<p>“The Cardinal Fang Pastry Diet” - for a moment, I thought you were talking about the French Diet 
You know, the one that has only two components: cake and sex. If the diet does not result in weight loss after a week, omit the former and just proceed with the latter. ;)</p>
<p>CF and DT: I found the book [Switch:</a> How to Change Things When Change Is Hard: Chip Heath, Dan Heath: 9780385528757: Amazon.com: Books](<a href=“http://www.amazon.com/Switch-Change-Things-When-Hard/dp/0385528752/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1379003909&sr=8-1&keywords=switch’]Switch:”>http://www.amazon.com/Switch-Change-Things-When-Hard/dp/0385528752/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1379003909&sr=8-1&keywords=switch’) incredibly useful in trying to make changes to my life. Another book I’ve found very useful is [Don't</a> Shoot the Dog!: The New Art of Teaching and Training: Karen Pryor: 9781860542381: Amazon.com: Books](<a href=“http://www.amazon.com/Dont-Shoot-Dog-Teaching-Training/dp/1860542387/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1379003960&sr=8-1&keywords=don’t+shoot+the+dog]Don’t”>http://www.amazon.com/Dont-Shoot-Dog-Teaching-Training/dp/1860542387/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1379003960&sr=8-1&keywords=don’t+shoot+the+dog).</p>
<p>Switch is about how to change businesses, but a lot of the advice also works for changing the way things are run in the household, which in turn can change your eating habits. I decided, after reading Switch, to try to add one more walk to my day; it took months but DH and I now walk the dogs about a mile almost every evening before bed. </p>
<p>Don’t Shoot the Dog is about training dogs (and anything with a brainstem) using positive methods. I have used many of the methods in the book to train myself by focusing on rewards instead of punishments. Small example: instead of “I can’t have chocolate” I think “I can have chocolate if I bike over to the store and get it.” </p>
<p>As for dealing with that enormous plate of pasta: ask the server to bring a box when s/he brings the food. Divide it in half then. Hand the box to someone else to take home.</p>
<p>My advice, FWIW:</p>
<p>Don’t buy food that you think you can’t resist. If it’s not in the house, you can’t snack on it in the house.</p>
<p>When outside the house, try to avoid places where you would be exposed to food that you would eat, that you don’t want to eat. Avoid that conference room with the free food, walk on the other side of the street so as not to pass too close to the doughnut shop, the Starbucks, the convenience store, or whatever purveyor of deliciousness you want to avoid. </p>
<p>Incorporate more exercise into your daily life. Ride or walk to work, or at the very least don’t insist on parking three steps from the door of your business or the grocery store.</p>
<p>Don’t rely on willpower. We all like sheep have gone astray; willpower doesn’t work. Well, it works to resist temptations if you aren’t actually tempted by them. But it doesn’t work if you are tempted. Especially at the end of the day, when you might have already used up all your willpower resisting yelling at your boss or your child, or ramming that annoying driver with your car, or swiping office supplies, or whatever. Instead of willpower, use systems. </p>
<p>Portion control. Yeah, Pizzagirl and others are completely right; portions. But be realistic: you’re not going to spend your life subsisting on a grape and a lettuce leaf. (Not accusing you of being unrealistic about portion control, Pizzagirl.)</p>
<p>And here’s one more idea. There’s an experimentally verified result that at some point, once we cross the line and finally give into temptation to a medium amount, we slide downhill rapidly into what-the-heck mode. This is true for food, and for other losses of willpower as well. So for example, we forgive ourselves for having one cookie, and consider ourselves still dieting, but if somehow we end up having five cookies, we get in the mode of “what the heck” and follow the five cookies by half a pizza and a large milkshake. We’ve completely fallen off the wagon and are bingeing.</p>
<p>So my idea is to plan to restart the diet every Sunday (or whatever day works for you). Know that it’s possible that you might fall off the wagon, and just plan to completely forgive yourself and start again every Sunday morning (or Monday, or whatever).</p>
<p>I have found that for me, I am able to resist temptations and stick to a diet ONLY when my need to be thin is stronger than my need for something delicious. </p>
<p>Motivation is everything. </p>
<p>Sometimes I need to have a tangible thing, like fitting into a dress for an upcoming event or a bathing suit for a vacation, or even just getting on a scale at weight watchers or my annual doctors visit. Sometimes I have to create motivation by making rewards (nonfood) when I attain a certain weight, like a clothing splurge or booking a Swedish massage. </p>
<p>This “carrot” is what I keep in my head when I am passing the bread basket at the restaurant.</p>
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<p>Yes, great idea. There’s a place I like to go to, which I call the Rocks. When I get there, I usually have a nice treat, often my favorite expensive buttery sugar cookies, a treat that I keep in my bike bag so they’re not around to tempt me in the kitchen. The Rocks is 2600 feet higher than where I am now, up a steep hill. So I can reward myself for having a nice ride with two or three delicious cookies, and not feel bad about it.</p>
<p>How about starting back on the better eating plan (I don’t like the word diet) the minute after you binge??? Why would you wait until a certain day to hit the “restart” button??</p>
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<p>Because it doesn’t work that way. If it did, you’d start on the better eating plan before you binged. You need something external to yank you out of binge mode. This is the same reason why Catholics have confession and communion: you have a time where you can wipe the slate clean and start over, acknowledging your former trespasses and putting them behind you.</p>
<p>I agree that it’s about changes in behaviors. I may have half of something that I might have had 3 of before. And, on occasion, I might still have 3- but I’m aware of what I’m doing instead of shoveling it in without thought.</p>
<p>I have spent the last year (while losing 33 pounds) (and about the same yet to go) obsessively researching what methods work to lose weight. All of the research boils down to “eat less, move more.”</p>
<p>That said, the next level of research is about methods for eating less. The old standby of “eat breakfast” turns out not to have research behind it; there’s some new research that indicates that people who skip breakfast do eat more at lunch, but not that much more. Other researched methods include eating more often but less at any given time; keeping a food diary, either on paper, online, or photographically; going public (telling people); fasting one or two days a week and eating carefully the other days. </p>
<p>Then there’s the methods for moving more. Lots of advice out there on slipping exercise into your day. There is evidence, however, that interval training (hard, intense, short duration exercise at close to your max heart rate) reduces appetite more than slow steady exercise (like long walks). </p>
<p>I am a person who believes in “show me the evidence”. I have done these research-based things to change my eating patterns:</p>
<p>*eat at set times of day
*eat off smaller plates and from smaller bowls
*drink water before every meal
*when weather-appropriate, soup as part of dinner (or all of dinner)
*snack on fruit or vegetables (which I prepare and put at the front of the refrigerator at eye level)
*put luxuries like chocolate, nuts, and crackers in a cabinet that I can’t reach without getting a stepstool, which is stored in the basement
*keep a food diary</p>
<p>For exercise recording, I added a Fitbit.</p>
<p>I keep a virtual sticky note on my computer desktop with all the reasons I want to lose weight. I read it every morning.</p>
<p>Drop grains and sugar. You will lose weight.</p>
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<p>For myself, I find it works best to jump back on the wagon immediately, not wait til Sunday (or Monday or whatever). Put it behind me immediately.</p>
<p>“I have found that for me, I am able to resist temptations and stick to a diet ONLY when my need to be thin is stronger than my need for something delicious.”</p>
<p>I am not a particularly vain person (known to walk out of the house with unshaven legs - scandalous!!!), but I find it really handy to have a couple of Needess Markup lingerie lookbooks and Athleta swim catalogs on my dining table. Flipping through those pages definitely kills any instant desire to shovel chocolates and Haagen Dazs into my mouth. :)</p>
<p>dmd, thank you for the book link. It will make a great gift for a friend.</p>
<p>I hate to exercise. If I go to the gym, I spend my 20-30 minutes on the elliptical watching the clock. I hate running. All exercise is a chore in my book. I do it only to combat 53 years of gravity. I hate sagging flesh more than I hate exercise.</p>
<p>I completely changed my eating habits by taking it one choice at a time. If I’m hungry (genuinely hungry, not bored or sad) I go to the fridge, maybe I can choose between cake and an apple. I ask myself, “that cake looks good, but do I really HAVE to have it right now? Or could I eat the apple and save the cake for another day?” 95% of the time, when I put it to myself like that, I can painlessly choose the apple. The other 5%, I can have the cake and feel guilt free because I picked the apple all the other times. Sometimes a girl just has to have her cake!</p>
<p>I have been eating healthy for almost a year now, but the last couple weeks I went hardcore and really cut EVERYTHING remotely “bad” out of my diet cold turkey, in preparation for choosing my wedding dress. I have NEVER been a binger even when I was 50lbs overweight and in the week after I bought my dress I binged like a fiend and ate nothing but garbage. The moment you tell me I CAN’T have something, I HAVE to have it. So I don’t make food be about “good” and “bad,” I make it about “now” and "maybe later. " That works for me.</p>
<p>My fianc</p>
<p>Dmd, thanks for sharing the resources. CF and I have our own inefficient way of communicating. I’d say we’ve both learned from one another over the years, even if it is something of a love/hate relationship. ;)</p>
<p>I hope the discussion didn’t cause anyone here unnecessary stress. Seems like the friction may have helped lead to some interesting posts with great ideas put out there. 
And I extend a virtual hand to CF, which I think she knows is always there, part of why I think I’m the one who bears the brunt of frustrations with various people in life at times. They figure I can take it (usually true, but not always).</p>
<p>Deborah T, thanks for putting up with me even though I’m difficult and snappish. And yes, I certainly have learned from you over the years. Thank you for that as well.</p>
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<p>Another option is to come up with ways to manage your “spaces.” For example, I used to bring nothing for lunch, then I’d go into the break room, there would be donuts or other junk, and I’d nibble on stuff and never be satisfied. Now, I make it a point to bring my lunch - typically a salad with protein, Greek yogurt, apples with Babybel cheese, as well as to have other things on hand to eat. Managing this “space” makes it easy to avoid temptation. I’ve also noted that I’m an emotional eater, but better I emotional-eat on an apple than a candy bar.</p>
<p>As well, it may be ok to consider changing strategies. I used to get a venti pumpkin soy latte from SBX nearly every day - iced in summer, hot in winter. (OMG, it’s good.) Now, I’ve decided that I’m going to get a venti iced coffee with sweetener, which satisfies my need to sip on something, and then once a week I treat myself to a tall skinny hazelnut latte. Once I started doing this mindfully, I realized that I really only needed a tall latte (not a venti) to be content. </p>
<p>I agree 110% with abasket regarding doing this mindfully.</p>
<p>Well I’m definitely not getting on any bandwagons till Monday. Birthday this weekend. :D</p>
<p>For me, having lingerie catalogs would just make me depressed. There is no way I will ever be able to get into that stuff, much less look good in it. Body parts have changed from carrying all this weight and are not going to shrink much more, no matter how much exercise or healthy eating I accomplish.</p>
<p>I focus on the health reasons for getting my weight down. I want to stay alive – that is a pretty compelling reason to me for watching what I stick in my mouth!</p>
<p>I have learned I have trigger foods – if I have them, I slide down the slippery slope. I find it easy to avoid chocolate and candy, but if someone brings a bag of Doritos in he house… Pizza is a big trigger. So are Costco chicken bakes.</p>
<p>My problem with nuts and cheese is that I can’t just eat a handful of nuts or 1-2 oz. of cheese. It turns into massive quantities. Too much of a good thing can be bad, too!</p>
<p>For the past month, if I am craving a snack, I go out and pick cherry tomatoes out of my raised bed. Think I’m planting two of those next year…</p>