The Line System
Sara's post reminded me of Duncan's post which reminded me that I wanted to blog on my own New Years resolution. Yes, the weight thing.
I thought about all the popular diets out there or joining a health club but I have a very busy life and an exercise program which involved me driving a significant distance or causing me to regularly get home even later in the day then I currently do will not do. I have to exercise at home. Also, I have a boat load of kids (actually 2 boat loads) and they are running to activities so significant meal planning in that chaos just isn't going to work (I've tried). Unfortunately we feed largely on convenience foods and I don't plan on taking activities that my kids love away from them in order to cook to meet my particular dietary needs. So here is where I go with the Line System. BTW: I'm not a doctor and this was not created with any sort of sound nutritional knowledge.
The Line System: I taped a table on my bathroom wall. The X axis is the days from 1/1/04 to 6/1/04 (for the europeans reading this that is June 1, not Jan 6). The Y axis is weight. I then added a red line (this is The Line System) to the table from my rough weight on 1/1/04 (235 lbs) to my goal weight on 6/1/04 (190 lbs). I then plot my weight daily on this chart. So far I have been under the line (I've lost about 10 pounds already!). The idea is that if my weight starts approaching the line or goes over it, I start concentrating harder on eating less. If I'm well under the line, then I can go ahead and have dessert that day or basically not worry too much about the inevitable temptation that might pop up.
Sometime soon a regular exercise routine will enter the picture.
I've never had much of a problem losing weight (at least some weight). My problem is that I lose the focus at some point on sticking with the diet and I'm back up to that 230 pound level. I believe my line system will be the daily reminder I need. I'll let you know how it goes. If it goes well, I'll write a book and make millions. Of course my book will only have 1 page.