[Nibbles]

Hi, everyone! I've been lurking on 3fc for the past week or so, being very sneaky (muahaha) and absorbing all of your knowledge and compassion without saying hello. Happy Halloween!

I'm a graduate student, and I'm working towards my MFA in writing right now. I hope to one day be a famous novelist. And a college professor. If those two options fail, I'll just hide out at a library with a coffee shop, stealing the dregs of other people's lattes and living amongst the stacks.

I have been steadily gaining weight since...birth. Even though I've been blessed with excellent health (my cholesterol is actually abnormal in the positive direction), I finally just got so tired of being fat that I've decided to make a change once and for all. After a false start with an ADF diet a few months ago (worked great, but it magnified a preexisting problem with nightly stomachaches until it was unbearable), I'm now counting calories. I've been at it for a couple of weeks so far, and I've found it to be much easier than I had remembered from past diet attempts. Maybe I'm just in a better place for it right now. I've lost almost all of the weight I had regained after the ADF failure, and hopefully, I'll soon see the scale dip to 210 for the first time in a couple of years.

As you can see by the title of this post, full-fat dairy...specifically cheese...is my lifeweapon of choice. There's probably enough gruyere in my family's fridge right now to fill up my calorie sheet for the first week of November. As long as I can budget some of that goodness in every day (or, you know, every meal) I think I can make this weight loss attempt a success.

One hundred calories worth of cheese may be a lot smaller (and less nutritious) than one hundred calories worth of dancing carrot , but we all have our frenemy foods don't we?

Nice to meet you!

[juliana77]

Welcome! What is ADF? I eat cheese every day and have lost almost 70lbs so it's very possible!

[Nibbles]

Thank you! And congrats on your loss. That's inspiring!

ADF is Alternate Day Fasting, one particular type of intermittent fasting. Basically, you eat nothing one day and then eat as you usually do (not gorging) the next. It sounds sketchy, but I can definitely see how it works for some people. There's been a tiny bit of research that shows it has a positive effect on blood sugar as well. To me, it's a lot easier not to eat at all than it is to stop at just a taste of something I love, so I found it easy to stick with the plan, and I lost weight. But, as I said, I consistently had stomachaches at night on the days that I ate. Other people don't seem to have the same problem with it.

I've got my calculator in hand now though, and CalorieKing is bookmarked!

[rainydays]

Welcome! No way could I do ADF, but cheese at every meal sounds divine! MyFitnessPal is an excellent site and app for us calorie counters. Living among the stacks would be dreamy...

[bargoo]

Welcome , nibbles and good luck. I eat cheese, too, you always find cheese in my refrigerator.

[crimsons]

Mmmmmmm, cheeeeeeese....
I don't see why that wouldn't work, long as you keep track and don't underestimate when it's part of a dish. Cheese is my downfall too! Cheese and booze. Both are 100% off the menu for another 12 pounds at least. But I'm sure you CAN work it in! Let us know in deee-licious detail what you're eating.

[HikingChloe]

I eat a vegan diet. However I could easily take myself down with peanut butter of all things. I realize not really like cheese, but similar in that it is a high-calorie-in-a-small-package vice - especially if you could eat a lot of it which I easily could.

Similar to your love of cheese I have to plan and allot for my daily consumption - because it is absolutely going to happen and very easy to overdo.

Nice intro post. Maybe this journey will give you some novel fodder.