How many diets have failed me? Let me count the ways ...
1. Weight Watchers: three times. I hated counting those points and obsessing about food all day. I also hated those meetings, the faux therapy in which all of us admitted food-a-holics would spend an hour talking about ... food ... and recipes ... I finally gave up after a meeting during which the group spent fifteen minutes discussing how many mini-carrots were considered a portion. The leader finally interrupted that debate with a wry comment: "I don't think over-indulging on carrots is what got us here."
2. Vegetarianism: I thought if I eliminated meat, I could "fill up"-- and lose weight -- on fruits, starches, vegetables and beans. So we're talking platefuls of spaghetti ... three grapefruits for breakfast plus bowl after bowl of Raisin Bran. It was carb city and I was starving, all the time.
3. Obsessive exercise: hour-long aerobics classes followed by weight-lifting ... or five mile runs in below-zero winter temperatures ...
4. Low-fat: I was the queen of bland and tasteless kitchen creations. And, in buying those low-fat muffins, dressings, cereals, I was unknowingly loading up on sugar, sugar, sugar ... no wonder I was bingeing all night, secretly stuffing myself with the kids Halloween candy.
5. Low-cal: Belly-growling hunger pangs all day long.
I look back with such terrible regret because if only I had understood my low-carb addiction I would have been happier and healthier years ago. Thank heaven for Atkins.