It's Groundhog Day!

I've settled nicely into healthy eating mode. Beats me why I couldn't have accomplished this lifestyle two weeks ago, or two months ago, or two years ago, rather than peering over my ever-protruding stomach, to read the ever-advancing record of weight on my bathroom scale. It's a hard psychology to understand, let alone explain.

At the Nutrition Seminar on Saturday, one of the other attendees commented, "I tried eating what I should all day yesterday, and by the end of the day, I was a miserable person. I know I am supposed to feel hungry, but I don't want to feel angry!"

Her comment struck a chord with me, possibly inspired by the Geneen Roth books I've been reading. Roth believes that the reason people are overweight, is because they have learned to ignore the signals that our bodies send us. Our bodies tell us we're hungry, and we either try to ignore them or we gorge ourselves. Our body tells us we're in emotional distress, and we give it food, because that's one way of addressing the emptiness.

But are we supposed to feel hungry? I spoke up, "It's interesting. When we feel thirsty, we drink to quench our thirst. And that's OK. But when we feel hungry, we feel guilty, and try to ignore the feeling."

The nutritionalist may have misunderstood where I was going with this. I wasn't just saying that we sometimes mistake thirst for hunger - and yeah, that's true - which is why it's a good idea to be hydrated, and to reach for a glass of water instead of a PopTart.

But if I've learned anything from WeightWatchers and my own reading about nutrition, I can lose weight and not feel hungry. I can make healthy food choices, and satisfy my hunger, guilt-free. I can feel happy about those choices, which you'd think would be self-reinforcing and would propel me towards more and more healthy food choices!

I wish... That works - for a while... But once I get off-track, it's much more likely to be a self-perpetuating cycle of just one more Cadbury bar.

But like Bill Murray in Groundhog Day, I will keep trying until I get it right!