If You're Tired Of Dieting, Please Read This!

Like many women over 40, I’ve experimented with a wide variety of weight-management strategies since my teens, including near-starvation, bingeing, deprivation, limiting myself to certain food groups or only eating at certain times of the day, never snacking, only snacking, sugar-free, fat-free, carb-free, fruits only, veggies only, food combining, over-exercising, under-exercising (usually when I didn’t eat enough to have any energy), living on Diet Coke (ugh!) and the list goes on. I am sure I have forgotten some of them. Aside from gaining weight during three pregnancies (and far more than the “healthy” level for the first two) and consciously losing it afterwards, my weight has usually been “average” with a few highs and lows. Since I am fairly tall (5’8), a few extra pounds are easier to carry. Being underweight was more obvious as my long limbs looked longer than usual and along with that came comments (usually from my parents) about not eating enough. If I were totally frank with myself, the reasons I had such an unhealthy relationship with food had a lot to do with some bad childhood habits that blossomed into teenage weight gain and the dreaded freshman fifteen in college, resulting in the usual self-esteem issues for a young woman trying to find her real adult self.