When you go on a diet, what are you really trying to do? You are trying to modify your self-image.

Most people seem unaware that either, (1) they have a self-image, or that (2) it controls how they experience the world. So, without that fundamental insight, they attempt to manipulate their self-image by physically modifying their bodies.

And how do they do that? We’re taught to think that dieting means “exercise” and “food choice” but really, it is nothing more (or less) than a regimen of behavior modification.

So let’s look at what a diet really is: a diet is a behavior modification strategy whose purpose is to modify one’s self-image, and thereby change one’s perceptual experience of reality.

Boiled down further still: a diet is a strategy to change your experience of yourself.

In other words, diets are convoluted attempts at self-mastery. Convoluted because they don’t recognize self-mastery as the true goal. They focus on “losing weight” instead, instantly crippling the effectiveness of the underlying intention by not actively recognizing it for what it is. If you don’t know what you’re shooting for, you may accidentally hit the target, but chances are you will struggle and fail instead because your intentions and actions are not harmonized. (Hint: if your intentions and actions are harmonized, you will stop caring about outcomes and results altogether)

“But I still feel fat.”

Fine. But recognize that how you perceive yourself is your choice. You can actively choose to change it and you don’t need to exercise or eat differently (although conscious choice ought to be applied with a mind to cause-effect relationships in all areas of your life). If you “feel fat” you need to look at who or what makes you feel that way? Friends? Loved ones? Media images of beauty and ideal body types? Change or at least face those underlying factors because dieting will NEVER change them. But dealing with those will begin opening up your underlying assumptions about how you feel, why you feel that way, and what other options you have for experiencing yourself and the world.

What you may even notice is that once your intentions and actions are harmonized, and you root out self-destructive assumptions, your body responds joyously in celebration and naturally seeks out its own equilibrium.