How to Lose Weight Without Dieting

When most people want to reduce weight, the first thing they think of is, "I better go on a diet!" Yet when I decided to shed some pounds recently, I knew I needed to do something terribly novel: I did not go on a diet.

The word diet is too often relegated to some rather bizarre concept, like only eating grapefruit or eliminating all starches. The Atkins Diet tells you to bulk up on animal fats while the South Beach Diet is at least slightly friendlier to vegetables and fruits.

Any good doctor or nutritionist will tell you that a diet is what we should be on for life. Namely, we should all practice a life-long diet that makes certain we get all our essential nutritional needs while consuming only the amount of calories our bodies demand.

The word diet, however, always leaves me cold. It immediately makes me think of deprivation and restrictions. I don't particularly like chocolate or cake, but once I decide to swear off all sweets, I begin to crave chocolate cake and other things I would normally not want. Experts say this is common with many dieters: an intense compulsion for that which we cannot have even if it is not something we would ordinarily want.

I've been a vegetarian - the ethical type and not one who calls themselves vegan but makes exceptions for both red and white meat - and found the same thing happened at the start of barbecue season.

I was fine with tofu, ginger root, and snow peas as dietary staples until someone fired up his backyard grill on the first warm day of spring. Then I would begin to salivate with all the fury of Pavlov's dogs. The aroma would send me into questioning whether I was frustrating my destiny as an omnivore by denying myself the pleasure of the meat with which endless forefathers had sustained themselves.

The point is that this is what almost any kind of diet does to you. That is, unless you're lucky enough to have iron willpower or the strength of your convictions. But just because you can force yourself to limit your intake of certain foods does not always mean you're on the road to health along with a smaller waist size.