Diets

What diets have I tried before? All of them! 

Keto was my least favorite, first I was doing ‘dirty keto’ eating bacon and cheese “because health”. I also tried a more legit, less bacon-y form of keto but both times I got the ‘keto flu’ which was awful enough but to make matters worse (and exponentially more embarrassing) keto gave me a foul odor emanating from my vagina that I can only describe as: old boat anchor and hot bologna sandwich. Immediately no.

I also went vegan for about 4 months, but I did so on a whim and ended up gaining 20 pounds because I ate mostly bread and roasted potatoes. Victim of poor planning. I’ve gone vegetarian off and on several times during my life with no change to my weight, when I do have the desire to go vegetarian it’s mostly because I get tired of meat – specifically throwing it away because I don’t cook it fast enough.

I’ve also done the anti-inflammatory diet, the Mediterranean diet, HCG, slim fast, juice cleanses, and the ready to eat mail service meals. Honestly, the meal delivery was my favorite and I would love to do it again but after the introductory discounts run out those get pricey and I still have adult children living at home that I enjoy cooking for. Maybe I’ll go back to that one day.

One more that I want to mention individually was intermittent fasting. The logic and science behind this makes sense, and I liked it for a while. However, this triggered my binge eating and if you think you can’t cram 5,000 calories into a 4 hour window – have I got a tutorial for you. This accomplished the opposite of what I was setting out to do, there was no mental clarity as my brain was overrun with food noise, there was no energy burst because I felt sick the whole next day after bingeing and there was no weight loss for the obvious reason. This is a great idea for anyone who does NOT have disordered eating patterns and I am jealous that it didn’t work for me. 

Over the years I have learned that strict diets and I don’t mix, even the healthy ones. I get a week or two into the process and the rules start to irritate me and the inner me that has issues with authority screams for anarchy. 

That leaves the rational choice of: moderation, listen to your body, try for consistency not perfection. This scares me, because if I mess this one up what is left? If I can’t even make rational choices when there aren’t restrictions – what do I do? Isn’t having no rules or restrictions how I got here in the first place?