How to Survive Your Diet
and Conquer Your Food Issues Forever

by Linda Moran

Summary

This engaging read, pitched somewhat ironically as a "how to," is devoted to helping the chronic dieter to discover just how controlled he has been by the edicts and rules of others. Far from being a conventional diet book, it endeavors to free the struggling dieter from his own self-imposed, and other-imposed diet laws. The author, Linda Moran, succeeds in helping the dieter to help himself by restoring his own judgment and wisdom. In the "how to" genre, How to Survive Your Diet is unconventional.

As soon as you admit you want to lose weight, there's someone who wants to give you a rule about what you must do. You must exercise, you must count fat grams, you must eliminate bread, you must weigh your food, you must change your lifestyle, you must examine why you're overeating, and the list goes on. Over time, chronic dieters lose their sense of their own autonomy, self-determination, and even their body's normal, natural inclination to eat what it needs. The type of mind-set that develops in the long-term dieter is black-and-white thinking, perfectionism, and food passion, all of which actually contribute to weight problems and eating issues.

This book takes the viewpoint that most diet attempts end in failure because of distorted beliefs and self-talk of which the dieter is often unaware. Dieting itself, it turns out, distorts the dieter's beliefs and self-talk further. Beliefs such as "I must eat this fat-free waffle with no butter in order to get thin" interferes with the dieter's God-given ability to know what he needs according to taste.

To aggravate the situation further, many people who struggle with their weight are in a habit of eating in response to emotions and stress. Yet they're told that they have to unravel all those feelings before they can have any success. So now, in addition to all their other musts, they now have to visit their therapist regularly. This is frustrating for everyone, but perhaps especially so for men, who in many cases are even less aware of their feelings than women are.

The dieter believes that all these measures will be his diet saviour. It's no wonder dieters give up. They're exhausted! Yet the answer is simple. Moran argues convincingly that instead of examining your emotions or training for a marathon, the work lies in examining your self-talk, and in replacing it with more rational beliefs. Eliminating the musts is a good way to start.

This revolutionary advice shows you how to regain your autonomy, know what and how much you need at each meal, and how to deal with emotional eating without having to unravel your entire childhood, marriage, bad memories, or whatever else is bugging you. Without apology, the author suggests that the dieter attribute overeating to stress and greed. Stress comes from every corner of living, and cannot often be avoided, while greed comes at the end of the meal when you would like to keep eating because the food is delicious. Moran offers a simple, yet startling new way to think about greed and stress that will direct the dieter toward more rational self-talk.

This book doesn't tell you that you must not diet. Instead, it offers some general guidelines that will help you become the master of your diet, rather than its slave. And then it helps you figure out how to eat small, delicious meals with the goal of reaching rapid satiety. Finally, there is someone who can help us understand how to do portion control without being left hungry. Finally, there is someone who can help us re-gain control over our own lives and lose weight at the same time.

How to Survive Your Diet is a fun, interesting, light read, yet it's filled with important information. You will find this book "easy to swallow."

About the Author: Linda Moran is a licensed educator, freelance writer and mother of four. Her passion is in understanding how people think, learn, and stay positive. Having recovered from an eating disorder herself, Linda believes in the ability of everyone who wants to, to move away from food and diet focus and yet lose excess weight permanently. She uses principles of cognitive therapy to help her readers help themselves. Moran is the writer of the free, subscribable e-mail newsletter, Diet Survivors.™ This is her first book. Learn more about Linda Moran.

 
Medical considerations vii
Note to the reader xi
Introduction 15
Problems dieters commonly face 21
Beliefs about dieting 29
Resist greed and embrace stress 35
Popular diets analyzed 41
The Low-Fat Diet 41
The Weigh Down Diet 44
The Sugar-Free and Flour-Free Diet 46
The Zone Diet 49
The Low-Carbohydrate Diet 51
The Diabetic's Diet 53
Counting, Weighing or Measuring Diets 56
The Anonymous Diet 62
Gastric Bypass Surgery 65
Why do diets work for some and not others? 67
Oh, what the heck! 73
Stress is indeed tolerable 79
How children eat 83
Fine tuning for health 87
Be maintenance-minded 93
My story 99
A few more questions 111
In conclusion 121
Afterword 127
Recommended reading 129
Companion Web site 133
Diet Survivors™ newsletter 135
Index 141
Colophon 149

"How to Survive Your Diet" is published by Betterway Press.

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