Continued from The Diet Survivor’s Handbook.

“People don’t realize it takes a lot less energy to do it the right way,” says Charles Stuart Platkin, M.P.H., author of Breaking the Fat Pattern: The Diet Detective’s Plan to End The Cycle of Yo-Yo Dieting.

The right way, Platkin says, means abandoning the quick-fix mentality and finding moderate strategies tailored to your lifestyle.

“All standardized diets fail in the long term because they ask us to conform to someone else’s plan,” says Platkin, who lost 50 pounds for good after two decades of yo-yo dieting. Platkin’s motto is, “Compromise, not conformity.”

In other words, to lose weight, you do have to compromise; you can’t eat all the ice cream you want. But you also don’t need to banish carbs, avoid fat, eat at certain times or eat foods in prescribed combinations.

Changing your relationship with food is not easy, Platkin concedes, but it is within your control. “Taking responsibility is key,” Platkin says.

“It’s exciting to know that you have the power to make changes, but it’s also frightening. It’s not going to be Atkins that’s going to take you down that road. You’re going to have to do the work yourself.”

Well, maybe not entirely yourself. I’m here to help. But for now, I need to split cuz my dog, Peanut, is going to chew off my left leg if I don’t feed him ASAP. I keep telling him that he needs to lose some weight, but he’s not buying it.

Joking aside, there’s a lot more to this story. Which means that I’m going to post some nifty strategies that will help you break the cycle of yo-yo dieting pretty soon.