Good friends, bad advice....

Have you ever noticed that when you discuss a process with anyone, especially a friend, they always feel the need to tell you how they have accomplished the same process? If you tell them that you are baking a pie they immediately have to share with you their favorite type of pie and suggest that you use the same pie crust recipe that they have saved from some magazine or other 20 years ago and it is the best they have ever had. If you tell them that you are changing the oil in your car, they instantly have to tell you to not overtighten the new filter, and don't forget to check for leaks, because their cousin didn't one day and blew his engine two days later. What brings this up? Weight loss.

Simply put, I have been losing weight. I have my own system and it is working extremely well. I have been eating less, moving more, and I have eliminated snacking and soda from my routine. Less Calories in, and More Calories burned each day, and I eat the things that I like to eat, but I simply eat less of them. I have my "anything I want day" , and it keeps me from going off on a binge. It works for me! I don't want to know how your aunt Tilly lost 20# before her wedding. I don't want to know how you eat baby carrots instead of candy and it helps you stay trim. I am changing my lifestyle in a way that is so radically different from the way that I have lived for the previous 40 years, that I need to do it without the outside ideas.

I'm not saying that I don't appreciate how good your intentions are, and I realize that you are only trying to help, but this is one of those things that I need to do the way that I have found that works best for me. I have spent most of my life fat. I have tried off and on for years to find a system that works for me in a way that I will be able to stick with. This is the first time in my life that I have actually been losing weight and feeling good, and doing it for longer than 6 weeks. I quit smoking. Now I have to learn to quit eating. The difference is that I can live the rest of my life ( perhaps another 40-50 years) and never need another cigarette, but I will not last more than a few weeks without food, so I have to learn a whole new way to live with this particular addiction. In some ways I would much rather be an alcoholic or a speed freak, at least those things I could live without.

So please forgive me if I seem dismissive of your advice, when I tell you of my progress. I would be glad to hear you say congratulations, great job, or nice going. I try to offer encouragement to others, and I hope that some of that comes back to me when I need it, and I also hope that I don't too often spout off with my own unsolicited advice to others. Kinda like I'm doing here!