For those who’ve been following my story longer (or anyone who’s looking into Intuitive Eating or any of that type of approach), I spent a few months seeing a diet doctor (a real MD) here in France who I nicknamed Dr Hope. Her basic premise was that diets don’t work and that if you re-learn to listen to your body you’ll find your correct weight.

Someone asked a few days back whatever happened to Dr Hope, as I haven’t mentioned her in a long time. Well, I stopped going but might someday go back. I really liked her approach but found her “thinking” method too unstructured for me, and she seemed way too happy to take my money every week or two while I continued to gain weight. I gained about 12 pounds while working with her, and then went on to gain several more afterwards.

I learned a lot from her, some of which I am still using, some of which I’ll go back to with time. Thanks to her and things like the Pizza Test I learned to de-mystify problem foods. I learned to pay more attention to pleasure in food. And hunger. And to try to figure out what “satisfied” means.

My new Project YOU approach is not a rejection of Dr Hope - it’s kind of building on that. Sandra talks about “Top-Down/Bottom-Up” dieting - a mix between thinking about why you eat, how you eat etc (Top Down — and very Dr Hope) and building in structure (what, when to eat - Bottom Up). I think the mix of the two can make me successful.

I’m also still committed to doing this low-stress. That hasn’t changed, nor has an acceptance that this will take a while. I’m not at all tempted to follow suit of those I see “miraculously” losing 20 pounds in 10 days on meal replacement or 800 calorie diets. Not for me, and I couldn’t have said that without regret a few years back.