I'm gonna do it my way

So yesterday I got to thinking. When we put my DD in a Montessori pre-school, they started out teaching her to read the sounds -tion and -th. She didn't even know her letters yet, much less what sound t made on its own. She was not ready for what they were teaching her.

I kind of feel the same way sometimes. There is a lot of focus on eating freggies. I think that is too advanced for me and in order for me to succeed at weight loss, I am going to have to start doing something even more basic than that. I need to get my calories down to 1500 and forget (at least for now) about the quality of them. So if I eat 2 bagels with cream cheese a day but stay within my 1500 calories, I'm doing OK, even if I only ate 1 freggie that day. Might not be the SP way, but it's MY way. Once I master that, I will consider adding freggies in. And when there are challenges that say to eat a rainbow, I eat olives (green and black!) which are different colors but high in calories. That causes me to overeat. So for now, I can't do that. It's too advanced for me at this time.

Another thing people say is "Don't call it a diet, call it a lifestyle change". That doesn't work for me. The thought of having to eat like this for the rest of my life makes me very depressed and makes me want to just quit!! I can handle eating like this for a while, in order to lose the weight, and then I can think about making small changes as part of a lifestyle change. I have first-hand experience with losing weight. In 2011, I lost 50 pounds and I have since gained it all back. Because I went back to my old way of eating. So after I get the weight off again, I will have to be much more careful. But I'll cross that bridge when I get back there.

Something else people say is not to weigh in every day. Phooey! I MUST weigh every day, otherwise I forget and just eat eat eat. I need that motivation every day and will continue to weigh every day. It helps me and right now, I'll take all the help I can get.

Everything in moderation. That doesn't work for me. Just have one bite so you can get the taste, but then stop. If that works for you, great! But usually for me, once I start eating something, I don't stop. Eating one bite of chocolate cake or eating 3 potato chips doesn't work for me. I would rather just not have any and leave the room. That works better for me usually.

So I have decided that I'm going to do things my way. I'm not an average person and I certainly don't have average tastes and feelings. I need to tailor this journey for me and that's exactly what I intend to do!

Thanks for reading.

Edited to add:
I thought of something else that annoys me. When I first started this journey, back in 2010, I met with a nutritionist (it was free through my work). I used to eat a cheeseburger and fries every single day for lunch, and pasta or pizza for dinner every night. When I started trying to lose weight, I told her that I was now eating a Lean Cuisine for lunch every day. She told me that those frozen meals have way too much sodium in them and to avoid them. So I tried to make myself a tasty, low cal, low fat lunch that was quick. It didn't work. I don't have time to make something in the morning. I have found that having a Lean Cuisine for lunch every day (with some carrots and celery and a piece of fruit) keeps my calories down. Like I said, when I get better at this, I'll think about reducing my sodium but until then, I'm going to focus on the calories.

AND as Sharon said in the comments below (it reminded me of something else I wanted to post here), I need to avoid my trigger foods. It's taken me this long to realize I have trigger foods, so I really ought to use that information to help me instead of ignoring it. If I eat soy sauce, I puff up for 5 days and gain 2-4 pounds. It eventually comes off (it's water weight) but it depresses me. Same for pasta. I LOVE pasta. (I grew up in Italy!!!). But if I eat it, I gain 2-4 pounds for a few days. So I need to avoid these foods as much as possible. My third trigger food is wine. I love wine and drink it every day, but more than 1-2 glasses and I start to eat everything in sight. So I really need to limit it.

I've also noticed that I do fine during the week and during the day, but in the evenings, I totally overeat. Now that I know when my problem time is, I need to focus on being much more aware of things during that time.