A mental diet worked for me

A mental diet was what finally saved me. After 20 years of trying to change my body - when I worked on mastering my mind, and dieting body and self-dislike from it - then I could ditch diets and live light.

No permanent change happens unless it's based in the mind. It's not attaining a 'zero defect' body on it's own that changes how you feel about yourself. It's the story you tell yourself - what you think - about your 'new' body.

I know this because no matter how many times I was the 'weight loss Goddess' - without a mind makeover it didn't change how I felt about myself deep down in any permanent way.

Even when I looked like I did in this picture - I still thought I was fat and not pretty enough.

• I ate when I wasn't feeling good enough. 'Diet foods' and calorie counting couldn't grow my sense of worth - only my mind could.

Why a mental diet is so powerful

Dr. Maltz concluded that what patients need more than an external body renovation is an internal mental makeover.

When I was 23, I'd obsessively exercised and dieted myself down to 42 kgs (92 lbs), I still thought I was unacceptable and too fat. I was still carrying weighty thoughts - I was still having a phantom fat attack which was why I needed a mental diet.

I was still taking dangerous diet pills, I was still restricting and depriving myself. I was still acting as if I were fat. I was still pre-occupied with food , eating and my body.

I might have been thin - but I wasn't mentally any healthier, I still had a fat mind that needed a mental makeover. I actually needed to become a diet failure!