non-diet

     This used to be my old Atkins journal. Atkins worked for me but only to lose the first 15 pounds. I would start to feel kind of sick after a week and a half, but my cravings for sugar would be gone. I think it is safe to say that a low carb diet works for me, but that it is very hard to stick to. I have yo yo-ed with Atkins so many times that it is hard to count because I always get tired of eating the same foods, I would get confused with Phase 2 requirements (where one Atkins book says to climb the carb ladder, and another Atkins book says to eat berries and nuts). I love how I feel in Induction, how my cravings go away, but I always tend to overdo it with sugar free sweets. I'm tired of doing Induction over and over, and it depresses me to think of how many times I have done it.
     So now that I am getting married (and probably going to be trying on wedding dresses soon) I've decided to try to make a lifestyle change instead of the constant dieting. I am pretty ashamed that I have gotten to be this big to begin with. My resistance to give in to my past eating disorder, I think, has caused me to gain the weight.
     I think the only way for me to lose this weight, is to change my lifestyle. That means giving up processed foods and refined sugars, eating more vegetables and low glycemic fruits and protein. I think that trying to jumpstart my lifestyle change with a low carb week might be good to get rid of my cravings for sugar because that is usually what thwarts my weight loss efforts (especially since I work at starbucks).
     I was inspired by the way Marlena from makeupgeekTV  ( http://simplymarlena.com/weight-loss-journey/how-i-lost-90-pounds-and-kept-it-off/ ) lost weight, not by dieting, counting carbs or anything like that, but by slowly and permanently changing her lifestyle. That's what I want to do because I feel that it would heal me of some residual eating disordered behaviors, and it would stop the yo-yo dieting behavior that maddens me to no end.
     Tracking my food  is something I've always been so on the fence about. I don't like tracking because it tends to make me focus too much on calories and carbs, but when I don't track I am more likely to go overboard. So how can I track my food without it feeling like I am dieting? I'll have to figure it out, but for now I am going to try to keep track of my calories, roughly, and maybe my carbs as well.
I just wish this were easier. It's not fair that is has to be so damn hard.