“Years of trial and error have taught us that changing the bad habits of the North American diet has more to do with reprogramming the will than the brain.”
This website has equipped you with sufficient nutritional data to construct the Perfect Diet. Nothing to it, just buy the correct foods and eat—if only it was that easy! If only all the ills of the North American diet were a mere lack of nutritional knowledge. If only you could sync your brain to these articles, like you do your Ipod, and get on with your bright future.
I am constantly amazed at the shelves of diet books that describe why the reader should stop eating harmful foods under the apparent assumption that they can do it. The fact is, most cannot. This explains why North Americans, while continuing to grow nutritionally educated, persist in growing fatter and sicker. Years of trial and error have taught us that changing the bad habits of the North American diet has more to do with reprogramming the will than the brain. And often the will can be stubborn when it comes to change.
If you are wired like me, your enthusiasm toward dietary change will be tempered by self-doubt. Most of us are familiar with failed fresh starts. Dealing with the emotions of change is where we need the most help, yet receive the least support. Eating disorders are about past hurts and bad habits, low self esteem, and escapism from depression, mild to chronic. Dietary change is so much more than what is happening to the body; the big story is how food affects our emotional state. We use food to feel good, especially addictive foods high in fat, salt, sugar and white flour. Junk food is today’s legal drug, and just knowing how bad it is for us is not the ticket to freedom. There must also be help on how to face the withdrawals of kicking the North American diet.
Much of the content in this chapter is a summary of my personal journaling over the last 16 years, entry upon entry, motivating myself on to the hard decisions necessary to obtain the goals set before me. The relentless cycle of trying and failing brought me to the understanding that something inborn had to be reprogrammed.
You may be happy to know that I have an addictive personality, and have dealt with a dysfunctional childhood, crippling insecurity and low self-esteem. These are the grist thrown between the millstones that have produced something useful, not just in my own life but to help others find their way to a place of freedom and gratitude. What was once a curse has become a blessing, for these experiences do not allow me to take the smallest mundane successes for granted. Each mouthful of freedom yields fresh joy of being alive.
Related Article: False Weight Loss Expectations