Try Devoting 2011 to a Very Different Diet Resolution: Eat What You Really Want

Most of us grow up with a set of food rules decreed by our parents. It's like inheriting freckles, or red hair, or a dimple in one cheek that all your relatives say makes you look "exactly like Great-Aunt Rose."

The challenge with food rules, however, is that they impact us both physically and emotionally. When I was young, just starting first grade, I remember my mother's announcement about school lunches. "No trading," she said firmly. "You eat your celery and carrot sticks, not someone else's corn chips or chocolate cookies. And I want to see the emptied carton of cottage cheese come home in your bag, not the crumbs from someone else's peanut butter and jelly sandwich."

I sighed. I was a plump child, round with excess pounds that my well-meaning parents were determined to teach me to lose. But oh, how I longed for those forbidden foods. I wanted school lunches like the other kids: sweet grape jelly sandwiches on soft white bread; plastic baggies of crunchy, salty potato chips; incredibly rich chocolate sandwich cookies with that vanilla-flavored icing in between the layers. Groan.

Each noon, I was supposed to munch my way through raw veggies and apples and spoon up cartons of cottage cheese or plain yogurt. My friends typically took pity on me. No one wanted to trade (they wrinkled their noses when I offered), but they willingly offered bites of their sandwiches, chips, and extra cookies. My parents never discovered the reason for my lack of weight loss. They agreed that I just needed to "keep trying."

When my family ate out at restaurants, I was given a separate set of ordering rules from my younger brother. He was allowed to enjoy buttery grilled cheese sandwiches, crispy French fries, pancakes drizzled with maple syrup and dripping with butter, and even mounds of dark chocolate ice cream for dessert. My rules limited me to chicken breasts, vegetables, and red jello for dessert.

Food Freedom Can Be Difficult to Swallow

When I went to college, I sought to break out from the restrictive rules. But lessons learned when we are children can just be as difficult to shed as those excess pounds. I felt embarrassed when I tried to eat "forbidden" foods in public. I would longingly eye a friend's bowl of soft vanilla ice cream, for example, then restrict myself to just one taste. In the privacy of my room, though, I binged on all those forbidden foods. I didn't even enjoy them: I crammed them down quickly, as if I feared that someone might see me and laugh at me or scold me.

Even as an adult, I continued to shift between the foods I chose to eat in public and the foods I ate when no one could see. The irony, for many of us who have fallen into such restrictive patterns, is that we may eat even more food overall. It's a vicious cycle: virtuous dieter in front of other people, unleashed hungry eater alone -- and, sadly, not really enjoying either meal.

Resolution: Free Yourself From Your Food Rules

What are your own inner food rules? Perhaps you feel as if you "should" never eat desserts in front of other people, because you think they'll judge you with comments such as "Should you really be eating that? I thought you were trying to lose weight." Maybe you refrain from enjoying treats such as mashed potatoes with gravy, buttered rolls, or a cheese plate when you eat at a restaurant, embarrassed to be seen eating what are commonly viewed as fattening foods.

Try these tips to change in 2011:

1. Write down your food rules for yourself -- no matter how silly they seem, put them down on paper. There can be something liberating about that act alone.

2. Choose just one rule that you want to alter this year. For example, if you never allow yourself to eat ice cream in public but long to order ice cream once a week as a treat, plan it into your food plan. You might decide, for example, that every Saturday afternoon, you'll invite a friend or family member to join you at a local ice cream cafe. Then slowly, truly tasting the food, lick your ice cream. Savor the texture, the coolness, the creaminess. You might be pleasantly surprised at how little it takes to satisfy your craving.

3. Keep a journal of your successes, as well as future goals. If you have a slip -- for example, order a pint of ice cream to go, take it home, and in the privacy of your home, eat it all so quickly that you can't even remember the flavor, don't beat yourself up. Just figure out what you can do differently next time.