Spilling words since 2008.

I hate dieting.

I hate counting calories. I hate logging food. I hate performing complicated mathematical formulas in my head to figure out how many points something’s going to cost me.

The minute I start dieting, I start obsessing about food. I’m always thinking about what I ate last, what I’m going to eat next, and how stinking hungry I am.

Without fail, I manage to screw up within the first couple of weeks. And as soon as I screw up, I think, “meh, today’s ruined. Might as well start over tomorrow. Pass the ice cream!”

Except tomorrow becomes next week. Then next month. Then sometime before my next birthday…

Yeah.

I hate dieting.

But I knew something had to change. I was sick of feeling bloated, and tired, and just, well, gross.

So I started looking for the “perfect” diet. I was, in fact, pretty seriously investigating The Whole 30 plan, but wasn’t thrilled with the amount of meat and animal stuff it seemed to call for (too much animal goo is bad news bears for my digestive system).

Then I stumbled across the Eat to Live diet.

It got my attention because it promised I could lose up to 20 pounds in six weeks. Sweet, right?

There was only one catch: I’d have to almost entirely give up any and all animal-based products. Good bye cheese. Good bye yogurt parfaits. Good bye cheeseburgers.

If I hadn’t been feeling so darn crappy, that would have been a deal breaker.

But I was, so I decided to keep reading. And you guys? What he had to say both scared the pants off me and had me nodding my head.

He cites a lot of research about the bad, bad things our current diet is doing to us. How it raises triglycerides, steals vitamins from our systems, and makes us all, well, fat.

It made too much damn sense.

So I reluctantly decided to try it. I started on Monday and by this morning had already lost three and a half pounds (and yes, I know that’s most likely water weight. But I’ve never been able to lose weight that fast. Ever).

But you know what’s more amazing? I’m starting to feel better. Lighter. My stomach is less disgruntled. I don’t feel so bloated. I feel…good.

Or at least I did until I blew it and ate a kid’s-size ice cream cone this evening. The minute it hit my stomach I started to feel gross. If I could have reached in there and dug it out, I would have.

So I’m getting right back on the wagon.

Tomorrow I’ll have another ginormous green smoothie for breakfast, an even more gargantuan salad for lunch, and some sort of veggie thing for dinner. Probably featuring beans and stuff. Whatever it is, it will be tasty – and I won’t have to count a single calorie.

That’s the kind of diet I can handle.

Will this last? I don’t know. I’m taking this one day at a time.

But I predict it will last longer than the myriad of point-counting, stomach-growling torture methods I’ve been trying. It already has.

Hopefully long enough for me to get healthy…but not so long that my eyeballs turn orange.

I don’t think that would be a good look for me.

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