Weight loss is sometimes compared to to dealing with problem drinking. Indeed the underlying process of change may share some basic mechanism. But I would like to point out a key difference.

While studying intuitive eating, I had one of those light bulb moments. An insight about deprivation, and the difference between alcohol and food deprivation. I think a fundamental difference between the two is that by depriving ourselves from food (e.g. by dieting), we awaken basic bodily mechanisms that serve our survival. That is why it is very very difficult to succeed in dieting (if we pushed too hard).

I said that food-related deprivation Deprivation draws on the power of survival. But why? Surely we can live without sweets. Or at least without certain kinds. Surely this is not needed for our survival.

The point here is not about body needing sweets to survive. The point is that we trick our body into thinking it does. Deprivation is a natural mechanism our body uses to signal misses an essential nutrient. What we do with rules for eating is to trigger this natural mechanism from within.

It's like stress. Stress is a natural mechanism of the body to prepare for danger. It's also about survival. When a lion attacks a zebra, all the powers within the zebra's body are recruited to fight for survival. Adrenalin kicks in, blood withdraws from the skin to reduce the chance of bleeding out, blood pressure goes up, their hearts race. These changes in the body can be handy in an emergency, but they don't do you much good when you're just sitting on a rock swatting at flies and wishing horrible things for your enemies. And this is what we do when we worry and stress over things - we provoke the same survival mechanism as in a real emergency.

That is my theory: by creating strict rules and then breaking them, we provoke deprivation. The deprivation we provoke seems to have similar effects on us, as the deprivation used by our body for survival. It has a tremendous power. Willpower can do little against it. That's why it's important to make peace with food, honor our hunger and reject the diet mentality.

I dare to say there is nothing analogous when it comes to drinking.

Although it's important to draw on our experience, we should avoid falling into: "When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail."