Yep, that’s my new motto – “Be a Total Loser”. Why?

Ok, here’s the truth.   I’ve been overweight for my entire adult life. That’s a long time to struggle with weight issues! I’ve done the yo-yo thing, the crash diet thing, the eat healthy thing, and nothing has worked permanently. This past year I have worked out a fitness program that works for me, but about half the weight is still there, even though I’ve managed to get much fitter and – in some parts of my body – much leaner. However, that lovely middle aged spread is still spreading in spite of walking, watching what I’m eating, and getting other forms of exercise. So disheartening!

Over the years I’ve researched nutrition, weight loss, and diets, and have tried just about everything out there. The problem, as I see it, is that most weight loss programs tend to be:

1. too complicated and overwhelming (9 Day Wonder Diet)
2. too monotonous (ask me about the cabbage soup diet – better yet, ask my kids!)
3. require too drastic a change right from the start – (Fit For Life)
4. require me to focus on detail – I’m a “big picture” person – like calories and fat grams
5. take too long too see the results I need (GI Diet)
6. create weight loss that is mostly muscle/water loss instead of fat loss
7. cause me to have the strongest weight loss in places like wrists, fingers, and feet (I kid you not – jewelry is the first thing to fall off!) instead of where I need it most – in the middle!
8. give me lists of odd foods I have to eat and prepare
9. make it impossible to enjoy a restaurant meal or meal at a friends house without doing several hours of research ahead of time.
10. make me feel guilty about eating any of my favourite foods ever again
11. desperately unhealthy (think “Ensure”)
12. make me jittery, overwhelmed with cravings, think constantly about food, and make me weak and tired

Then, when the diet is over, I don’t have a realistic way of maintaining my great results (if there were any) and end up back where I started.

Now, to be fair, as I’ve researched and tried out various plans and systems, I have found things that work well, but only bits and pieces of certain plans – rarely does the “whole system” work the way I want or need it to.

So, I’ve decided to cut and paste my own system together – pulling the things that worked and putting them all together in a plan that I can manage without needing an engineering degree. I looked for things that were:

1. dead simple (don’t want to over-tax the ol’ brain at my advanced age! LOL!)
2. designed to be followed anywhere – at home, in a restaurant, at a friend’s house, while traveling, etc.
3. healthy
4. fat burning, not muscle burning or just water flushing
5. uses everyday foods that we, as a family, already eat and enjoy
6. teaches me to create and maintain a healthy lifestyle in a way that I can manage

I won’t tell you exactly what I’m doing – yet – but I will share the results every Monday here on my blog. If it works well, I’ll release my plan at the beginning of March, and you can follow along with me, one month behind.

My goal? To PERMANENTLY lose about another 30 pounds. I’ve never actually been my ideal weight as an adult, so I don’t know exactly what that “magic number” is, but I know what I’d like to look like, and I know what I want to feel like, and that will be my ultimate goal.

So, come along for the ride, and watch to see what happens. Keep me on the wagon if I stop reporting what’s going on!

Wish me luck!

Darlene