The old saying is "Live and Learn",
but somewhere in my brain, there must be a disconnect,
that causes me to be "slow" when it comes to learning not to repeat
my mistakes involving food-intake. 

Frankly, Stupid, IS the word that accurately describes this mal-function.

I've chosen to make the same food mistakes in
the 50's, the 60's, the 70's, the 80's, the 90's, the 2000's,
and on occasion I find myself still doing it in the 2010's

I give myself a break for my behavior in the 40's,
because I choose not to hold myself responsible
for my overeating errors when I was a very young child.

I don't point this out to be negative.
It is just a fact of my life that I have learned to accept.
However, Acceptance of that truth
doesn't keep me from working to change my behavior.

A common behavior is to alternate between
being “good” at sticking to our chosen eating plan,
and being “bad” when one slips.

This can be a frustrating cycle for most of us,
especially when we consider how labeling our “badness”
with regards to our food behaviors creates a self-defeating attitude.

A change in our self-talk and thought will help us
change our attitudes about our eating, our bodies, and our weights,
which will help us to change our behavior.

In terms of weight-loss, our behavior is often an indication
of how we feel inside, which becomes reflected in how
we appear on the outside. When we feel good about ourselves,
we can’t help but become more attractive to others.
THIS is the Ultimate Goal…
to feel better about ourselves inside,
so that our bodies and our personalities will reflect confidence and light to others.

A few things I’ve found to be helpful are:

Be Supportive, Not Critical, of yourself.

People lose weight at different rates.
Weight may drop off quickly at first and then plateau,
or vice versa. One’s body composition may change,
even though their weight stays the same.

The important thing to keep in mind is that
long-term, consistent, and appropriate eating behavior
will bring positive results. Hard work will ultimately pay off.

Reward your Behavior, and not your Weight

People are used to rewarding themselves,
and being rewarded by others for losing pounds,
rather than for changing their behaviors.

However, it is far better not to judge one’s progress
by one’s weight…which is a RESULT of behavior,
but to focus on acknowledging to oneself
that during the week, or the day, or the hour….
one has successfully engaged in BEHAVIORS
which will be rewarded ultimately, at some unknown future time.

 Remember, our thoughts are what guide us to action,
whether they are positive or negative.

If we are self-depreciating in thought,
our behaviors will be unproductive,
and we will become discouraged easily.

On the other hand, if we ackn...

                             
Nothing is going to work if it isn’t convenient,
enjoyable, and not too difficult, or if it lacks the ability
to be a smooth integration into one’s daily life.
Having information on hand that addresses problems
that are associated with correct eating and exercise,
without putting oneself through torture is valuable.

Once equipped with little, but effective, changes,
one needs to look toward effective maintainable weight loss,
which requires a healthy state of mind.

Keeping oneself motivated and inspired is difficult,
and sometimes it can be helpful to read or hear
just a few words of wisdom to help one keep going.
This is what I am hoping to accomplish by my daily writings
here at DietHobby, and my short “Words of Wisdom” videos.

Anyone can easily read past articles by going to the ARCHIVES.
Also, under RESOURCES, Videos, Words of Wisdom
you can find more than 100 videos of inspiration
that are all less than thirty seconds long. 

I am hoping that my son will write me a code that will make
this into a "playlist", but until he does that,
you can access such a Playlist by going to my DietHobby YouTube Channel
and clicking the first "Words of Wisdom" video there.
This feature makes all the videos in that playlist run automatically.

  To inspire myself, I frequently go to DietHobby at YouTube and click
the first Words of Wisdom video, then let the list run through while
I do other things in the room.  In that way, I hear the inspirational sayings
back to back in about a ten minute time frame.

I usually hear at least one saying there that helps me with  my day,
and this process...repeated over and over, day by day....
helps to firmly implant those positive thoughts and
positive affirmations into my mind. 

I find this personally helpful. 
Perhaps it will help you also.

                
  The dictionary definition of bingeing is:

to be immoderately self-indulgent and unrestrained;
to engage in excessive or uncontrolled indulgence in food or drink.

I personally agree that Bingeing isn’t usually because of lack of self control and weakness.
We binge because of a complex interaction of habit, brain chemistry, and external cues that signal us to eat. This interaction can be overcome, but it's harder to do and takes longer to change than most of us realize.

In the 1960s the Health Profession began attributing psychological reasons, rather than physiological reasons to people who overeat to the point of obesity. Since that time, there has been a tendency on the part of Health Professionals to classify every kind of eating outside “moderate eating” as an “eating disorder”. There are many reasons for this…and one of them is financial motivation. Unless a behavior is labeled a “disorder” or and illness, health insurance won’t pay for treatment.

You may call me cynical, but since “Binge Eating Disorder” is far more common than anexoria and bulimia. It has a much larger population base. This means more patients to treat with Therapy, and/or Eating Disorder programs, and more money and more profit for that specific Health Industry field.

Binge eating disorder first appeared in the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, or DSM, in 1994. Until recent times, “Binge Eating Disorder” has been categorized under the umbrella term 'eating disorders not otherwise specified”, or EDNOS for short. EDNOS includes a wide variety of disordered eating patterns.
It's often used for people who meet many of the symptoms of anorexia or bulimia but not all. For example, a woman who meets all of the symptoms for anorexia,  but still menstruates regularly -- a criteria for an anorexia diagnosis -- would be diagnosed with an eating disorder not otherwise specified.

Health professionals admit that a Binge Eating Disorder is more than simply eating too much food, and that many obese patients don't have it. However still they claim that up to 5 percent of obese patients and 30 percent of patients participating in weight loss programs meet the criteria for binge eating disorder.

"It is important that clinicians and the public be aware that there are
substantial differences between an eating disorder such as
binge eating disorder and the common phenomenon of overeating,"
says B. Timothy Walsh, chair of the DSM-V Eating Disorders Work Group,
in a press release. "While overeating is a challenge for many Americans, 
recurrent binge eating is much less common and far more severe and
is associated with significant physical and psychological problems."

Proposed changes in the upcoming DSM-V, to be released in May 2013, would categorize BED as a specific eating disorder.
The proposed criteria require that episodes of binge eating, defined as:

“the consumption of unusually large amounts of food,
accompanied by a sense of loss of control
and strong feelings of...

Sharing some excellent advice that was given 
in response to the following question by one
member of a forum that I frequently visit to another member.

 “I have been doing so bad with my eating the last month or so.
I haven't been this heavy for about two years now.
Why oh why am I doing this???
I just can't control my eating at all anymore. Tears.....”

"I have been where you're at.
In my case I rode it all the way up to having over 30 pounds to re-lose.
Here are things that I think contributed to my weight gain.
I say "I think" because there may be things I haven't considered or that aren't obvious.  

1. I believed websites that told me
how much I "should" be able to eat to maintain my weight.
I wanted to be able to eat that much.
But, I found that I gain--maybe slowly, but I do.

2. I didn't realize that I am sensitive to how much
and what kind of carbohydrate I eat, in that above a certain amount,
I slip into a state where I want to eat even more carbs
and I always feel "hungry."
Once I got my carbohydrate levels under control
(and I don't mean eliminated--
I mean a certain target amount of mostly complex carbs every day!)
I found that I am not as hungry and feel much better.

3. I tried to make what had worked in the past continue to work.
I had a plan, and I had lost weight on it, so it should WORK, right?
Well, I could no longer stay on that plan for the length of time
necessary to lose weight. I would lose 2 pounds in 2 weeks,
then gain 3 in the next week because I couldn't stay on plan.
I tried to use this same plan again, and again, and again, for over a year!
You'd think I'd get the idea!
So, I had to try something different.

4. I was in denial about these things.
I thought it was just a matter of having enough "will power."
So when I couldn't make things work the way I wanted, I felt like a failure.
To put it simply, I had to admit all of those discoveries above.

Maybe this will give some things to think about.
Don't be afraid to try something you might never have thought of doing--within reason…"

One thing I'm doing this week, in my efforts to lose the weight I gained at VidCon,
is to try a different food plan.  I don't think the plan itself is that effective or unusual,
but I'm doing it because it is a change from the way I normally eat
and sometimes I find a change can be helpful. 

 Good luck to me, and to all of you as we go about our day.