Are you a diet-oholic?   There are strategies that we can implement to help us overcome the “Diet Addiction”.

1.  Eat mindfully.  Be aware of what you are eating and make each selection you “choice”.  Don’t beat yourself up if some days the selection is better than others.  Aim to eat healthfully 75% of the time.  Take responsibility that the choice is always up to you.

2.  Learn what healthy eating really is.   Eat a variety of fresh

, real food.

3.  Eat real food.  If you can’t pronounce it, don’t eat it.  The best food choices don’t have a label.  Our bodies are made to use food, not chemicals.  I read the ingredient label first.  If the label takes up half the package, it probably has a lot of junk in it.

4.  Never eat anything with the word “diet” on the label.  This is another way of saying this product is loaded with crap.  I recently saw “Diet Water” on the store shelf.  As opposed to high calorie regular water?  Reading the label, I found that  it was loaded with artificial sweetener, artificial flavor and other chemicals.

5.  Never eliminate a food group from you diet.  Fat, protein and carbohydrates are called “essential nutrients” because they are all essential for good health.  Any diet that eliminates or extremely restricts any one of these groups is not a healthy diet.

6.  Don’t make anything off limits.  If you’re like me, if someone tells me I can’t have something, I want it all the more.  Give yourself permission to have the occasional treat and you will be surprised the cravings aren’t nearly as great.

7.  And the hardest one of all–don’t read the latest diet book from this weeks popular guru or turn on the TV when the newest “miracle” weight loss plan is announced.   You will only receive conflicting information, mis-information and end up more confused in the long run.

Food is to nourish our bodies, repair our cells, give us energy and most of all it is to be enjoyed.  If we can ignore the media and eliminate the “diet brain”, we will all be healthier and much happier.