[HamSandwich]

Hey Chicks! Well, after a long hiatus (and no weight gain), I am back (again). Let's start with a brief overview and background, shall we?

I am Ham Sandwich, I live in East Texas, I am almost 30 years old, married, have two kids, lots of cats, a dog, and a snake. I quit my job to go back to school last year.

My highest weight was 184 lbs and I am currently at 160 where I have been stuck since- oh I guess around November of last year. I lost that much by writing down everything I put in my mouth along with the calories in it. After a month or two of that, I was able to automatically gauge my intake without writing it down. Initially, I did not cut back on anything in an effort to be completely honest about how much I was eating. Turned out that I was consuming about 3500 calories a day on average (Thanks Taco Bell!). I slowly started tweaking the things I ate and about 7 months later, I was 24 lbs lighter.

I would say that my biggest challenge is that I don't cook often and so I depend on fast food and frozen meals or stuff that is "quick cook". It's not that I can't cook, it's that I generally wait until I am about to pass out before it occurs to me to eat. It's often necessary for me to have something that can be prepared really quickly. Besides, I don't actually like to cook. I figure if I am going to "diet" it might as well be a "diet" I can live with otherwise it's pretty pointless.

I am not a deprivation person. I enjoy food and I am not going to deny myself anything. That does not, however, mean that I am going to eat a whole box of doughnuts in one sitting. It's my opinion that people who deny themselves the things they love set themselves up to fail. I am incompatible with failure.

Basically, my strategy can be summed up as follows: reduce portions and substitute similar low calorie foods. It's seems to work for me when I actually keep tabs on myself (which I have not been doing). As far as exercise goes, well that's a whole other ball of wax.

So here I go again trying to monitor my diet in an effort to drop another 20 lbs. I am being realistic in that I am giving myself until the end of the year to accomplish this goal. Wish me luck!