by Laura Stanzione

Created on: January 30, 2007   Last Updated: June 29, 2009

How I Lost Weight when I quit Dieting

Day after day, reading every article on weight loss, listening to every news segment, searching endlessly for diet tips on-line, I was driving myself crazy with endless information constantly contradicting itself. Eat bread, don't eat bread, count calories, don't count calories, exercise seven, no five,no three times a week.

Weigh yourself daily, never weigh yourself.

All I did was everything the media told me to do. All I did was get discouraged, and end up ordering pizza. After years of dieting, and going up and down the scale, I was fed up.

The information gathered throughout the years all made sense in many ways. Obviously exercise and eat right. But what's right? Well, I've tried them all, and now know what works for me and maybe it'll work for you too.

First off, I threw out my scale. I lived by that scale. If that scale said 157 one day I was so excited and thought I was so skinny, I pigged out and figured, I'm skinny! The next day when that scale said 161 I would go into a depression and many days cry, and binge and think "I'm fat, who cares, where's the pizza".

From all the weight loss research I had done I knew the four pound gain was fluid, but to a diet addict, it was the end of the world. So when I ditched the scale, I ditched the binging and feeling sorry for myself. I worked out pretty regularly (three times a week for one hour), but sometimes I'd skip an entire week when things were hectic. When I knew I wasn't being active I made sure I did not eat pizza, and definitely filled up mostly on roasted veggies and small cuts of meat.

I'm not a soda drinker, but I did not cut out cheesecake and ravioli from my life. I ate exaclty what I wanted all the time. When I worked out I also made sure the days off from the gym had some kind of activity where I was on my feet for some part of the day. Whether it was shopping for groceries, shoes or taking my son to the park, I did not lay on the couch or sit at the computer all day.

I don't want to say I'm a calorie counter, but in some sense to a food addict or a person with no diet limits, you must have some knowledge on what your putting into your body. Changing the way you think about dieting makes all the difference. I believe if you say "I need to lose 20 pounds by whatever date", it will drive you crazy and you will probably fail.It would be better to look at food as a fuel for your body and that is all.

By just eating breakfast, lunch and dinner with a snack in

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