I keep going off my diet and getting back on, until one day I just don't get back on again. What can I do about this?

You had it right when you got back on again after going off your weight loss diet plan. You kept your slips as slips. Once you didn't get back on your diet plan, you had what clinically is called a relapse. In other words, you went back to your old eating habits.

Don't give up. Slips, even relapses, believe it or not, provide a great opportunity for developing better dieting skills. I am taking the broad view of weight loss when I say this, where losing weight is not simply about following a food plan, but a way of changing a lot about yourself as well.

What are these new skills that you can learn from falling off your diet plan? They are the skills that everyone who is trying to break from an unwanted habit has to learn. In a nutshell, they are recognizing high risk emotional situations and getting yourself ready to safely negotiate them. In other words, you can learn how to cope with the feelings and thoughts that certain social and personal situations bring up for you.

Is this what you were up against when you kept seesawing, going on and off your diet plan? What did you have to cope with that was throwing you off balance? Was it one thing or many? Can you list these triggers for your diet slips? And what was it finally that threw you off your weight loss diet plan and kept you off? Was it the same old thing, or something new? It's important to find the answers. You need to be able to identify and understand high risk situations.

Once you discover the triggers, you can then see if you have the skill it takes to cope with these triggers. If not, you'll need to develop the skill. This takes time, so it may be best to avoid these triggers until you are better prepared to deal with them.

Take the case of a woman who repeatedly eats snack food off her diet plan at night. Is there something about nighttime that's a trigger for her? Or is it the end of another long day where she's been under the strain of having to prove herself over and over? Does she then revive herself with emotional eating? Unless she can manage this high risk state of affairs, she is fated to being out of control, having unwanted dieting slips, and perhaps to eventual relapse into old pre-diet patterns.

So take heed. Discover what's up and then do something about it. If you need dieting support, go right to www.mariaslastdiet.com You'll find plenty of weight loss help and diet information. There is a lot to read about slips, relapse, high risk situations, and what to do about all of them.

© Maria's Last Diet. Maria’s Last Diet is an online weight loss support website for women. At Maria’s Last Diet, you’ll find the tools to fix the thoughts, feelings, and automatic habits that fight against you when you diet. Because it’s never just about the food. Visit www.mariaslastdiet.com for more diet tips and weight loss motivation.

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