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I’m always filled with lots and lots of optimism when I start a diet. Before long though, my optimism doesn’t work and I fizzle out and leave all my good intentions behind. What can I do about this?

You may be surprised to hear that you can have too much optimism.

In fact, you may be overly optimistic because you think this will help you do better. Or, you may be over-the-top with optimism because you believe that by being so optimistic you’re goal to succeed will come true, as in a self-fulfilling prophecy. Perhaps you based your optimism solely on the great weight loss plans you’ve made, and you’re counting on these great plans to carry you to your weight loss goal. You might also be the kind of person who is being terrifically optimistic just because you are afraid to not be, optimistic that is. There are all of these possibilities and more for too much optimism.

Here’s the main question—is your optimism realistic? It can only be realistic if you consider your past experiences with dieting. Are your experiences filled with many diet failures? Are you afraid to think about that? Do you feel that these memories of failure will only drag you down, reinforce the bad, teach you nothing good, and interfere with what you’re trying to accomplish now? Putting these past diet experiences completely out of your mind in favor of a purely highly optimistic attitude will not work.

A weight loss plan, even one you make with optimism, should be as realistic as possible in order to be effective. Here’s how you can keep your optimistic outlook and make it more realistic too.

  • Use your past experience to plan and guide each part of your current weight loss effort
  • Make very specific links from the past to the present
  • Be sure to list impediments from the past that you’ll now be facing again
  • Think about past experiences that don’t justify your optimism and prepare for them to crop up again

Remember: Being optimistic is a very good thing, just as long as your optimism is informed by what you’ve been through in the past.


© 2007 Maria's Last Diet