Okay. We don't know about you, but we need to lose some weight before summer. We don't care how we do it; just that we don't torture ourselves with a diet that leaves us in the doldrums of failure. So we (Brooke and Sherry) are going to research different diets, use them for 2 weeks, and alert you to the relative success of our endeavors. Why is this blog different than a typical diet blog? Because we are going to disclose our weaknesses to you and you can enjoy our exploration of the harsh realities of weight loss for women (like us) who have almost no self control when it comes to food despite a great desire to be thin and wispy. Well, or at least more wispy than belly.
We really have a problem with food - we love it. Brooke is what we think of as a Bored Eater. She eats when she's bored. She eats to stay awake if she's tired. And she is a social eater - which means she'll eat with Sherry any time she's asked. Sherry is what we think of as a stress eater. She realized this when unsuccessfully trying to eat a poker chip during a moment of high stress. She also eats when she sees sugar. And she is also a social eater - which means she'll eat with Brooke any time she's asked. So both of us eat during times of stress and times of boredom because we won't make the other person eat alone. So trying these diets means we can't do this. And we'll talk about how that works out.
We need to bracket our lived experience here. We are not career dieters. Together, we have done the South Beach Diet for exactly 1 month. It was all we could stand. We found ourselves in the kitchen everyday at 3:15 mourning the loss of carbs and sugar. So we cheated. Just a little. But we cheated. We decided if you are miserable following the diet, it's just not worth it. Next we tried Weight Watchers Points Plus. It was pretty great. Sherry lost weight on it and carefully tracked her food every single day. It wasn't very hard to do - and this was when we discovered what a Bored Eater Brooke is....and what a Social Eater Sherry is. Brooke had scant luck with the Points Plus program because she was bored a lot during the three months, was not willing to record everything she ate while determining how many points it was all worth, and spent a lot of time trying to convince Sherry to eat with her. Even cheating, Sherry lost weight because she at within her points (and sometimes had to say no).
One more dirty secret and then we'll start. We don't really dig fruits and vegetables. After lengthy introspection, we decided this is because, well, when you eat an Oreo you get exactly what you expect. The texture, taste, and smell is always exactly the same. When you eat a fruit. Not so much. It can vary in texture, taste, and smell so eating an apple on Monday will not be the same as eating an apple on Tuesday. The Tuesday apple may be substantially less cruchy, delicious, or satisfying. But an Oreo will always be the exact, predictable same amount of crunchy, delicious, and satisfying. OMG! This is making me hungry! I'll be back after I eat me some Oreos.
Done! My last Oreo; since our diet adventure starts tomorrow! These diet trials will be referred to as our Diet Riots because we plan on making them fun.
Our first Diet Riot will be the Original Weight Watcher's Plan as described
here. Tomorrow morning we will wake up, weigh ourselves, measure our waists (no we aren't disclosing actual aweight and waist measures just in case we fail). Follow the diet. Let you know how it goes. We will tell you how much weight we lose and percentage of weight lost at the end of each week. You math geeks can figure out our actual weight from that if it really means to you. And we will rate each diet. We are thinking we'll create a rating scale consisting of Cheat (were we willing to really follow it), Complexity (is it easy to follow it), Health (do we cook from raw or from already processed foods), Repeatability (would we do it again), Lifestyle (is it something we can really follow every day for the rest of our lives), and Success (did we lose weight and how much). Then you can decide if that is a diet you can deal with.
Talk to you tomorrow!
