When someone comes to me for help, they are seeking guidance for how to rid the horrific side-effects of dieting. These effects are described as chronic anxiety, paranoia, panic, fear, and obsessive thinking about size, weight, clothes, food, and restrictions. They are ridden with incessant pressure to fix their body, anxiety about food, and are heavily burdened by the daily task of starving in order to feel safe and adequate in their body. When you look at the negative emotions one has about themselves, it's clear why the abuse and dysfunction of dieting is rationalized as a worthy cause. The obsessive mental focus on restrictions, food, and exercise are promoted as “healthy”, with the underlying belief that all of the negative emotions will go away once their body is good enough. The problem with this focus is that it misdirects and projects the original emotions one has about themselves onto the body. But in fact, the emotions were there prior to believing weight-loss woul