I googled ‘Books about Dieting’ just now and got 33,300.000 results. The industry is worth a fortune. Yet trying to find success in weight loss and management is so challenging.

So, I go back to my guest dog, Sussi (blog post Sept. 3). She arrived overweight at the start of her 5 weeks visit. I cut her food down by 20% and massively increased her exercise level. She’d had a very dormant period in the previous months. So, those 5 words ‘eat less and exercise more’ worked well and she shed the extra kilos and her shape changed with all the exercise.

It was easy for Sussi. She had no choice. She didn’t need to read any books. The elements of decision and self-control were managed on her behalf. Of course, equally, her earlier weight gain and lack of exercise were also managed on her behalf to begin with.

It seems to me, the diet industry is focused on the wrong place. It is our minds and our emotions that need the management. And it’s just not about food and diet. It’s pretty much about anything. We somehow need to try and set ourselves up for success. A thought on how to start? Well, remove the activating agents, those things, those behaviours, those people, the music, the environments that trigger us into the undesired patterns. But this is a big story so I’ll perhaps return to it again shortly if you can bear with me.