A Bullet Which Must be Bitten--But Take Heart, it Has, Eventually, a Creamy Filling!

Like Lauren said in her most recent post, The Death of Freestyle Eating (a MUST read!) "The good news is that you never have to go on a diet again. How you eat with the ELEM becomes your new normal."

I got fat by eating as much as I wanted of whatever I wanted whenever I wanted. That sort of "freestyle" eating--the kind I unthinkingly indulged--is what I had to accept must end for good--which meant a whole new mentality about eating had somehow to be formed in my head. It meant also that all new eating habits had to somehow come to take the place of that old "anything-goes" approach. In short I had to come up with a "new normal." That's exactly what the ELEM methods helped me to embrace--and am I ever glad I did!

I'll be the first to say it wasn't easy--especially at first. In the beginning it seemed a lot like torturous withdrawals to not eat all I wanted whenever I felt like it. But I was determined to find a new way of eating which I could adopt as a permanent lifestyle. The ELEM-6 Diet fit the bill. It fit because I was able to craft it to suite myself and my specific personal preferences.

It is good that it took me ten months to reach my weight goal. Those months were necessary in order to retrain my brain and to adopt new eating habits. Habits which now feel familiar and normal and which I I know I can maintain for the long term--the rest of my life. I have now been maintaining my ideal weight for three-and-a-half months. In the days ahead I'll be sharing what I have learned/am learning about maintaining one's weight loss. As you might guess, ELEM continues on even after the pounds have been shed. But know what? ELEM and I are now on friendly terms and I think this could be the beginning of a beautiful relationship...