Last week, I went to Re/Dress NYC (a.k.a. The Happiest Place on Earth) to finally use up my massive store credit.  I parked my car around the corner from the shop and noticed an Atomic Wings down the block.

Mmm, Atomic Wings.

I was clearly - quite clearly - hungry.  It was nearly 4PM, I hadn’t had lunch, and I was spacey from a recent acupuncture engagement.  I knew I should eat something, but my brain was in shopping-induced override mode.  I just wanted to pick out some stuff, spend a little time with the Re/Dress shop gals, and get back to my apartment before the traffic got crazy.

But my stomach had other plans.

As I tried on fabulous dress after fabulous dress in Re/Dress’s fabulously huge dressing rooms, I could hear my stomach growling.  In a moment of clothing indecision, I stepped out to chat with shopgirl extraordinaire, Bevin, who also had not eaten lunch.  She asked me, somewhat rhetorically, what she should have for lunch.  Almost before she could finish her sentence, I blurted, "Wings!"

But Bevin didn’t feel like getting wings.  She actually wanted a salad, so she got one.  And I, eventually, purchased my awesome Re/Dress clothes, put them in the trunk of my car, and hightailed it over to Atomic Wings - because that’s what I truly wanted.

And let me tell you, eating those wings was so incredibly satisfying.  I sat there by myself, chilling out, gazing out the window, using way too many napkins, taking my time, savoring every bite, breathing, enjoying.  When I left, I felt just the right level of full.  To be honest, the new dresses and honey mustard wings combination is rather satisfying all around.

Which brings me to my point.  What if there had been a blip on the time-space continuum and my old, dieting self had talked with Bevin about lunch?  Probably, the minute she mentioned salad, I would have felt really guilty.  I probably would have counted up the Weight Watcher’s points or calorie-value of the wings, decided the wings weren’t on my plan, and gotten a salad after I finished shopping. Unsatisfactorily.

But this didn’t happen. Why? Because I didn’t freaking want the salad.  I wanted the wings.  And if I had gotten the salad, I probably would not have felt satisfied.  I would likely have arrived home, felt sort of annoyed, and started looking for some low-point, highly-processed thing that I was "allowed" to eat.  Dinner would have just led to an additional load of dissatisfaction. Later that night, I would have dreamt that my apartment had turned into an Atomic Wings joint where the wings were just out of reach, as if I were Tantalus.*

And beyond that, I would have the message hammered into my brain, once again, that I couldn’t have what I wanted to have.  I would get the message again that other people were allowed to have the things that I wanted, but that I wasn’t because I’m me, a horrendously temporary size 14/16 who could almost pass for "normal" and had to watch every morsel of food if she wanted to stay that way.

This is just one of the 87 million reasons why dieting is so dangerous.  It reinforces the message that you can never have what you want.  Once that message becomes truth to you, it naturally seeps into other areas of your life, from relationships to careers and beyond.

So, the next time you find yourself torn between what you want to eat and what you "should" eat, experiment with eating what you want to eat.  My only request is that you try to savor your food and affirm to yourself that you are willing to give yourself what you want. See what effect this has on your food choices and your enjoyment of what you eat.

*I really did have dreams like this when I was dieting.

Tell me about times that you’ve gotten what you wanted or denied yourself what you wanted and what the results were.

Golda is a certified holistic health counselor and founder of Body Love Wellness. She counsels women and men throughout the country on how to get off the dieting roller coaster, give their bodies what they really crave, and love their bodies and themselves. Golda's counseling and activism work have been featured on CBS's The Early Show, ABC's Nightline and Time Out New York. For more support with healing your relationship with food and your body, get your free copy of Golda's Top Ten Tips For Divine Dining by clicking here.