Choose You Blog

Regardless of how committed we are to a particular diet or healthy eating program, we always have to leave room for occasional guilty pleasures.  Try to focus on the “pleasure” part a guilty pleasures.  If you’re going to over indulge, at least enjoy every moment and savor every bite of your indulgence.

Here are some tips to help you avoid overeating and the guilt that often follows…

- Understand that food is not your enemy, it’s fueling your body and allowing you to survive.

- Attempt to enjoy all of your meals.  This is much easier if you choose a healthy diet plan that is based on foods you already enjoy.  For instance, if you don’t like to eat meat, don’t choose the Atkins Diet.

- Avoid diet plans that leave you feeling deprived and hungry.  You are less likely to fall off of your healthy eating plan if you’re not hungry all the time.  For more on this check out my BlogHer post What Is Your Eating Style.

- Try to maintain a positive attitude toward yourself and your diet.  Stop any negative self talk.  If you walk by a mirror, don’t tell yourself you look fat.  Also see my post Healthy Eating: Evaluating Your Success, Not Failure.

- Acknowledge all the times when you’ve done well.  Focus on all the times you have passed on a dessert, or drove by the fast food joint rather than go in.  Give yourself credit for your healthy eating successes, and don’t be too hard on yourself when you lapse.

- Attempt to figure out what your overeating “triggers” are, and then avoid them.  Here is more on food triggers by That’s Fit.

- Reducing stress in your life can help you avoid emotional eating.  For more on emotional eating check out my BlogHer post Your Mood and Food.

When it comes right down to it, guilt is just a perception not a fact.  It really is all in your head…No one is walking past you projecting guilt upon you for overeating, you are projecting the guilt upon yourself, and you can stop.  Negative emotions (such as guilt) only add to your desire to overeat.  Take your diet one day at a time…Every day you wake up is another opportunity to make healthy food choices, and leave any guilt behind.

*Catherine is the mother of two teenagers, she writes about health & wellness at BlogHer and catherine-morgan.com.