Diet and Exercise

Credit

I briefly mentioned last week that I went on a diet, because it was the reason why I had zero energy to do anything but mope. 

It's not even the fact that I'm eating too little. I'm never hungry after my meals. It's just that I've been so used to eating refined foods that when I stopped feeding my body with it, it didn't know how to deal. 

So I tried to drink as much water as possible and waited it out. 

And it worked. I'm already starting to feel a lot more energetic than before, because the foods I eat keep me satisfied for longer and don't drop my blood-sugar in a matter of minutes. 

The only thing is that I'm supposed to eat 6 times a day, and that catches me sometimes. On Monday I forgot to snack before I went gymming. Made it through the session, but took a fruit bar and three hours for me to recover. Not doing that again. 

As for the type of diet I'm on, I decided to go for my tried and true method: calorie control. The specific eating plan belongs to Curves, the gym franchise I now belong to. And it's really REALLY good. Main reason: it's flexible. I get to plan my own foods as long as I stay within some really easy to follow guidelines.

It's a bit slower than some of the other diets  I've followed, since it works in month long cycles. One month I diet, one month I eat healthily but a lot more. One month diet etc. Reason being that my body gets some rest from the calorie control so that it doesn't think it's starving. Because that just kills any effort at losing weight. 

And of course, I'm trying to exercise at least three times a week. 

But although this might be slow, I'm happy to do it, since I don't really feel like I'm depriving myself of anything. Unlike something like Atkins, where I'm constantly craving carbs just because I know I'm not supposed to have any. And although Atkins loses me a lot of weight, I can't sustain a carb-free life-style. Not because I'm always addicted to carbs (although I sometimes am), but because too much protein has me eating way too little because I can't take another bite of it. The moment I go off the Atkins diet, I gain everything I worked so hard to lose. 

So I'd work much longer and lose much slower if: 1) I can continue to eat according to the diet without feeling bad, 2) the weight stays off, and apparently it does and 3) if it makes me feel good instead of miserable. 

The results are coming in, too. I lost approximately 3 pounds in the first week (without exercise). 

What about you? Dieting? Exercising? What are you doing?