Making Peace with Your Yo-Yo Diet

What’s a Nice Girl Like Me Doing in a Size Like This?

Okay, fine. I admit it. I’m the girl of a thousand diets. I’ve tried them all: Atkins, Grapefruit, Egg, Weight Watchers, Nutrisystem, Diet Center. On and on, to ad diet nauseum.
   Actually, the diet with which I’ve had the most success is the Yo-Yo Diet, also known as the Déjà Moo Diet, the diet I turn to whenever I get the feeling that I have—once again—put on weight and feel like a cow. I wish I could tell you that going on all these diets has made me svelte. Actually they have, if svelte stands for Still Voraciously Eating Lotsa Treats Enthusiastically.
   Unfortunately, many of my friends share the same problem. Maybe they’re not bouncing up and down the scale on yo-yo diets like I am, but almost every woman I know has something she would love to change about her body, her shape, or the way she looks.
   Knowing this about other people brings a bit of relief. Not that I want my friends to suffer. (In fact, I wouldn’t wish this problem on anyone, not even the woman who whipped her car in front of mine and stole the first-row parking space I was about to claim in the Krispy Kreme parking lot.) But knowing that other women (and men) struggle to change their bodies—or, at the very least, struggle to change how they feel about their bodies—makes me feel a little less…well…alone.
   Apparently we’re all in this together. Even celebrities have this problem, which always amazes the rest of us because most celebrities have the money to hire personal chefs and ...