Most of us have been conditioned to sort food into two categories: good and bad, clean and dirty, safe and off limits. It happens so automatically that we rarely stop to question where those labels came from. But what if that way of thinking is actually making things worse?

Dieting feels productive. You pick a plan, get motivated, tighten things up, and start seeing progress. And it works, for a while. But here is what most people have not fully reckoned with yet: dieting will almost always lead to more dieting. Here is why, and what to do instead.