My mother is a diet counselor.  She teaches that you do not need to go on a diet.  You need to change your lifelstyle and eating habits.  What she especailly stresses is that no 'diet' will ever be successful unles you are doing it for the right reasons.  This is why I personally hate the stomach surgery.  My wife had it done.  I did not want her to have it done because it was not so much the body that had to change, but the head, heart and spirit.  It is an easy band-aid that does not fix the problem.

I lost 80 pounds monitoring calories, low fat and moving, whether it be walking, weight training, swimming it does not matter.  I had bounced back and forth for years losing 30 gaining 40 losing 50 gaining 60.  It truly wasn't unitl I decided that enough was enough and I lost the weight for me that I have now kept it off.  (Went from 270 to 190). 

I guess the true secret of a diet is yourself and how badly you want to change

I do the 6-month BDD. That's the "In six months I have to wear a Bridesmaid Dress Diet". I suck at maintenance in any form. I laugh every time I see commercials for that show where they have two professional theives break into your home and show you how unsafe you are? I can't get any safer - if someone broke into my house right now they'd think it'd already been ransacked.

But I digress... special events seem to be the only thing that work for me and I learned a long time ago that exercise combined with watching the calories works just as well as Jenny Craig, Nutrisystem, Weight Watchers and Slim Fast at losing the weight. Since January 1st I've lost 12 pounds just eating whole foods with swimming, skiing and a little weight training. I'd be doing better but I've been sick for the past 3 weeks or so.

But after the wedding the maintenance will slack until the next big event, probably my 20 year high school reunion. I'll find the 30 or so pounds again I'm sure. Really I think it boils down to what's important to you, and what you really want to do with your time. To slim down you have to be willing to set aside the time to exercise each day and make sure that your caloric intake isn't over what you exert - companies and diet fads prey on the fact that people want the miracle cure so that it's not something they have to think about. But those people know when the fad is over, you still aren't thinking about eating healthy and the pounds come back for the next fad.

For weight loss, I recommend looking into weight loss blogs - they're all over the place and I think they're great since misery loves company. Also, I enjoyed retraining myself with foods through www.nutridiary.com which is a free online system that can track all your daily caloric and nutrient intake - that is, IF you want to take the time to learn about all that stuff...

What the - ? Oof! Didn't see that soap box underfoot... Pardon moi!

Weight Watchers Core Plan

WW Flex Plan.  You can have whatever you want, just in moderation.  It works!