Dieting and struggles

Let’s talk about diets. I’ve been overweight longer than I’ve been anything in my life. I was always the chubby kid growing up and I had horrible habits and a love for junk and fast food. My parents did their best but my mom was not a cook in the slightest sense of the word and was a full time teacher and my father was a roofer. Dinners were usually quick and came from a box or ordered. I also developed a love of potato chips and Doritos that I still struggle with to this day. The first and most successful time I had losing weight was when my first son was born, which now over 20 years ago. It pains me to say that.

At the time I had heard about Atkins and it seemed easy enough and it actually was. I ate lots of bacon and eggs and meat. I was sticking with it and it was also the first time in my life I actually worked out. I ordered Power 90 and trained 6 days a week. In the matter of 6 short months I went from 289 down to 187. I even managed to keep it off for 2 years and then I ended up getting divorced and I started playing in bands and living a terribly unhealthy party lifestyle and the weight slowly crept back up.

I had developed a deep fear of carbs on that diet and thought that the only way to lose weight was to not have carbs. I then discovered weight watchers and I had my carbs and lost weight as well. This was around the same time I started going to a real gym and lifting. I wasn’t into power lifting yet just your standard old school bro split but again I had gotten my weight down to under 250. Over time though I started struggling with binge and purge issue. Not in the “throw up after you eat“ sense but I would go out of control and sneak food from my wife and eat like there was no tomorrow and always promise myself that my diet would start “tomorrow“. It’s always easy to justify your behavior when tomorrow is a new beginning. I still to this day have times where this will be a struggle for me and all I want to do is settle in with a good old bag of chips and not just a small bag, it’s gotta be a family size! The best way I’ve found to overcome this is by seeing results and staying consistent.

Lets jump to the present day. I’m down 75 lbs since April and my philosophy now is pretty much to stay with in my calorie range and hit my protein goal and let the fats and carbs be what they are. This has worked out well so far for me without being super stressful. Me and my wife plan our meals out and we go to Trader Joe’s every Sunday knowing what we need for the week. For awhile I was doing one cheat day per week but it was getting out of control and I had to cut it back to a cheat meal. So every Saturday we eat pizza and I enjoy it with no guilt.

The overall take away I’ve learned over 20 years of dieting is that anything will work if you get things like calories in check and you don’t go overboard and you stay consistent. I don’t try to knock anyone’s diet because as I’ve found the best diet is the one you can adhere to.