You are beginning a unique format for nutrition counseling. It appears you have been on a number of diets before, and even pills. Could you please give me a history of your weight? How much did you weigh at age 16? What was your weight before the first pregnancy? What kind of programs and what kind of results have you tried? What appealed to you about these programs? What diet pills have you used and how much weight did you lose? Did you exercise while you were on these programs? The weight history tells me how you are motivated, what works for you and what doesn’t, and how your body responds to calorie restriction.

Please fill out a food diary. Your brief description of what you eat did not appear unreasonable. However, I don’t know how large the portions are or what kind of soup, etc. you eat. More detail will help me do a better job of helping you. It sounds like you try to snack on apples and veggies. How many cookies and chips do you have and does this happen daily?

So, keep a daily log of your food intake and send it in each Saturday. I won’t ask you to do this for the length of the program, but it’s necessary to get started. If you have just recently changed your eating when you started exercising four weeks ago, tell me how you ate before that time.

After I review a week of your eating, I’ll make recommendations. Report your weight each week, and feel free to make comments about your successes and challenges.

I look forward in supporting you in your weight loss efforts.

An increase in appetite can be triggered by looking at the boxes that food is packaged in.

It’s true!

For some unknown reason, long, tall boxes sitting on a shelf trigger hunger. Boxes laid on their sides and food stored in plastic bags and jars are less likely to trigger your hunger. Neatly arranged packages will trigger your hunger, even if the only thing visible is the nutritional information.

Or you might be the type of person who acts like Homer Simpson does when he sees doughnuts. This is why those circular delicious goodies are hard to resist. The eyes have a round shape. A circular object fills up our eyesight. Whenever we see a doughnut, cake, or ice cream, our mind craves food.

What’s the point of this story? If we don’t see it, we won’t put it in our mouth. When you arrive home from the market, quickly put your perishables in the refrigerator and keep your cupboards closed.

Don’t feel bad if you are one of the dieters that has to keep food out of sight to maintain self-control; there are tens of millions of them. Recent scientific experiments imply that the thought of food or no thought of food has little influence on the appetite alone. When you are obsessing about one food, find another food that you enjoy (like ice cream instead of cake) and eat a normal amount.