Because You are Denying Yourself and Feel Like You Are Sacrificing to Lose Weight! Think about a diet you began where you couldn't eat a certain food. For example, let's say you decided to follow a diet that would not allow you to have pasta, and you LOVED pasta. You would eat pasta morning, noon and night if you could. You told yourself the diet was only for a short period of time. If you followed the diet perfectly, got the weight off fast enough, you could then have some pasta. After a while, your mind began to focus on pasta. You became obsessed with pasta. Pasta was being served in every restaurant, and everyone was ordering it. You may have even started to notice commercials about pasta. Pasta was everywhere and you couldn't have any!! How would that make you feel? Most likely, it made you desire the food even more. Perhaps you began to feel sorry for yourself because everyone but you could enjoy that food. Maybe you began to hate the diet with every bone in your body, and then you said "Enough!" and went out and ate enough of that food for a whole years supply. Losing weight should not be about sacrifice. If you are giving up foods you enjoy, that is a sacrifice. Losing weight should be a happy experience, one to be celebrated. How many times have you started a diet and said, "Well, I only have to eat this until these 10lbs are gone." Then you go back to eating whatever you were eating before. Oprah Winfrey is a wonderful example of this. She looked fantastic in her size 8 jeans, but as soon as she started to eat regular foods and did not drink her shakes any longer, she put most of the weight back on. In order to successfully lose weight permanently, you need to change your thinking. You cannot think "short term" punishment or deprivation. You need to think long term changes in your behavior.