Monday:  275.2 lbs., burned 3712, consumed 1449.
Today:  274.2 lbs., Activities:  4 miles on the exercise bike.

The only diet that ever resulted in weightloss for me was the one my dad put me on when I was 15.

I was the youngest of six kids and I guess my father was concerned for me - none of his other children had become overweight.  My mother, after birthing six babies, had packed on an extra hundred pounds or so, but after she went to work when I started kindergarten, she lost most of it.  In any case, it was 1976, and my dad came across some crazy fad diet (probably in a magazine) that no one else had ever heard of but it sounded interesting so he bought it through the mail.  I remember that it came in a package with a small pamphlet explaining the plan and a chart that included drawings to explain how the plan’s accompanying exercises were done.

I decided since he bought it just for me, that I’d actually do it.  I’d try this plan.  I read the pamphlet and had never before heard the concepts that it described but it all sounded logical to me.  The plan was simple:  Delete carbs from your diet.  Completely.  Eat meats and cheese.  After a few weeks on the plan, small amounts of carbs could be added back in.  Very small.  I lost about 40 lbs. in three months.

I don’t know very much about how a diet without carbs could cause weightloss, but I do know how a diet that includes less calorie intake plus daily exercise could cause weightloss.  I haven’t thought about that experience for a long time, but I was thinking about it today.  I totally STARVED while I was on that diet~!  I was constantly hungry and therefore very uncomfortable.  I did stick with it for a while, but only because my dad wanted me to.

It took me a while, but yes, I gained all that weight back.

Since then, I have gone on “diets” a few times, but not as many times as you’d think.  I didn’t like the whole dieting/starving sensations so therefore I’ve avoided having them by avoiding dieting.  In the past 30 years, I have probably spent a total of five, maybe six weeks on a diet.

None of those times I tried to diet though was ANYTHING like what I’m doing now.  I’m not trying to starve myself because I know I won’t stick to that.  I won’t.   For me, 1500-something calories per day is enough - most days.  I don’t walk around feeling hungry and deprived.  I can eat out at a restaurant and usually I can find something on the menu that will fit within my total calories for the day.  Usually.

I made a list of the foods that I was eating back then, when I was on the Carb diet, and entered them into FitDay so I could see how many calories I was eating.  800-1000!  Oh my!  No WONDER I lost weight!  I think it had more to do with the number of calories inguested than the whole count-the-carbs thing.  I could be wrong.

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