Summer feels like a perpetual vacation -- which is a fabulous and much- needed break from our real lives -- however, eating like we are on a constant vacation will only make us feel lethargic and elicit a less than stellar impact on our waistlines.

Many Americans need to lose weight, it's true. But haven't we become a little obsessed with dieting and too fixated on our girth? Isn't time for a little more heart and critical thinking to enter the conversation?

It's often not about a lack of willpower or laziness or failure to be motivated. What I see more is something heavier: that story that tells someone she is not worthy of health or fitness, that she will never be good enough.

If you've been dieting -- or trying to get yourself not to eat this and that -- for the past however many years, it's going to be very normal for you to experience extreme mental states around food or exercise, and weight loss.

Have you ever felt like all of your body conversations are just flooded with other people's opinions? Like what diet you should be on, what cleanse worked for them, when to stop eating at night and what your waist size should be?

Four years ago, when I decided that I was going to finally lose weight and this time it would be for good, I knew that the only way I was going to do it was to ditch the diet mentality and see it as a lifestyle. This meant finding a balance.

I would say it is unfortunate that the weight-loss pills, programs, and bonus DVDs haven't really worked out, but now that I'm a foodist, I see the failure of the dieting industry to make us thinner or healthier as one of the luckiest mess-ups of our generation.

These are the psychological stages of long-term weight loss. I hope knowing that is helpful. You can lose weight and keep it off. It's a process. It takes work. And even though it does get easier over time, the work continues or the weight returns.

Can you cheat on your diet and still lose weight or maintain a healthy weight? Nutrition professionals say "yes," and we frequently cheat, ourselves. Here's what I and 10 other top nutrition pros indulge on, and how they fit these less-than-healthy treats in their diet.

As a future dietitian living in New York City, I think a lot about how challenging it is to make healthy eating a priority. As young people in our 20s, we have so many responsibilities and obligations that we often neglect to fuel our bodies, and subsequently our minds.

A healthy lifestyle is a long-term process, not a short-term pledge of perfection. Therefore, I prefer to think of eating and physical activity as a pendulum instead of a yo-yo.

A new study out of Temple University suggests that one solution to helping kids eat less is to give them smaller plates. With childhood obesity rates so high, we need effective strategies to help youngsters eat more healthfully and eat less.

I have had an exceptionally powerful arrival into what a broken-less life can be, but it was only made possible by transforming the piece within me that needed to realize I was never truly broken in the first place.