Maybe it’s because you can’t get into last year’s clothes. Or perhaps photos or home video showed you up in all your stoutness. Or maybe it was hearing the doctor say, “There’s nothing at all the matter with you except you’re carrying too much lard around your bones.” Anyway, whatever it was that precipitated your decision, you’ve made up your mind to Do Something About It. If other people can take off weight, you tell yourself firmly, so can you!

But even before you begin your first day’s dieting, the ghosts of all your past failures hover over your plate. You feel impervious to temptation now, but a premonition of defeat is already nibbling away your determination. You’re licked before your start, and you know it!

Take cheer! You can stay on a diet! Oh, you’ll have a few pangs of hunger and occasional moments of discouragement, but if you’ll follow five simple rules, you’ll find that you have more will power than you ever dreamed possible. What’s more, they will help you change your diet from an endurance test into a fascinating game.

Rule 1. Find out the psychological basis for your overweight. Psychiatrist will tell you that there is a psychological factor back of almost every case of overweight.

Books, magazines, the Internet, motion pictures, and self-help lecturers keep pounding home the theory that people overeat to relieve boredom, to bolster inferiority complexes, soothe worries, and compensate for frustrations and disappointments.

A great many people, however, are like the middle-aged woman who recently complained to her physician, “I know that I eat too much simply because I’m lonely. I have too much time on my hands, and I eat because I have nothing else to do. But knowing the reason why I overeat doesn’t help a bit. I still seem to get just as hungry!”

Examine your own life and your own personality carefully; see if you can discover why you started to overeat. Uncovering the emotional anxiety that prompted you to adopt bad eating habits won’t make fudge cake suddenly look repulsive to you, but it will help you say no a little more easily.

Rule 2. Adopt a sensible reducing program. No diet is safe and effective that does not provide three meals a day, balanced to include the food nutrients your body requires. Forgo the fad “quickie” diets; instead, adopt one that is sensible and well-balanced, medically approved. Follow a sensible diet approved by your own doctor, and you will find that your body won’t force you to go on a fattening “food binge” every few days.

Rule 3. Keep a record of everything you eat. This is important and the key that helped me stay on a diet. Write down the food values. I always thought I could keep a mental record of my food, but not until I actually tabulated every mouth of food I ate, all through the day, did I realize how many ‘nibbles’ of food I was taking between meals. Follow this rule for a few days and you’ll be amazed at the way it helps you put the brakes on your eating habits. If you know you’re going to record it, you won’t be nearly so inclined to reach for that tempting cupcake or a spoonful of left-over macaroni and cheese.

And if you have dieted before, without satisfactory result, you may find, as I did, that it’s the little things that often make the difference between success and failure.

Rule 4. Don’t talk about your diet. It takes almost superhuman control not to talk about it, yet nothing can more quickly sabotage your chance for success. There are several reasons why you shouldn’t discuss your diet:

• First, talking about it keeps your mind on food. Your mouth waters, your gastric juices bubble, and you experience hunger pangs that wouldn’t be there if you were thinking about something else.
• Second, it gives too many people a chance to butt in. Is it well-intentioned interference? It doesn’t matter. People will try to undermine your self-control: “You’re not too heavy; you look just right the way you are,” or “Have another piece of pie; it won’t hurt you.” These comments make it hard to stay on target.
• Third, you become a bit of a bore by constantly talking about calories, carbohydrates, exercises, and measurements. People will avoid you.

Rule 5. Prepare yourself ahead of time for “off days.” Some days it’s easy—even fun!—to diet. But there are other days when you feel that it isn’t worth the effort and you might as well forget the whole thing. Prepare yourself emotionally in advance.

For instance, there will be times when, no matter how much you really want to follow your diet, you can’t do so without being rude. You’re invited to lunch or dinner and your friend has baked a chocolate pie especially for you, and you can’t refuse without offending her.

On these days, a dieter is inclined to throw all caution to the wind. “If I’m going to break my diet, he reasons, I might as well really break it!” This type of reasoning is silly. After all, two fattening meals are twice as bad for you as one!

When the situation forces you to abandon your diet—and such occasions are bound to arise—resolve, in advance, not to break it any more than you must, and get back on schedule the very next meal. Don’t wait until “tomorrow” or “next Monday.” Go back on your routine immediately. You’ll find the shorter the “lapsing” period, the easier it is to stick to your diet.

For several years I was in the habit of soothing my hurt feelings by eating a strawberry sundae every time I lost a bid for a training project. You can lick the emotional factor in overweight by getting ready for bad days ahead of time.

Prepare yourself for common pitfalls that plague everyone who tries to reduce. It’s twice as easy to reduce if you keep your spirits up as your weight goes down.

You can stay on a diet.

Want to bet?

Just follow these 5 simple rules.

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