Ingria's Journal, 06 October 2012

Each day is a new day Ingria!!! 14lbs is superb. I've had years where I lost not even 1lb. and I was really trying ... haha ... well I was trying off and on ... you go girl! You can do it. All of us here are helping each other ... just by being here! Blessings, Pam 

I can understand your resistance to calorie counting. I have been resistant to calorie counting most of my life. I have also been resistant to dieting in general for the most part of my life. I understand why you wouldn't want to do it. It's tedious. It can be stressful. It sets limits where you normally would not even think about such things. It's restrictive. And it can be secret, which makes you less accountable because it's only you keeping track. The more committed you become to it, the more it becomes a responsibility, and taking on yet one more responsibility is a major thing in life. For me, I had to think about all of these things. But I was scared as hell. I was terrified. I just got diagnosed with diabetes, I was looking at 40, and I weighed 220 pounds. I decided my only hope was to once again look at counting calories, as much as I hated the idea. I started slowly. I had been on this site before, and it had been more than a year since I logged anything. I got slowly back into it, a day at a time. After about 2 weeks, the logging and the calorie counting became a part of my routine. Now it's my life. I devote probably half an hour a day to logging what I eat and my exercise, and communicating with my buddies on this site. That may be way more than what you're willing to put forth, and that's understandable. However, this is a comment from someone who has lost 50 pounds in 8 months. From a person that started running at the age of 39, and who could only run 1 minute at a time in the beginning, who is now running her first 5K, 8 months later. From a person who has her diabetes under control, and now is off almost all medication and has normal blood sugar. That person is me. I just wanted to comment and post because I share in your struggle and I understand how difficult it is to get started. Counting calories has to be a major commitment or it just not going to work. However, for me, personally, I have found it to give me results that I could never dream of. I was on the Atkins Diet 12 years ago, and I lost 70 pounds in a year and half (and gained it all back in about 9 months after I stopped it and ate "normal" food). I am losing weight faster on counting calories and exercise than I ever lost on the Atkins Diet, and I didn't think that was possible. I just wanted to tell you that I've been there, I made the commitment, and with counting calories, I personally have gotten some results.