Here I go again 😞

Start a food diary and never stop. Always log everything. Over your number? Log it. Wildly over? Log that too. Don’t know how many calories in that meal or dish? Make a good faith estimate and keep going. Never stop? Maybe someday, but don’t even think about that now.

Identify problems and solve them one at a time. They will be recorded right there in your food diary. Weight loss is mostly about problem solving and persistence. Try to make it about things to do rather than a bunch of don’ts.

Calorie counting works. But there’s a significant learning curve. Give yourself plenty of time to learn and adjust. It’s not just a matter of getting the scale to go down, we have to live with it. That’s usually the tricky part. Good luck.

What usually breaks the process? Do you go all out and then burn out? Do you restrict too much? Do you make huge sweeping changes then feel overwhelmed and go back to the usual? Is it that you're impatient when change isn't happening fast enough? Do you just lose interest? Is food satisfying an emotional need, and you remove it without introducing and alternate coping strategy? Is it because you feel socially challenged because you can't partake in social eating comfortably, go off the rails and one day leads to another? Do you feel like your habits are "too bad, too many, and too hard to change"? Are the foods you're choosing to eat not meeting your needs and preferences? Do you place too many rigid rules for yourself just because you heard you should do this or that without questioning how they will fit your life? Pinpointing the exact points of failure is the key to troubleshooting the process so you can improve on it this time.

Do the same things and you'll get the same results. There is no willpowering your way out of this. Flex your troubleshooting muscles, you got this!