How many times have you gone on a diet so far?

Ha. I used to start a diet every Monday. LOL I tried Atkins, Southbeach, the blood type diet, other fad stuff, etc. None of that worked for me. What does work for me is clean eating, solid training and pride in eating for nutrition and fuel alone. I am a better athlete now at 31 b/c of nutrition then I was playing 3 sports in highschool and as a division 1 softball player in college.

Twice....

I tried the Adkins diet about 15 years ago. I didn't really have much weight to lose, but I had the beginnings of what would ultimately be a substantial gut. I would have been far better off just getting off my lazy *kitten* at that point. I was miserable.

I did South Beach about 10 years ago with only about 10-15 Lbs to lose...it worked, but I didn't adopt it as a lifestyle. I went back to consuming 3500 calories per day and not moving.

I dropped about 20 Lbs on my own before finding MFP. This was more about lifestyle...or as I like to call it, "good livin" than anything I've ever done in the past. The decision was made not necessarily out of wanting to lose weight, but some crazy health scares and "news flash" I'm not 25 anymore and need to take better care of myself if I want to see my kids grow up.

I started making better nutritional decisions and also started getting my fitness on again. Once upon a time, I was a relatively good athlete and ran track, played football, and thoroughly enjoyed hitting the weight room...not sure what happened, but when I started back up I found that I really missed it and wasn't difficult at all to get back into the swing of things.

I found MFP a couple of month later because I really wanted to start actively tracking certain macros and micros, as well as caloric intake. All in all I've dropped 35-40 Lbs and went to maintenance in April when I reached my initial goal. Spent a few months at maintenance now and have decided I want to shave a few more points of my BF% so small cut now again. I'm finding this a bit more difficult to stay at my deficit right now simply because I'm training for a couple of upcoming events and I tend to be hungrier than when I'm just working out for fitness. My calorie burns aren't drastically different, but for whatever reason I'm much hungrier.

I did the South Beach Diet 6 or so years ago. Lost a good bit of weight and kept it off until my next pregnancy.

Other than that, I'm not a huge dieter. I've done Weigjt Watchers and MFP. I consider this a diet because I'm not eating what I want/when I want due to restrictions. Some people feel it's a lifestyle change, but I just don't. I've always eaten pretty healthily, but I love carbs (even the good ones) and big portions, and that doesn't work well for me, so I'm forcing myself to stop. But unhappily.

Oh, I've been on a diet at least once a year for the past 35 years or so. Some were sensible, some were not.

Since I just cut my calories a little to try and lose a few more inches, I guess I'm on a diet right now.

I lost most of my weight by eating in front of the mirror naked. I'd only get half way through a meal and I'd be disgusted with myself and eventually put the fork down and walk away!

4 times, they all worked.

1) H.S.: how could it not work, I was a teenager and already in shape. It was that crazy broccoli and hot dogs diet for a week, I didn't even need it, but my friends mom gave my mom the photocopy so my friend and I did it from the fridge just trying to be cool. It was silly. I did it learned a bunch of new cool food combos like cantaloupe and vanilla ice cream, and toast with peanut butter. New to me. And I learned to make and love broccoli (just not with hot dogs, lol).

2) Pregnancy: after my first child I did slim-fast lost 30 lbs stayed slim for over a decade on regular eating.

3) Injury: somersized while injured to lose weight put on while bedridden from an injury but still eating for the first several months at the level I had been immediately prior which was for a person working out/biking/swimming/rollerblading 5 times a week. On a bedridden person those cals added up fast. Within a year I looked like I had aged 10. Lost 51 lbs on that plan and stayed thin for over 5 years.

4) Surgeries: needed 3 surgeries in a row, each one adding a little more weight; the surgery to correct the injury, a c-section to deliver the subsequent pregnancy, and then a hernia/tummy tuck surgery after the pregnancy. I'm losing that now and have high hopes for success with MFP using slim fasts for ease of cal counting and fitting into my erratic SAHM schedule plus I do paleo at dinnertime with my husband who likes paleo. Yeah I'm like a superhero, slim fast by day/paleo by night. I also have high hopes for maintenance again since it seems to be something that comes naturally to me.

I don't think there's anything wrong at all with dieting for people who already know how to eat well, naturally or taught, and just need to sometimes get their weight back to normal after something knocks it out of whack.