2.5 months in the life of THE Sugar Plump Fairy!

Oooo this is going to be exciting!! I bet you can't wait to know what The S.P.F. has been up to, right? Well, hopefully it won't be too much of a snooze-fest. :) Thanks to those who emailed me recently and encouraged me to keep up my ranting....err...I mean, blogging. I was shocked that anyone noticed I was gone! You like me, you really like me!

So, as many of you may remember, earlier this year I was all about the low-carb way of life. I would have felt better about myself if I did hits of crack (do you hit crack or smoke it? I dunno) than to have a piece of toast. "Carbs bad," was my mantra. I even hit the point of desperation and eagerly signed up for a much-publicized ultra-low-carb and ultra-low-calorie online diet plan (that shall remain nameless), which with approximately 600 calories a day took away the minuscule shred of energy I had left. I think that was my "rock bottom" of sensibility.

While I fully appreciate a low-carb diet works for many, it did not work for me. Sure I could lose weight, but it wasn't a lifestyle, it was a DIET. And for me, "diet" is a worse four-letter word than "carb." It has to be about changing my lifestyle. I had to fully wrap my head around weight loss that was going to be sensible and get rid of my decade long hope of some "magic pill" or easy way to lose the weight.

What I've now realized the "magic bullet" is....get this.....eating less and moving more. But wait, you say. Is that all there is to it? Basically.....ummm....yep. Portions have got to be lowered, exercise has got to be increased and sensible choices have got to be made. Sure the pounds won't drop off at a rate of 5 per week (like I always figured SHOULD be the case when I dieted), but they will drop, and your health and energy will increase. Who would have guessed?

Oh, so here is the other component. Feed your mind. Learn what you can about nutrition and exercise and how both feed your body and learn what your emotional trip is that let you get overweight in the first place. There are so many good books out there. The two that have been the most helpful to me have been "Taming Your Feast Beast," which refers to that beastly inner voice that derails you or leads you to sabotage yourself. Another helpful book is Bob Greene's "Live Your Best Life," which is sensible when it comes to portion control, exercise, etc. The dude doesn't sugar coat things. I've also re-discovered Weight Watchers, which has helped me simplify things in relation to portion control. While you can eat M&M's every day on WW if you wish, my focus has been on nutrition. The biggest changes to my diet from the low-carb days are lots of fiber-laden grains, fruit and vegetables, and reducing the fat intake!

So where am I now? Well as of today I've lost 22 pounds in 2007. Twelve have been lost by following my new lifestyle for the past month or two, while a net of ten had been lost by doing low carb on and off for five months. In the last two I've not been "on" and "off" a diet plan, I've been living.

So hopefully my change in paths will be encouraging and not disappointing to those that were missing my insights. Stay tuned for further adventures and a new blog design!

The S.P.F.