Photo by Bronski Beat

When I was a dieter I always had a goal. Many goals.

“I want to weigh 120 pounds.”

“I want to be a size 2.”

“I want to eat fewer than 50 grams of carbs every day.”

I thought if I achieved these goals I would be happy. But the truth was that as long as I had these goals, I was frustrated.

I consider myself lucky that as a female I never confused my weight loss struggles with my self-worth. That is, I knew I didn’t need to be skinny to be a good scientist or a worthy girlfriend. But it was incredibly irritating to me that I was doing everything I was told to do––eat salads, avoid carbs, drink lots of water, exercise every day, etc.––and wasn’t getting the results I wanted.

It wasn’t until I stopped dieting and systematically started transforming myself into a healthy non-dieter that the “success” I had been seeking finally materialized. Trading in my goals for a system––a healthstyle––quite literally changed my life.

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