Consistancy...

...is my nemesis when it comes to dieting.  Bigger than chocolate or soda or cheeseburgers or any specific kind of food.  I can start any kind of diet and be completely on board for a week, maybe 2 if it's easy to follow.  The next week or so ends up with a pseudo-following of the diet, little cheats and tweaks to the diet.  By the time I've been following the diet for a month or more it's rare that I'm still actually following the diet at all.

    This is why this year I decided not to diet at all this year in order to meet my weight loss and health goals.  I'm simply making small changes to improve my health and being consistant with them.  So far I have been consistant in giving up soda and sweet tea, and taking my vitamins and medications, exercising daily and drinking more water. 

     This week I began working on a change called intermittant fasting.  The basic premise is to fast for 16 hours and eat during an 8 hour window.  According to some studies eating this way is more natural for humans and can lower blood pressure and blood sugar and reduce risks of alzheimers.  Combined with eating at a calorie deficient (about 30% below your daily recommended calories) some scientists believe it can even increase the human life span.

     I don't know how much of that I actually believe, but I ate on that schedule all last week, Mon to Sat.  It's a lot easier than I though it  would be.  After the first day I didn't feel really hungry at all during the fasting portion.  After a couple days it seemed pretty normal.  I didn't change what I ate, only the times I was allowed to eat. 

     This week I'm going to start imposing some calorie restrictions.  I don't think I'll eliminate any specific kind of food, but will be limiting the number of calories and net carbs consumed within the 8 hour period.  I'm not cutting back to a crazily low number of calories, I do like to eat after all, but just reducing them by a bit.  The week after I'll be introducing some strength training to go along with my daily cardio, then I'll reassess the calorie restriction and see if I think it's sufficient. 

     The small changes I've made haven't given me the intital big number weight losses that I'm used to when I start a traditional diet, but so far this year I've lost 9 pounds since the first of the year.  That's about 3 pounds a week though, which is really pretty good.