Confessions of a Grouchy Dieter
Dieting makes me grouchy. I don't like having to change the way I eat. I would much rather bike 20 miles or bust my butt in the gym every day, both of which I used to do before kids, than do a "diet." I've never been a believer in fad diets, though I confess to having tried chocolate shake meal replacements which didn't work for me and tasted like runny, chocolate mud. Having thyroid issues doesn't help with losing weight, never mind keeping it off. I can lose about 5 pounds but never get past that plateau, even with exercise. I went down one jean size in the spring and then got stuck again. We generally follow a Mediterranean diet at home, and I'm a scratch cook so it's not like we're hitting the fast food windows. I just couldn't budge those pounds.
Having a collection of jeans from pre-baby days still hanging in my closet teasing me makes me even grouchier than dieting, and I finally got desperate enough to try another diet revised eating plan. One of my blogging friends did the South Beach Diet and lost 42 pounds, and more importantly has kept it off. I always thought South Beach and Atkins were rather flaky, right up there with those miracle juice diets where you shed 10 pounds in a day or some other ridiculous claim, and of course reading about the supposed health problems of the Atkins founder only confirmed my doubts. But I had reached the point of desperation and general goals like "eating more healthy" and giving up sugar had not given the results I wanted.
























