"Perfection is a state of completeness and flawlessness."
While working toward perfection is acceptable,
expecting perfection is counterproductive, and unacceptable.

It is important to understand that perfection is not possible
in the areas of food and eating ...
unless perhaps, one is a devout monk living in total isolation.

Below is an excellent article on Perfection
written by Al Coon.

"Nothing done by humans is ever perfect. Nothing that you do, or that I do is perfect. There is always room for improvement. The belief that perfection is attainable creates a great deal of grief in people's lives. That grief comes in two common forms: 1) the internal perfectionist -- expecting perfection in oneself, and 2) the ever popular external perfectionist -- expecting perfection in others. Both forms of perfectionist can actually destroy lives, leaving wakes of destruction in their paths.

Being an internal perfectionist leads to a viscous circle of self-incrimination, depression and renewed determination to reach the impossible. Each failure leads to more shame and self-loathing. This is not from wishing to be evil or decadent, but from wanting to be perfect.

By striving for perfection, and foolishly expecting to reach it, such a person is doomed to fail before he even begins. It is like trying to sail a boat through a reef with no opening, it is impossible!

Since the internal perfectionist believes that perfection is possible, he only has one possible target for assigning guilt for the failure that was unavoidable. To him it is obvious, that he was not determined enough. He didn't try hard enough. He was no good. After a few cycles of doing this, the seeker of perfection will often find that he evaluates his own importance in the world, his own value, just below the scum that coats the bottom of a stagnant pool.

It is an outrage! Here is a unique and precious human being, who is striving, not to destroy others, or to do evil in the world, but to reach for the stars in search of the highest ideals. And all he gets for his trouble is the lash from a whip he holds with his own mental hands.

How much better off would he be if instead of believing in perfection, he would believe in improvement! Improvement is always possible, for anyone. Since perfection is impossible, that means that we all are imperfect, and therefore we all have room for improvement. Fortunately, the human mind is extremely flexible, and it can be programmed with better habits, which will produce improvement.

Since improvement is always possible, what makes sense for each of us, is to select some area that we would like to improve and then set to work to move in a positive direction for that area. The time to celebrate is when we actually see some improvement.

We should not wait until we reach perfection, or even until we reach a realistic goal before we celebrate. It is the movement in a positive direction that is of value. As long as we are moving, we are improving, and that means we are continually becoming better off than we were. That is worth celebrating!

Compare the difference in the state of mind between the internal...

It is important to be able to take care of oneself,
but there is a big difference between standing up for yourself
and expressing negative emotions.

Confrontation often isn't necessary.  
Simply examine your thoughts, and practice being present in the moment.

Quiet the anger or sadness with deep breathing.  
Step back from the situation that is troubling you.  
Realize that emotional eating will only add to your problems later on.  

Write out your thoughts and feelings in explosive detail
… but this is for your personal expression…
don't share what you've written with others.

It is critical to learn positive ways to deal with pain, sadness,
depression, and even the spaces that mean comfort or joy.  

We need to feel our emotions instead of suppress them.  
Take each new day and work from the inside,
and focus on the good that is inside each of us.

Meditation and prayer can both be very useful
for calming oneself down, and finding one's center.  

Use positive words about weight-loss and maintenance.
A positive vocabulary will help us make better food choices,
and in time, will help us achieve our goals.

Go for a walk or engage in another positive activity,
like listening to the Words of Wisdom Playlist
located in the RESOURCES section here at DietHobby.

Feelings come and go…both good and bad.
They will always be a part of us.
Purposely place your focus on Positive Thoughts,
and you will feel good a great deal more of the time.

Weight loss is a challenge that takes time.
A lot of time.
Weight maintenance actually takes forever.

Here is a copy of an excellent recent article
published in the New York Times Magazine on December 28, 2011

The Fat Trap
by Tara Parker-Pope

For 15 years, Joseph Proietto has been helping people lose weight. When these obese patients arrive at his weight-loss clinic in Australia, they are determined to slim down. And most of the time, he says, they do just that, sticking to the clinic’s program and dropping excess pounds. But then, almost without exception, the weight begins to creep back. In a matter of months or years, the entire effort has come undone, and the patient is fat again. “It has always seemed strange to me,” says Proietto, who is a physician at the University of Melbourne. “These are people who are very motivated to lose weight, who achieve weight loss most of the time without too much trouble and yet, inevitably, gradually, they regain the weight.”

Anyone who has ever dieted knows that lost pounds often return, and most of us assume the reason is a lack of discipline or a failure of willpower. But Proietto suspected that there was more to it, and he decided to take a closer look at the biological state of the body after weight loss.

Beginning in 2009, he and his team recruited 50 obese men and women. The men weighed an average of 233 pounds; the women weighed about 200 pounds. Although some people dropped out of the study, most of the patients stuck with the extreme low-calorie diet, which consisted of special shakes called Optifast and two cups of low-starch vegetables, totaling just 500 to 550 calories a day for eight weeks. Ten weeks in, the dieters lost an average of 30 pounds.

At that point, the 34 patients who remained stopped dieting and began working to maintain the new lower weight. Nutritionists counseled them in person and by phone, promoting regular exercise and urging them to eat more vegetables and less fat. But despite the effort, they slowly began to put on weight. After a year, the patients already had regained an average of 11 of the pounds they struggled so hard to lose. They also reported feeling far more hungry and preoccupied with food than before they lost the weight.

While researchers have known for decades that the body undergoes various metabolic and hormonal changes while it’s losing weight, the Australian team detected something new. A full year after significant weight loss, these men and women remained in what could be described as a biologically altered state. Their still-plump bodies were acting as if they were starving and were working overtime to regain the pounds they lost. For instance, a gastric hormone called ghrelin, often dubbed the “hunger hormone,” was about 20 percent higher than at the start of the study. Another hormone associated with suppressing hunger, peptide YY, was also abnormally low. Levels of leptin, a hormone that suppresses hunger and increases metabolism, also remained lower than expected. A cocktail of other hormones associated with hunger and metabolism all remained significantly changed compared to pre-dieting levels. It was almost as if weight loss ha...

      
I recently read that Life's greatest stresses come from unmet expectations.
Sometimes this is what keeps people from losing weight successfully
or maintaining weight loss.

We need to develop realistic expectations.
Things we see in television reality shows, like the Biggest Loser,
can give us unrealistic expectations about the amount of fat loss
that is possible for people who are dieting.

Even the "more reasonable" expectation of 2 to 2 ½ lbs of fat loss per week
isn't actually reasonable for the majority of people.
What is reasonable?
Many people who are 20 to 50 pounds or more overweight
can reasonably expect lose an average of 1 or 2 fat lbs per week,
IF they follow their dieting plan faithfully over time.

However, this rate of weight-loss doesn't usually occur
for those people who are a just a bit overweight, or at normal weight
and just want to drop lower in their weight range.
Some people are fortunate to lose ¼ to ½ fat lb per week
even when faithfully following a low-calorie food plan.

When starting a diet, most people expect to follow it.
Then Life happens.
Life has obstacles, and we need to expect them
in order to be able to handle them.

Expect to have multiple starts.
We could do well one week,
and then something happens that kills our daily plan.
It's important not to let that make us feel hopeless, helpless, defeated.
We need to have in the back of our minds,
alternate plans, like A, B, and C.
It's the people who are paralyzed in plan A who fall apart,
and find it impossible to sustain any kind of lifestyle change.

When we tell ourselves negative things,
and beat ourselves up for our imperfections,
we are our own worst enemy.

Substitute positive self-talk for negative self-talk
Each of us needs to come up with our own language of encouragement.

Just because you've achieved weight-loss
and are at your goal weight, doesn't mean you're done.
If you're thinking:
"I'm here, now I can be normal",
I have a news flash for you.

Normal means that we have to work at lower-calorie eating every day.
It can get easier with practice,
but we must surrender to the fact that this is necessary to do.
There's no negotiation.
You just go to another phase of your new lifestyle, and continue. 

                
At the beginning of every January
I pick some new food plan and experiment with it.
However, all this week I have felt indecisive.
Which food plan will I commit to?

While I'm thinking it over, 
I'm just doing the best I can to continue
eating whatever appeals to me,
in the smallest amounts possible
while writing everything into my food journal, DietPower. 

This is an acceptable plan, 
but I need a bit more for a little while,
after my excess Holiday eating,
to help me drop back down a bit. 

I think, for me, the problem is that described 
in that willpower book I'm reading.
I'm using all my willpower up because of my
enormous expenditure of time and energy
on my DietHobby YouTube Channel...
which now has over 3,000 subscribers
And I've now shot and uploaded over 250 videos.

My other current deterrant, 
is that this month I've hardly any time before
I travel out of state for my step-son's wedding,
which will be another vacation week.

Of course this doesn't excuse overeating,
and needs to be factored into my maintenance,
however, it does take motivation away from 
starting and committing to a new type of food plan.
So that part probably won't happen until the end of this month.

You might ask, why is this relevant to me?
I don't know.  
I'm just sharing where I am and what I'm doing
on my weight-loss and weight-maintenance journey.
Following through with what I need to do
isn't all easy and clear-cut, even after 6 years of maintenance
of a large weight-loss.