L is for Learning from Failure

The single most damaging idea in dieting is that a slip ruins everything. It is the belief that turns one cookie into a weekend and one weekend into another year. The cookie was never the problem. The story about the cookie was.

Treat every slip as a source of data instead. What was the cue? What time was it? Who was there? What were you feeling? What were you short of — sleep, food, company, quiet? There is almost always a pattern, and patterns can be engineered around.

People who lose weight for good are not people who never slip. They are people whose slips get shorter.