Can I join you?
I've tried every type of diet in the past - starting in the 90s with the Rosemary Conley diet and exercise classes when I weighed 9st. 13lb. That weight is my target now! Madness.
I've done Atkins, WW, Slimming World, low carb and calorie counting too. I've come to realise at 58 years old that I am a lazy dieter. If I have to think too much - like counting calories or carbs - I become fixated on the food far too much. I lose the weight soon enough and become evangelical about the diet. Then I stop and on it goes.
I was stable at 11st 4lb for the past year despite half hearted attempts at getting it off (a size 16 - my size 14 clothes won't even do up and my size 12s are a distant memory!)
I realised that, in it's purest form, if my current eating was holding me at 11st 4lb, then even cutting 'something' out or putting some exercise in must surely cause some movement in the right direction?
So I'm devising my own 'diet' which basically consists of eating the same as the rest of the family - just less than I would normally do. So when I'm making a sandwich I'll do half a sandwich instead of a whole one.
I've also bought myself a little 'under desk' bike and I use it later at night when DH has gone to bed (I'm a night owl, he's a lark). Apart from getting some exercise it also stops me going into the kitchen to grab some toast (night time is my downfall time). I aim for doing 500 calories on it every day. I'm not at all convinced the calorie count is right but it's a fixed amount I can aim for each day and it's better than sitting on the sofa!
So far it's working. I've lost 7lb in three weeks and managed to have hot cross buns and half an Easter Egg with DH without any gain.
So yesterday I had
B - nothing. I am happy to just have a cup of tea in the morning if it means I can have a yoghurt or a bit of cake later. I just have to educate myself that I can't have both. Both does not work for me.
L - half a sandwich with tuna mayo plus a few olives and two clementines. In the past I would have had a whole sandwich plus the rest - holding that 11st 4lb - so cutting out half a sandwich is cutting down calories without me having to count (and get fixated on food).
D - Spag bol (half the amount I normally make for the three of us) with veg on the side to make up the difference.
And a piece of homemade cake with a cup of tea at my 'danger time'. But instead of my normal piece, same size as DH and DS (14), I cut mine half size. It's enough to satisfy the craving for sweet which is my downfall but I've halved the calorie count that was keeping me at 11st 4lb.
All I've got to do now is keep it going...