To diet or not to diet?

I must be on a Shakespeare kick! To answer the question, don't diet.

I love fate. I wrote this and decided to save it. My creative juices have exploded the last couple of days and I have spare posts hanging around in "drafts." I get updates from yourtotalhealth.ivillage.com in my emails. This article (click on "article" to read it, Aunt Bee!) popped up and I thought it was perfect to stick in here. It says pretty much what I wrote below but, well, they're experts and I'm not so I thought I'd let them have their 2 cents.

Actually you already are dieting. Your diet is simply what you eat every day. Most fad diets don't work because you either get bored or once you lose the weight you go back to how you ate before. I am not a nutritionist nor am I licensed to dish out nutritional advice. Ok, there's my legal disclaimer. Now you can't come back and blame me if things don't work out for you, haha.

My first step in trying to lose weight was to limit the amount of food I consumed. I switched from the standard dinner size plate to a salad plate. And NO you may not go back for seconds. This defeats the purpose of using a smaller plate. Google serving sizes or actually pay attention to what the serving size is on your favorite foods and drinks. A 20 oz bottle of soda is actually 2.5 servings. When you look on the label and see 100 calories you think, "That’s pretty good." Multiply that times 2.5. Uh huh, not so good anymore is it. Next Google calories burned ____insert favorite exercise. Find a site where you can enter your weight since it varies greatly. Now you'll see how much you'll have to exercise to work off that yummy soda you just gulped down. I quickly switched to water.

Next I started writing down everything I ate. EVERYTHING! If you don't write it down, you're only cheating yourself. Boy was I eating a lot! And it was all very yummy! And very unhealthy. Most of it anyway.

By making these small changes, I lost 4 pounds in a month. I walked every once in a while too, but not on a regular basis.

In making baby steps I knew I would be less likely to go back to my bad habits.

Then I met Douglas......

Slacker Fattie Tip – if you have a Wii, use it. You don't need all the extra games. You can burn calories with the fitness game it comes with. In my opinion, playing tennis is about, but a little more active, than playing ping pong. There are lots of sites you can go to and enter your weight and exercise to see how many calories you're burning.

Sexy Meal Plan Tip – I hate oatmeal. Other than egg whites, it's the only "breakfast" item on my meal plan. I top it with a 1/2 cup fresh fruit to mask the taste. For me, it's a very doable way to eat oatmeal.