Again

Hey, I hope you are feeling a bit better about yourself these days.. I am also an on-off kind of person and although I excercise 3-4 times a week I find myself on the heavy side of the scales. When I am on the wagon I try to make sure everything I eat is something I like. I have been on too many diets where I had convinced myself that "I could eat lettuce and tuna" ending up hating every minute of them! I try to prepare my meals when I am well-fed so that my brain decides what goes in, not my cravings. I try to have little access to snacks and have dry fruit and other low-fat options that I normally don't like within reach. Also if you excercise like you said you do, don't worry about sugars and carbs - avoid fat and complex foods.. To sound like a bad TV commercial: it's all about changing your lifestyle and your attitude towards food, not just a six week starvation to get you in your beach body.
I am not sure if I am saying these to show you support or to convince myself as I am currently trying to get back to this kind of mentality. In any case, I know what a struggle it can be. Feel free to let me know about your progress - even if you have fallen off the wagon.

Keep at it. I cook all dinners from scratch and have now found a new hobby....cooking. Me and hubbie eating better and much nicer food than we ever have and both lost 21 lbs in 5 months. We still eat out....just not every week. We still enjoy a drink. We just make sure we calorie count. We are enjoying our food.

I do a lot of cooking, and lot of eating. BUT - it just boils down to portion control. I still eat all the stuff I want to (last night we made ribs...I skipped the potato salad, only had a couple of bites of corn on the cob and had a HUGE salad and a couple of ribs, I WAS STUFFED).
As long as I generally stay within my calorie goal, and I feel good, then it doesn't matter what is keeping me in there.