Developing a positive attitude towards food, eating

Some of the problems encountered are:

• Most diets cannot be followed permanently; it is just not possible with all the food choices available and eventually the dieter becomes bored.
  
• If he/she manages to follow the diet religiously for the specified time, what happens afterwards? Once we then start to eat "normally" again, we simply pile on the pounds again, and a big negative is that if we eat considerably less than we should for a period of time (as with some of the diets followed), we wreak havoc with our metabolisms.
  
• As a result of slower metabolism caused by eating so little whilst on "diet", we gain weight easier than before the diet.

Diets therefore generally do not work very well; this is why it is imperative to start looking at food and eating in a different way.

It is possible to gradually develop a positive attitude towards food and eating; it is a case of eliminating negative beliefs, feelings of guilt, emotional attachment and self-imposed restrictions with regard to food. We need to learn how to see food in perspective - the primary reason why we eat is to stay alive; thereafter, to be healthy and finally (but no less importantly) to enjoy it - it is after all one of the greatest pleasures in life - why spoil it?

The irony is that once we have developed a positive attitude towards eating, weight problems will also become far less of an issue, because the need to overeat will diminish greatly. If you allow yourself to eat what you feel like, without thinking about the calories it contains, the need to overeat becomes superfluous.

A word of warning: changing a negative attitude to a positive one is not going to happen overnight, but it is worth it! It is a gradual process, but once the new, positive habits have been instilled, the benefits are enormous.