I Gave Up on Dieting... and have lost twenty pounds as of ye

Ok, so the title may be a little bit misleading but let me explain.

MFP, has changed my whole approach to dieting. After finding this site my eyes were openend and I realized I was going about my weight management (code words for trrying lose a hell of a lot of weight) all wrong.

I have been off an on diets my whole life, oscillating between relatively healthy and slightly chubby (OK, slighty was added by my ego as FAT is a better description). In my twenties I would just go hardcore on a diet and lose it quick, enjoy life until I slowly gained back...then repeat.

The problem is in my thirties the diets quit working as well and what I use to be able to lose in a few weeks would take months, thus I begin to trend towards heavier and heavier weights until reaching my heaviest earlier this year.

Over the last year my wife and I tried South Beach, Weight Watchers, and the Belly Fat diet on which I failed miserably at all three.

....then enter the MFP food database and technology that made counting calories easy, quick and (with Iphone) mobile.

For the first time in my life I could accurately and real time track exactly where I was, nutritionally speaking, throughout the day. A light came on in my head. I was FAT for one reason. It was not that my parents were overwieght, it was not that I was getting older and my metabolism was slowing, it was not that I had some magical disorder that made losing weight difficult or impossible, it was simply the fact that I was eating more calories than I burned on a daily basis and thus my body obeyed its biological directive and chose to store this excess energy as fat!

I have known the above since 5th grade health class, but all the diets out there had put this mysterious shroud around keeping track of all these things. Rather it be weight watchers points with these mysterious all you can eat snacks, Akins seemingly bacon buffet, or South Beaches good carbs and bad carbs, they had all some how kept me from grasping the basic prinicple of my bodies biochemical supply and demand (Embarrasingly enough I have degrees in both Biology and Biochemistry....).

I understand why weight watchers does it, because counting calories especailly with out cooking yourself has always been close to impossible to do accurately. Then new pending legislation and MFP suddenly have this database where I can relatively accurately find out caloric information almost instantly.

So on day two of my presence on MFP I realized I am never dieting again. I am simply going to eat the calories a person my size needs to eat to become the size I should be and then adjust to stay there. I know this is all verbal semantics, but it has absolutely changed the way I view things. I am no longer fighting motivation because I don't feel I need motivating at this point.

Everyday, I don't try and short my calories because I am not dieting or actively trying to lose weight. If I am hungry I try to exercise to make room for a little more food. If I am forced into eating at restaurants with unhealthy choices (I travel alot), I do the best I can with my food choice and then adjust the rest of my day accordingly.

Now here is the funny part. I have now officially lost more pounds than on any diet I tried in recent memory and yet I have not had a single headache, avoided any event where tempations might occur, or gone to bed hungry. I recently spent three days in Vegas at a work convention and even enjoyed a four course meal at Emerils in the MGM and came home to find I had lost two pounds on my trip.

Now for the purists on this board, yes I am conciously trying to make healthier choices and exercising beyond just trying to make room for more calories (I have actually began runnning serveral times a week). The point is I don't have to do any of these things to become my intended biological size I just need to eat according to my needs.

Sometimes I think as heavier people we tend to be OCD about our eating habits. Its either Taco Bell and Oreos, or Lettuce and Carrots. For many people out there setting this impossible regimen dooms them from the beginning. If we first grasp the concept of why we weigh what we weigh and make our first goal to control that we will be alot closer down the roat to a healthier us than the Roller Coaster most of us follow.

Did anybody else have a "a haa" moment like this?

~Jeremy