsoever they want without gaining weight. You will usually find that they eat comparatively slowly, and savor the taste of the food which they are eating. You will also notice that they do not tend to overeat; once quenched they stop eating. They do not suffer pangs of guilt and neither do they think that they should not eat particular types or amounts of food. Their minds are not tied up or restricted by a diet mentality.

If you consider the people who complain of  gaining   weight at the mere sight of food, you will usually notice  that they are preoccupied with thoughts about food and ideas about what they should or should not have. They perpetually feel guilty and so cannot amply enjoy the food which they should be enjoying. And herein lies one of the key issues; if you do not allow yourself to enjoy the food which you are eating, you will not feel satisfied, because gratification is not merely based on nutritionary value alone.

To feel fully satisfied with your meals you need to savor the taste, smell and texture of the food which you are eating. You need to enjoy it and there is also evidence to support the requirement of a range of tastes within your meals. Thus if you limit yourself to a boring diet you will not feel satisfied, and if you do not allow yourself to enjoy your meal , you will not feel satisfied.

It’s no sectret what happens when you do not feel full ; you reach for more and more and more. Ironically, even whilst you reach for more food, because you are feeling guilty and not fully enjoying it, you do not fully evaluate what you are eating and it is easy to kid yourself into thinking that you are not actually eating very much. Your vision becomes misrepresented. And needless to say, until you fully experience what is happening you are not in a position to do anything about it.

To lose weight successfully you have to get back to enjoying your food without feeling guilty, and to do this requires you to learn to think in a different way.