A good friend of mine told me yesterday she lost 63 pounds in 90 days with the following diet plan. She would take off all her clothes in the morning and stand in front of a full-length mirror and yell at her fat body: “I hate you!” Then she’d shower, eat a small meal, get dressed and go to work — eat nothing for lunch — and when she returned home at night she would repeat her morning naked “I hate you!” ritual before she had a sensible dinner. She found success in her quest to lose weight.

My question is this: Will she be able to keep off the weight? Or will she slowly gain it all back as the nude “Woe is Me” diet flickers out in the breezes of her success? Is that kind of self-hatred really effective and healthy for the mind-body connection? Is she just shaming herself into a behavior she consciously does not want?

I have always found the best way to lose weight — and you get to keep all your clothes on and you get to also avoid all reflected images of yourself — is to repeat the following sentence during the day when temptation presses the hunger in your body: “I want to be thin.”

If you remind yourself you “want to be thin” then every decision you make will positively move you in that direction. “Would you like a Krispy Kreme donut?” “Why, yes, I would, but I want to be thin, so I can’t have one.” “One bite won’t hurt you.” “It won’t hurt me, but I want to be thin, so why waste a pinch?” “It’s your loss, lard body!” “Thank you for the offer, but I want to be thin, so please enjoy your naked mirror yelling routine later tonight.”

Losing weight is all about actively changing your mindset into a new good way of permanent thinking. You need to make a lifestyle change to keep the weight off your body and your mantra will eventually need to change to, “I want to remain thin” when you hit your goal weight. Dieting is only a measure of failure. Eating right foods and keeping your goal in mind will preserve your desire and mitigate your hunger for the rest of your life. It’s simple, really. Simple as a sentence.

23 Comments

  1. Hey I do that! Naked is the only way I convince myself of my flabbyness. I don’t think I shout. At least not out loud.

  4. Not so muuch and yes and no. If you have a wedding you have to attend in a week and don’t fit in your dress then naked yelling goes a long way to fitting you in. Then you gain it all back at the reception.

  6. Rach!
    Ha! I can see how that kind of hateful crash diet would work to slim you down fast for a wedding but it must also surely make you cranky and hungry.

  7. Cranky, yes. Hungry, always. I guess those are my perpetual states of mind so dieting or not dieting doesn’t matter much. Maybe surgery is a better way to get rid of the phantom weight that keeps haunting me.

  8. I’ve always been fascinated by those who choose surgery over self-control. I’m not talking about the grossly overweight people who have a serious genetic misfiring — I’m talking about those who you know could lose the weight on their own if they so wished like Star Jones and Carnie Wilson.

  10. I feel for you, Rach, I really do! Now if you’d just put down the Krispy Kreme now you wouldn’t have to pick up that scalpel later!
    😀

  13. Well, it seems like I’ve gotten hooked onto this blogging thing. Perhaps that because I haven’t had much human contact for the past few weeks (studying)
    I always wondered what the fascination with dieting was. I mean, as a guy, I’ve always preferred women with curves than the skinny ones. I think for women, dieting is more about impressing other women (in a competitive sense), than actually trying to be more attractive to men.
    Losing 63 lbs in 90 days is most certainly unhealthy. 1-2 lbs weight loss a week is generally the healthy rate viewed by the medical community. When you diet, your body lowers its metabolic rate in order to conserve energy. So the longer you diet, the harder it is for you to lose weight. In addition, any relapse in the diet, will result in an extra gain in weight (compared to before dieting).
    I personally have suffered from the opposite problem. I can’t gain weight. No matter how hard I try. Granted, I probably have the worst eating habits known to man. Somewhere during my life, I developed a dislike for eating.
    For many, eating food provides comfort. For me, eating takes effort (cooking, chewing, etc).

  14. Hello Angelo!
    We are happy to have you here with us. Please close your books. Study no more. Dedicate your life to commenting on this blog! Bwa-harr-ha!
    😀
    I used to be extremely attracted to women with lean bodies and muscles and then, as I aged and become wiser, I realized the real value of a woman’s body was not in her low body fat but in the historically pleasing curves that have been appreciated and celebrated over the centuries.
    A woman with a boy’s body is a strange thing to ponder — but there are a lot of straight men out there that prefer a body type similar to theirs.
    I agree her weight loss is too quick and unhealthy and it will likely all go back on and then some over the next six months. The triumph is only temporary. Her misery is forever.
    I’m with you on the want to eat. I’d prefer to pop a pill that would cover all my nutritional needs all day long and skip the preparation and the eating and the chewing. That said, can I interest you in a Krispy Kreme donut?

  15. Krispy Kreme? No thanks. As a Canadian, I’m partial to our own Tim Horton’s timbits (especially the powdered sugar coated chocolate ones).

  17. I personally haven’t seen them anywhere other than Canada. And they’re everywhere here. It’s like Starbucks and Seattle.
    Timbits are great. You know how donuts always have a hole in the middle? Well, in Canada, instead of wasting it, the timbit was born. No wonder we don’t have a trillion dollar deficit =)
    Plus it has the added advantage of NOT being deep fried 7 times, but misses that melt-in-your-mouth feeling.

  18. Hi Angelo —
    MMM… timbits sound really good… I’ll have to keep an eye out for a Tim Horton’s the next time I’m up thataway!

  19. Dunkin’ Donuts called.
    They said their munchkins preceded the timbits by 4 years in creation.
    Do you get to watch tim horton donuts (doughnuts) being made? At Krispy Kreme you do 😛

  22. Hi Gina!
    It’s super to have you with us and we thank you for taking time to post such a fun comment!
    Thanks for the bookmark!
    😀

  23. Just if anyone’s wondering, Tim Hortons isn’t only in Canada, they’re popping up all over in the east. I live in western new york and we have one on practically every corner.

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