So I went a little over on calories yesterday, and despite getting in a 30-minute run there's no change on the weight. Oh well. I've been following a long discussion on CICO here, and this morning I ran across an article about the "anti-diet" movement. One of the things that struck me was that, according to the movement, many people who "diet" are still overweight, which should make anyone question the effectiveness of "dieting." Indeed, I'm struggling with that right now. It's occurred to me that years of yo-yo weight loss/regain has wrecked havoc on my metabolism, making it difficult to lose even the smallest amount of weight. Another thing that struck me in the article was a dietician's advice to NEVER say "I'm never going to eat this again." Yeah, I get it. That's guaranteed to fail. Sure, we can't eat anything we want all the time (that's how we got fat to begin with), but it's pretty ridiculous to expect to NEVER eat your favorite food again. And of course as soon as I read that, I wanted a chocolate muffin. Fortunately, the snack shop downstairs was out, haha.
Another thing is the restrictive diet rules. I always hate that, because inevitably the diet 'plan' expects me to eat foods I DON'T like & stay away from foods I DO like. And I LIKE FOOD! I won't go Keto because I like carbs, and I won't go vegan because I like meat. Better I think to plan the 'diet' around the foods I DO like, but just TRY to eat fewer of the high-cal stuff & more of the low-cal stuff. I know, easier said than done, and I'm still working on it. But in that sense, I guess I'm somewhat "anti-diet" because I'm definitely anti-restrictions, no matter how helpful those restrictions might be.
The last thing this article said that rings true to me is, there's more to health than the number on the scale. My overall health is pretty good. I can run a 5K with little difficulty. I don't smoke. My blood sugar is great, and my BP is under control. Having said all that, I still want to lose weight. Not a lot of weight, right now about 16 lbs, and that's 10 lbs higher than what I weighed in High School (back in the Dark Ages, LOL!). Yes, most of it is vanity, wanting to get back into some clothes that have become too tight, but part of it is still health. Maybe if my weight were lower I wouldn't need BP meds. There'd be less pressure on my knees for running, and maybe I could run a little faster or a little longer! But yeah, it's mostly looks. Just some food for thought (no pun intended) in the whole Keto/CICO debate.
