So how can you avoid packing on the pounds while having a great time this fattening, festival season? It’s time to use your most important resource, one more powerful than a personal trainer, nutritionist or life coach – YOU!  

With a short, simple quiz based on a nationally renowned personality test—you can find your Diet Type among 4 unique diet personalities: the Diet Planner, the Diet Player, the Diet Feeler, and the Diet Thinker. Understanding your Diet Type provides you with the “why” behind what you do (and don’t do) and helps you identify not only what motivates you, but also what stresses you out. Knowing yourself arms you with the necessary answers and insights you need for ultimate success, this holiday season, and forever.

The Diet Planner values security and stability. When it comes to her health, the Diet Planner is organized and orderly and thrives on weight-loss plans that offer structure and routine.

Because a Diet Planner likes to be organized and prepared, when life gets busy (planning a holiday party, holiday shopping, etc.), she tends to move her own health needs to the bottom of her priority list so she can get everything else done. The next thing you know, she is eating "out of character"—transformed from a neat and organized Dr. Jekyll to an eat-anything-for-comfort, monstrous Mr. Hyde! The solution: The Diet Planner needs to move her weight management goals back to the top of her list and develop strategies to help her account for the occasional "slip-up."

The Diet Player values spontaneity and immediate action. She doesn't like to be burdened by strict diet rules and regulations; instead, she needs workable lifestyle solutions for effective, long-term weight loss. 

Because a Diet Player is so spontaneous and opportunistic, she can be prone to "opportunity eating"—if there is free eggnog at the office or holiday cookies in the lunchroom, she's sure to go for it!  Her unconscious food choices are based purely on what sounds good in the moment. The answer?  Before she makes a food decision, takes a second helping, puts a bite in her mouth, or a drink to her lips, she needs to arm herself with the consciousness needed to make better choices in the moment.

The Diet Feeler values relationships and unity.  Passionate and perceptive, she appreciates and inspires others, often acting as a teacher or counselor to friends, family, and colleagues. To realize her weight-loss desires, the Diet Feeler does best with a holistic approach—that is, when considering her mental, emotional, social, spiritual and physical well-being as interconnected aspects that each influence the other.

Diet Feelers crave connections with the people around them, and will thus avoid conflict. For instance, if everyone is sharing a pumpkin pie at the Thanksgiving dinner table, a Diet Feeler will instinctively want to have a piece, too (even if she's not hungry, and even if pumpkin pie is not her favorite dessert), so she can celebrate with the group. The resolution?  Examine the big picture of her own life, and consider (really consider) how often she overlooks her own needs to please others.

The Diet Thinker values knowledge and accomplishment. She is a life-long learner who strives to understand the world.  The Diet Thinker needs comprehension and information to realize and maintain her weight-loss and fitness goals.

A problem often faced by the Diet Thinker is that her great analytical ability means she can find the information she wants to find, anywhere…including the information needed for the perfect excuse! For example, she will justify eating large quantities of potato chips at holiday party because the potassium content of the chips is higher than that of a banana. The solution? Instead of using obscure, extreme-logic as an excuse for not-so-healthy indulgences, she should do what she does best—seek knowledge and understanding from a variety of reliable sources.  Then, once she sees that good health is the real goal, she will have an easier time making decisions about her health based on useful facts. 

What’s Your Diet Type? (Hatherleigh Press) by Heather K. Jones, R.D., Mary Miscisin, M.S. and Ed Redard, M.D will help you find a holiday weight loss approach that will work for you—for good. You’ll learn the basics of nutrition and diet and you’ll find solutions that will work for YOU, including healthy eating strategies and quick tips.