When I first started dieting the first thing I did was NOT call it dieting! I called it changing my eating habits and I started small. I’d say, I’m no longer buying sodas, and I simply quit spending money on them. I’ve been soda free for over a year, even though I had cut down from drinking the stuff drastically years ago. It doesn’t hurt that it’s expensive to drink, so I save money.

I would say I’m going meatless today, or I’m only drinking tea today. Then after a while I’d go for no red meat for a week, or a month. These goals are achievable for me and easily developed into habits. If I have red meat I don’t beat myself up over it. I don’t feel like a failure.

One of my resolutions this year is to cook more food at home, so I’m planning my shopping around easy food for me to fix. I used to bake a lot when I was much younger, and I stopped doing that so I started again. No set number of meals per week or anything like that. Just cooking more food at home rather than eating fast food.

Of course I have to admit that part of my weight loss is the medication I’m on doesn’t allow me to eat more than a few bites of food at a time, but I can help that along because one of the side effects is I end up prioritizing real food, rather than junk food. I’d going to eat veggies or fruit rather than a bag of Doritos or a pastry.

And above all else, I don’t tell myself what I can’t eat. There’s no such thing as good and bad. I’m not good for eating something or bad for eating something! If I don’t eat it, fine. If I do, it’s not the end of the world to do that.