You know how you'll hear someone say they love this food, or that food, or that they just love food in general? Well, I'm not one of those people. I don't love food.
I love food. It's a special kind of love. Food is my life. It's my joy. Cooking is my favorite hobby. Eating is my favorite activity.
I.
Love.
Food.
So for me, dieting is the fucking worst. All the best foods, and combinations of foods, are not at all diet friendly. Life gets a little duller when you can't eat all those wonderful things that exist in the world. That's probably the worst part: the dullness of life that comes with dieting. But that's only where the bad parts start.
After the dullness comes The Coping Mechanism. Food is my #1 feel better activity when shit hits the fan.
And then there's the fact that I am hungry all the time.
And I'm pretty sure I have a slower than normal metabolism.
And after that, I'm also pretty sure there are a couple foods that do weird things to my body. I don't know if it's an allergy, or a sensitivity or what. But regardless, I notice a distinct difference in physical health and weight loss when I don't eat certain foods.
So when you're facing all of that, how the fuck do you diet? Specifically, how do you cut down to a "diet" caloric intake (for me, 1200 calories), not stress eat, not eat the foods that are bad for you, not be hungry all the time, not be stressed out from having to watch every little single thing you eat, and not be ridiculously depressed and despondent that you've had to cut out some of the best things in life? (Cheese?? Beer?!?)
Shit, I kinda get depressed just thinking about it.
So here's the long and short of it: Dieting will never be fun, it will never be easy, but it can be bearable. And once you've started making those baby steps you will actually start feeling good and proud of yourself (even if you're a pessimist!).
The best way I've found to cope with dieting is coming up with my own recipes. That way I've been able to keep my hobby without completely ruining my diet. I've written down all the recipes I put together to account for ingredients and calories, but now I figure, what good's having them without sharing them? So I've decided to put together a compendium of all my recipes. They will be tagged and organized by ingredients, type of meal, and calorie count. Once those are all logged I'll start to put together posts on meal plans. In between all of that I'll provide whatever tips and tricks I've figured out for getting through a diet without being completely miserable.
Yikes.
