A Lifetime of Ice Cream around the Midsection

I love food. I adore it. I love preparing it, planning around it and eating it - especially desserts.

Over the years age, lack of exercise and cavalier ignorance of basic caloric principles have taken a toll. The worst part is the excesses can't be hidden. It shows in my pictures, clothes sizes, etc.

My mission is to work back into a healthier, more attractive body whilst still eating, cooking, and savoring desserts. Can it be done? A challenging goal, but I think it is achievable.

In order to come up with a plan, I decided to consider what makes commercial weight loss clinics successful.

I've been to Weight Watchers several times with limited, modest success. The biggest loss I had was time: Meetings, intensive menu planning & preparation according to provided guides, daily calculations of food and exercise. The most I lost was 10 pounds and I felt hungry, judged, and inferior to my meeting-mates who correctly chronicled every morsel of food, experienced writers' cramps writing out menus and shopping lists, and talked about their exercise injuries. All the right elements were in play, reduced calories, exercise encouragement, access to additional online information (for a price), free recipes as well as cookbooks (sold at the meetings.) Membership fees are reasonable but the optional sales can make this very expensive.

Nutrisystem and Jenny Craig seem easier. It is attractive because you receive individual counselling and the price includes all your meals. Very appealing and successful because it eliminates a lot of decisions & planning which means your mind isn't focused on food 24/7. As you get closer to your goal, more behavior modification is introduced to wean away from a diet of 100% prepackaged foods. I went in for a consultation once and was floored by the quote. That's the major negative of these programs.

Next blog - the program.