A woman wrote to us with a question:

I have looked through your lists and cannot find anything that pertains to losing weight. Maybe you can help me with a phrase that I can use to stay away from chocolate and cakes. I am desperate, I cannot keep to any diets.

This was my response:

The first thing you can do is never again say to yourself or anyone else, "I cannot keep to any diets." Probably the biggest mistake people make when they're trying to lose weight is all-or-nothing thinking. Weight is best lost gradually. Impatience will undo your weight loss. If you are impatient or want it to happen quickly, cure yourself of that starting today. I am assuming you've read about the chapter, You CAN Change.

The point of the chapter is that just because you haven't been able to keep weight off on any program before, doesn't mean you won't on the next one. As a matter of fact, the more times you try, the more likely you will succeed. If you feel discouraged, work on undemoralizing yourself.

One thing you should never do is "go on a diet." If you want to lose weight, you should permanently change the way you eat and exercise. Diets are doomed to failure. If you do something for awhile to get your weight down, as soon as you stop and go back to doing what you did before, of course your weight will go back to what it was before. So work right now getting that notion out of your head. The only way to permanent weight loss is to change the way you live your life. Temporary solutions will create disheartening results.

To get down to a very specific recommendation about weight loss, the most important thing you can do right now (and permanently) is stop eating sugar and white flour. Arrange your life so that these things are no longer in it except maybe on very special occasions. If you do that, you will probably start losing weight, even if that's all you did. No sugar substitutes either! No artificial sugar. Not only will this help you lose weight, but it is healthy.