When I was growing up I was surrounded by women who appeared to be on a never ending cycle of diets. They were calorie counting, eating diet foods, shakes, powders, supplements, and eating according to if it was a ?red? day or a ?green? day.

There were books, magazines, videos, weigh-ins; an endless obsession over food.

There was exuberance when 1 lb was lost and upset if a 1lb was gained; happiness appeared to be dictated by the scales.

However what I found most intriguing was that these women thought it would somehow be okay to eat crisps and chocolate, and le not forget the cream cakes and alcohol, on their ?diet?, if they were eating ?low fat? meals and drinking ?sugar free? soda.

The results were the same, a yo-yoing of the weight and dissatisfaction, almost self-loathing, of themselves.

Somewhere over the generations we have lost touch, or perhaps given away, our own power and trust in our own knowledge and communication with our body?s.

We believe the hype and marketing of weight loss programs, all with the same message of ?change your weight, change your life?. When in fact we should be loving our body and loving and living our life.

We somehow believe the marketers and not common sense. We believe that if we eat ?diet? food we will lose weight. However, 20 years later, these women that I grew up with are still eating their ?diet? food and still hoping to lose weight once and for all.

The truth is diet food may be low calorie, sugar free or fat free, but to make it still taste and smell desirable it has had to be turned into a food-like substance and contains substances our bodies were never designed to eat or process.

If you take butter for example it contains one or two ingredients, both of which your body can digest and if you wanted to you could actually make the butter yourself with ingredients from your kitchen. However I looked at one typical low-fat margarine and it contained 11 ingredients, including flavouring and colourings, and other ingredients that won?t be found in your kitchen and I bet you've never seen a recipe for margarine.

The message is so ingrained in us that I bet many of you will be shocked at the very thought of me suggesting that butter is better for you than margarine.

But if you really thought about it, common sense would tell you that the answer is simple.

We need to be eating better quality food, food that is actually food.

When you do eat real food, you actually find yourself eating less of it as it supplies your body with good quality, nutrient dense calories, as opposed to ?empty calories? that leave your body wanting more food as i not getting the nutrition you need.

Many of my clients think that they will never be able to give up chocolate. One lady, and she is not alone, said that she could quite often sit down and eat a 500g chocolate bar to herself and still feel like she could eat more. This bought with it feelings of guilt, shame and greed.

We also know that when you tell yourself not to eat something, that is often the only food that you find yourself thinking about and then actually eating.

So le look at chocolate. A regular bar of the best selling plain milk chocolate has nine ingredients, including two E numbers.

However to make your own amazing chocolate, which you could do in less than 10 minutes, has only three. Your own homemade, real-chocolate is also so nutrient dense, yes that'sright, full of nutrients. So much so, that you find that you only want to eat and need a small amount. So the lady who could eat a 500g bar of chocolate, is now satisfied by one small square of chocolate.

Common sense would tell you, that if you just up-graded this one food choice to real food, you would start to lose weight as you are drastically reducing your calorie intake and now feeling good about your choices.

Just imagine what else you could do.

However I don't want you to think that this is time consuming or that you will spend hours in the kitchen. In fact I have over 100 recipes that are tasty and nutritious and most of which can be made faster than it takes to boil your pasta. To start to have a look at how easy real food is to make and enjoy, visit my recipe page, or if you have a smart phone search ?Shine on Raw? in your app store to download my free recipe app.

Your body, waist-line and health will thank you!

?Editor's Note:?Don?t forget to check out Rebecca?s online program ?30 days to transform you and your life through Raw Food Deliciousness?. And not a carrot stick in site!!