We often start gaining weight slowly in our 30s. We tend to do some diet practices and lose weight from time to time, but we still gain back even more pounds later on.   When this happened to me, I felt like there is no hope for me to lose weight, a feeling of helplessness. The way to break this cycle of learned helplessness is to start your diet, not with your waistline, but between the ears, changing the way you think about food. Your diet will not succeed right from the start if you will not apply brutal honesty. I keep a list of all the things I eat within the weak and it really helped me a lot. True, I generally ate lightly at mealtimes, but nonstop snacking in the evening especially during black friday 2010 undid any good had been achieved by self control during the day. When I added up the calories of the cheese, nuts, peanut butter, and cookies that went down the hatch after supper, I was astonished. I never knew that those food that I took were full of fats and sugar. For me no diet was going to work unless the evening snacks were eliminated. If I also do not stop drinking alcohol, I would not be successful with my diet. Alcohol is not just full of calories and fat but is also the reason for me to weaken my control for my evening snacks. It is not just a simple glass of wine but is also equivalent to six cookies and a whole bowl of nuts. I disclosed that herb tea could be excellent replacements. Today, even after attaining my target weight, I drink lower alcohol than before.