Dieting: Would you like guilt with that?

I'm starting to think about dieting again. I've kind of gotten into this cycle of dieting a few months before my next doctor's visit. That way my extremely dour doctor (I call him Dr. Chuckles) won't be quite so dour. Then for the few month after my doctor's visit I can be a little freer about what I eat.

So far it hasn't worked out too badly. I've lost the weight I wanted to before the doctor trip and, since I wind up seeing my doctor in the months of November and May, I can eat what I want to eat during the Thanksgiving/Christmas holidays and during the summer.

But while I'm actually dieting and exercising in the months before the doctor visit, it's gotten kind of rough. I'm not nearly as pleasant to be around then (this is assuming there are other times when I am pleasant to be around).

Scientists have discovered that there is no longer anything that is good for you. Everything is bad. Especially when it comes to food. Apparently the only thing worse than starving to death is eating. So dieting in essence means taking all the things you really like to eat and banishing them out of your life completely. One of the reasons it takes me months to lose enough weight to make Dr. Chuckles happy is because I have to get my mind into the denial mode. It takes a while, a week or two, to get enough will power into my head to actually get going, to where I can get past the french fry withdrawals.

There is so much guilt associated with dieting. You feel guilty about being hungry. You feel guilty about eating. You feel guilty about what you're eating. On top of that, I'm diabetic, so I feel guilty about not eating.

I'll feel good one minute about having a salad instead of fries, but then I feel guilty for having the spicy chicken sandwich instead of the grilled chicken sandwich.

And yes, I know what I should be doing is eating healthy year-round. But I don't. And I feel guilty about that too.

Then there's the rationalization that goes on when you diet: trying to come up with reasons for why you're eating what you're eating. Well, I can eat this big dinner because I hardly had any lunch or breakfast at all. Well, I can have dessert because I was a good boy and ate only good things the rest of the day.

And I won't even get into the guilt I feel about exercising (well, I will, but not now).

The non-dieting times are not only more fun because I eat more the way I want to eat, but they're better mentally because I'm not dealing with so much guilt and rationalization! I have enough guilt going on in my life as it is without adding the stuff I'm putting into my mouth to the list.

Now I'm feeling guilty for saying that.