Ask Dr. Schwarz

What am I doing wrong? I’m on my bazillionth diet and I’m afraid I’m just going to fail again?

Do you know how to change your anti- diet habits so you can make your diet really work?

When you diet you’re asking yourself to stop doing things that are central to how you operate. You’re asking yourself to change habits.

When you see a woman who has lost weight and kept it off, you can be sure she’s changed her habits. So your habits with regard to eating and weight need a makeover. It’s like renovating a house. You need to tear things down that aren’t working. It’s the same with habits. You need to tear down the old so you have room to build the new.

Here’s a five-point plan for quitting major anti- diet habits and building positive habits in their place.

1. Think before you act
   Catch your automatic responses to life’s ups and downs so you can break the habit of going to food without noticing. Give yourself a few minutes of thinking time before you go and eat.
    
2. Keep a cheating journal
   Write about your cheats. Who were you with? How were you feeling? Studies show that understanding the situation surrounding a cheat breaks the habit of letting one cheat snowball into diet failure.
    


3. Keep the diet at the top of your to-do list
   Remind yourself about what you need to do each day to get to your goal. This breaks the habit of letting everything under the sun interfere with your diet effort.
    
4. Reward yourself for steps along the way
   It’s essential to recognize small advances toward your goal. This breaks the habit of not giving yourself the credit you deserve. Rewarding the smallest efforts will reinforce your confidence and motivation.
    
5. Seek out support
   Break the habit of not asking for what you need. Tell people close to you what you are trying to do and how they can help. And if you need professional counseling, go for it.
    

Diet success doesn’t depend on luck or willpower or diet alone. It’s a process of personal change―and it starts with your habits.