Hi everyone this is Monica Reinagel and you're listening to the nutrition

divas quick and dirty tips for eating well and feeling fabulous.

There's an old song from the 1940s. feeling fabulous.

There's an old song from the 1940s that says in order to be happy, you've got to accentuate the positive.

I think that this is also really good advice

for those of us who are trying to improve our diet and our eating habits.

A lot of the dietary advice we get focuses on bad foods that need to be eliminated.

Things like snacks and desserts, French fries and soda pop, you know, all the better things

in life. But as anyone who has ever spent any time with a two-year-old knows, the best way

to focus that toddler's attention and will on a particular object or action

is to forbid it.

And I think our appetites are pretty much like toddlers.

When we're told, or even when we tell ourselves that we have to cut back or give

up a favorite treat, it's hard not to feel deprived. It can be tough to stop thinking about

that thing we can't have.

And all that thinking about whatever it is we're trying to go without can make avoiding or

resisting it feel even harder.

This reminds me of a dietary study that came out a couple of years ago.

They took a couple hundred overweight adults who had just been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes

and they divided them into two groups.

Both groups were told that they would need to make changes to their diet in order to

lose weight and manage their disease. They were told to limit their total caloric intake and

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