You will blow any diet if you can't stick to it.

How many days....hours.... minutes can you stick to a diet if your stomach is in a knot and you could eat the paint off the wall? How can anybody control what they eat if they are always hungry? Frankly, hardly anyone unless you have a serious eating disorder. No, make that a mental disorder. We were not created to spend our lives starving.

I sure tried! Maybe I could live with the hunger pangs for a while - sometimes months at a time - but eventually I gave in to hunger. The moment I did, I knew the diet was over. Soon the scales were creeping back up again and I felt depression settling in again that I had lost control. I don't recall how many times I just blew it.

I tried diets - and I didn't lose weight. Well, not really. I had a family to feed and I could not follow the prescribed menus. Probably I ate some of what was on the menu PLUS what I had to make for the rest of my family who did not have weight problems. Or maybe I followed it for 3 days.

Nutrition has been something I've read about a lot and understand much of how it affects the body. Some diets just are not medically sound and I tossed them out quickly. Some from high fallutin' MDs have a trick or two you can learn from but most are just a gimmick - basically there to sell a food commercially. One I do like is "You on a Diet" because it teaches the basics of weight gain and loss. But half the book is just another collection of recipes I won't use. Common sense should tell you that losing weight shouldn't cost more than getting fat!

One I did try "Atkin's". I thought it might be OK for a short time. Maybe lose 20 pounds........ But soon I was sick and tired of it. I did not look forward to another breakfast of eggs and bacon after a couple weeks. One thing I did learn was that eating low carbs DOES help control appetite and THAT was important. The restI knew was not a life time diet with all that fat. My cholesterol levels never were good but this was really not the way to go.

I tried being an "almost" vegetarian for maybe 10 years, eating red meats once a week and poultry twice a week with completely vegetarian means or fish the rest of the week. To this was added plenty of whole grains, fruits and vegetables. This was a healthy diet I knew but why was I still gaining weight and why was I always hungry? I even walked a couple miles every single day. I even tried walking 3 when I had the time.

I was lucky because my husband was willing to go along with my efforts to improve both our diets and the kids had gone to college by that time. He was OK as long as it tasted good and he was not restricted from eating all he wanted or having sweets - after I left the table!