Writing yet again about dieting (how boring, you should fire me)

Let me begin by saying that I know diets. I've been on one, more or less, for the better part of my twenty four years. Growing up in Texas it's just a reality. When we moved to Boston, my mother used to joke with New England natives about how in Dallas, they put the diet drug Phen-Fen in the check-out line next to the bubble gum. The next time we went grocery shopping, I eyed the bubble gum in the check-out line, wishing there was Phen-Fen there like in Dallas, so I could be the same size at the Limited Too as my (slimmer) friends. I was ten.

I won't say that I've been through all the diets in the book, because I haven't, and thank God. Here is a list of weight-loss measures I have tried:

1. running. I started by running a mile a day in 7th grade, and ended up... a runner.
   
2. anorexia. I wouldn't recommend it.
   
3. bulimia. I also wouldn't recommend it.
   
4. Atkins. Not a good idea for a vegetarian.
   
5. South Beach: Works like a charm, but is impossible to sustain for life.
   
6. jenny craig: also works wonderfully, but is ridiculously expensive, and although it teaches you portion control, there's no lifelong method.
   
7. crazy expensive gym with personal trainer 4x a week: also works, but slowly, and I didn't learn anything about the muscle groups. Idiots.
   
8. winging it.
   

Some worked. Some didn't. Some worked really well- South beach, first time around, was amazing. I was so thin. Elyse, do you remember that? I came to visit you at Scotty's? I was CRAZY thin. But again, it just seemed so hard to sustain. I do well with structure, so I do well with most diets at first, and even for a few months. But after that, I'd get fat again.

I had the epiphany that I wasn't looking for a diet sometime around last spring. I realized that the problem with all these diets is that they don't promote lifestyle changes. Or maybe they do, and I just completely missed that. I was so busy trying not to hate myself physically that I changed my lifestyle drastically to fit a diet, and then when the diet fell away, I was left with nothing.

I tried all summer to lose weight. I told myself, I want to change my lifestyle so that these bad eating habits don't come naturally, so that if I fall off the wagon occasionally, it won't be so hard to get back on. And I tried, God love me, I tried. But it wasnt' enough.

It was Elyse that finally inspired me to do Weight Watchers. More about that later. Need to watch Cougar Town.