DR. WALLACE: My eating habits are like a pendulum! I'll go for weeks or even a month or two eating pretty well, but then out of nowhere I'll go on a "food bender" that will last from four or five days up to two weeks where I just eat anything and everything I want.

Then I feel guilty and will stop cold turkey and go back to my usual healthy diet. This pendulum effect seems to strike me over and over, up to four or five times a year. I guess the good news is that over a full year my weight will be roughly the same, but I will gain and lose pounds as I roll through these swings.

Do you have any ideas or suggestions on how I can aim to break out of these cycles? They're mentally exhausting to say the least. — My Swings Are Wide, via email

MY SWINGS ARE WIDE: I do have an idea and it's to allow some swings since nobody is perfect. Your goal should be to have these swings occur more regularly but in small "micro-bursts." Don't allow an unchecked avalanche of poor eating habits to take hold of you.

Instead, set out to reward yourself for hard work, special achievements or completing unpleasant tasks to "earn" the reward of a micro-deviance from your normal healthy eating pattern.

Make the bar for a reward high enough you won't earn them daily, but once or twice a week at most. Then enjoy what you want to eat as a treat in moderation and immediately revert back to your healthier habits. Your overall goal is to narrow your swings dramatically and reduce your unhealthy eating volume down to an acceptable level, one that you feel is appropriate for your life, health and overall happiness.

Expecting perfection is not usually achievable and can lead to situations like the pendulum effect you've been experiencing. Seek instead to have a plan you feel you can stick to, and I trust you'll succeed and feel better about yourself too.

HELP! MY SOCIAL LIFE HAS BEEN CHOKED OUT!

DR. WALLACE: My parents and I don't see eye to eye on almost anything these days. The result is that even though I'm 16 and will turn 17 in three months, I might as well be 13 since I have almost no privileges at all when it comes to personal freedom and time with my friends.

I could go into a whole list of details that would explain why my parents have my social life choked off almost entirely, but I'm sure you've heard it all before.

So instead of rehashing what all of my very typical issues with my parents are, can you give me any general suggestions on how to get them to move at least a bit more in the direction of my thinking? I say general because I only gave you a general overview of my situation. I'm looking for big, wide suggestions, not a super specific one like washing my dad's car every Saturday morning. Help! — I Need a Bit More Social Freedom, via email

I NEED A BIT MORE SOCIAL FREEDOM: Two words come to mind immediately that may apply well to your specific, general request: communication and compromise.

These two actions in my opinion will give you the best opportunity to make meaningful incremental progress towards your goal.

Regarding communication, start by asking your parents to communicate how you can best "earn" opportunities to have a bit more free time for your social endeavors. Listen to what they say carefully as it will be quite revealing and provide you a road map as to what is realistic, then recalibrate your thinking to come up with a few ideas.

Seek to make progress in increments and do your utmost to "give before you get" so that your parents will be much more likely to loosen their reins on you gradually over time.

Dr. Robert Wallace welcomes questions from readers. Although he is unable to reply to all of them individually, he will answer as many as possible in this column. Email him at [email protected]. To find out more about Dr. Robert Wallace and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

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