The Paradox of Dieting

Maintaining my weight has not led me to the 'normal' way of eating as I had hoped. The kind where you eat when hungry, stop when pleasantly satisfied (or 80% so as the French claim) and don't think too much else about it. Food is the way to fuel your body.

For me it has become a rotating pattern of sequential dieting initiatives. The irony is that at the start of a new such initiative (or eating plans as I am trying to call them now) I find myself browsing the supermarket, not for a sensible balanced weekly shop, but instead for things for me to eat that are consistent with my current plan of attack. 

It amuses me to look into my cupboards and see residual evidence of a catalogue of diets past. 

There is oat bran (from the Dukan days), gluten free stuff (from gluten free diet), slimfast bars (from SF diet obv), surplus eggs, cold meat and yoghurt (low carb), green tea (6 wks to OMG) and sugar free jelly sachets, tinned fruit and snak a jacks from calorie counting plans and frozen ready meals from the last Weight Watchers assault.

It is a design fault with diets that you immediately pay so much attention to food and eating. As I load my basket with low calorie options: melon, tomatoes, carrot sticks, soups, ryvita, tortilla wraps (to make "pizza") and snacks (chocolate mini mini rolls)  I am surprised to find so many diet friendly options. In fact having so many in stock makes it easy to forget 

1. Not to eat them all at once 

2. No food is 'free'. Everything has calories

3. Having more will not make me less

The aim of the game has to be to focus on what I am not eating, rather than what I can eat. I'll repeat that mainly for my own benefit:

Focus on what I am not eating, rather than what I can eat. Here goes for another week.