Overweight • 37 In the next few chapters I will review feelings and thoughts and give you some ideas on how to break the habit and thought patterns of overdesire. But I must let you know that the best tool I have ever used to manage my mind is The Self Coaching Model. When you use the model, you can identify and change thinking quickly and without judgement. This is the emotional course I believe every person has the responsibility to learn in order to manage their emotional life. This is the ultimate distinction that makes weight loss permanent: When it is completely understood. We are not attempting to manage our desire for overeating, we are attempting to eliminate it. If you think about it, losing weight would be so easy if we didn't want to overeat. It's not the overeating, it's the desire to overeat that causes all of our problems. So consider this question before you make any attempt to lose weight: Do you want to lose your desire for foods that don't serve you? Are you willing to let it go? Why or why not? Your answer to this question matters more than any other one you ask. If you don't let go of the desire to overeat, you will have a difficult time keeping your weight off.