About 6 years ago I had success with the Providia diet aka Michael Thurmond 6 Week Body Makeover plan. It was my OWN fault that I fell off. It was a very strict diet ... but I had great success with it ... losing 40 lbs in just under 2 months. I searched the forum for others that used it but they all date back to about the same time I was using the plan.

Although I am not using the same plan now, I am using a lot of the information from it. I suppose you could say I'm going it alone without an actual " master plan diet ". A lot of the plan was staying away from sodium coupled with serving sizes ... calories, etc etc. So basically my plan is watching the sodium intake ... calorie counting ... watching my fat grams ... and exercise exercise exercise.

Anyone else along those lines with their diet??? Doing their own thing instead of an actual master diet?

That sounds a lot like what a LOT of people here do - watch calories, exercise, etc. You may want to check out the "Calorie Counters" forum for others doing a similar plan.

I find it interesting that you said it was your fault you fell off plan, but that the plan was really strict. One thing I've learned is that, to lose weight and keep it off, you need to choose something that is sustainable, for you, for life. So if a plan is too strict to maintain, for you, it might not be the best choice for weight loss and maintenance...eventually, if it's too strict, you go "off" the diet and gain back. But if you focus on making healthy changes you can live with for life, you can lose weight and keep it off by sticking with those sustainable changes.

Thanks for the post Manda ... I was looking around the forums to see which would best fit what I'm doing now. The Calorie Counters sounds good. Thanks!

About my " falling off " ... let me explain: The plan worked wonders for me ... but I lost the biggest amt of weight Id ever lost on a plan before with it ... and I got greedy and started thinking hmmm ... maybe if I start cutting my portion sizes even MORE than I'll lose more weight even faster than I already have. So I basically was cutting each meal into a quarter of what I was suppose to be eating on it. It worked for about 3 weeks and then the late night binging started because I was basically STARVING myself. Eventually I got frustrated, put the weight back on and then some ... along with some medical problems like high blood pressure.

So in all, it wasn't the plans fault .. it was indeed mine. It wasn't too strict for me ... it was my own greed with getting obsessed with the weight loss that did me in.