We’re inundated these days with the latest fad diets, the top tips for keeping weight off, and the “fastest” way to lose 5 pounds in 7 days.

And yet at no other time in our society have we struggled more to keep our weight off. We are a culture obsessed with being thin, but our obesity levels are off the charts!

How can we be saturated with nutritional information but still struggle constantly with our weight?

It’s because something is missing from our diets.

When we have difficulty losing weight, we turn to analyzing our calorie intake and evaluating how we can further clean up our diets.

And when it doesn’t work, we feel hopeless, frustrated, and like we’ve failed for the 100^th time trying to keep our weight in check.

But there’s something that weight loss experts, doctors, and dietitians aren’t talking about.

What’s the one thing missing from your diet?

Pleasure.

Not more Omega 3’s, Kale smoothies, or Paleo meals.

What’s missing from your diet is sweet, delectable, mouthwatering pleasure.

More finger-lickin’, lip-smackin’, delicious meals.

More relishing the tastes, savoring the smells, and closing your eyes in delightful satisfaction. 

More foods that taste like scrumptious ecstasy instead of like stale cardboard.

Enjoying and finding pleasure in your food is an essential component for sustaining any way of eating.

If you’re trying to lose weight and surviving on low-calorie, fat-free diet foods, you will never be able to eat this way long term.

Think about creating any positive habit in your life.

If you force yourself to go to the gym every day, dread your workout, slave away on the treadmill for 40 minutes, and spend every moment hating what you’re doing, you’ll never sustain your workout.

But if you add pleasure to the mix, it all changes. 

Instead of forcing yourself to run 40 minutes 5 times a week, you decide to go to a Zumba class. You love to dance, get excited about shaking your buns to the uplifting music, and have a blast during the workout.

Which habit do you think is more likely to stick?

Of course. The one that you enjoy.

And so it is with the way you eat.

You don’t need to stick to a diet of bland, boring, low-cal foods to lose weight.

And you certainly don’t have to follow the latest fad food plan in order to rigidly force your body to shed those excess pounds.

Because when you introduce more pleasure into your diet, it changes the game.

You eat less food because each bite becomes more satisfying.

You don’t need 17 cookies because the taste of one was enough.

I struggled for 12 years with binging and restricting. I convinced myself that I had to eat diet foods in order to lose weight. Day after day I’d eat low calorie yogurts for breakfast, a small salad for lunch, and something light for dinner. By the end of the week, I’d be knee-deep in empty icing cartons and cookie boxes because my soul was dying for PLEASURE.

And then one day, I gave it all up. I was sick of eating “perfectly” and not enjoying one bite that I put into my mouth.

I introduced pleasure into my diet. I explored foods that got me excited, made meals I’d talk about for days, and eat REAL desserts (not 100 calorie snackpacks)

I ate homemade granola oat bars with some yogurt for breakfast, savored gourmet veggie pizza for lunch, and enjoyed a glass of wine with dinner. I’d sample the homemade treats at parties and sit on my couch relishing in the taste of Dove dark chocolates.

And a funny thing happened.

I ended up losing weight.

Because I wasn’t binging anymore, rebelling against all the foods I wouldn’t let myself yet. I was enjoying more, dieting less, and finding pleasure in each meal.

When we’re constantly trying to monitor our diets, eating to lose weight, and starting over every Monday, we miss out on the amazing pleasure that food can bring us.

Find pleasure in cooking a new meal that you’ve always wanted to try.

Close your eyes and taste each morsel of a freshly baked piece of bread.

Inhale the smell of those just-out-of-the-oven cookies and let it permeate your whole body.

Eating is a sensual experience. You want all of your senses to be filled with pleasure.

Abandon your rigid, strict views of needing to eat diet foods and throw caution to the wind. Seek pleasure.

Give in to what your body really wants. It knows exactly what you need.  It desires soul-filled pleasure, mouthwatering morsels, and more lip-smackin’ grunts of delightful pleasure during meals.