The Caradon Diet

Well, another month started yesterday, and it seemed like as good a time as any to outline my fantastic new diet plan. I am really trying to lose some weight by making some major changes to my lifestyle. In this post I would like to outline my diet to my loyal readers.

Anyone who knows me, knows I have struggled with my weight my whole life. I have also tried just about every weight loss plan out there. I did pills, shakes, Nutri System, Body for Life (lost 30 pounds, put back on about 50), South Beach diet (same results as previously mentioned), Jillian Michaels' work out plan, two versions of at home "Biggest Loser"(I'm out a good bit of money on those) and many others. I've decided that a big part of my problem has been that I started each of these ventures knowing it was a diet, and not a lifestyle change. So that has been my approach this time, to change the way I eat for the rest of my life.

Some of you know that in the beginning of 2007 I decided that as a New Year's Resolution I was going to give up chocolate for the whole year. That was extremely hard for me. I had chocolate in some form or another every day. About 5 months into 2007, as you all know, I found out I was preggers with Chasey, and I continued my quest to finish out the year chocolate free. Then when January 1st, 2008 came around, I decided, why not finish out my pregnancy. Then when Chasey was born, I thought, well he hasn't ever had chocolate in his system yet, so I can't start eating again until after I quit breast feeding. Well, by the time I was done breast feeding, I had gone 18 months without chocolate, and I thought, if I've made it this far, why not just keep going? So, here I am 29 months after I started the no chocolate thing, and I still haven't had ANY!!

Since giving up chocolate was the thing I thought would be the absolute hardest for me to do, I thought, why not add more of my vices to the list. So this is what is now called the Caradon Diet. At the beginning of every month, I give up one more thing, in an attempt to make my eating habits better in general. Starting in December I gave up French fries, in January it was soda (almost as hard as chocolate, by the way), in February it was breaded items, like chicken nuggets, in March it was sugary drinks like juice and lemonade, in April it was cold cereal, and in May it was pastries, including cake, cookies, pie, doughnuts, etc.

Here we are now to June. This will be another really tough one for me. This month I am giving up Dairy products except for Skim Milk and Mozzarella Cheese. Luckily I've had a little practice with this one, because Chasey was lactose intolerant, so I gave up dairy while I breast fed. But this time it is for good. And I know it will be hard. I agree with my friend, Jamie, who says everything is better with cheese, and my whole life I have lived by that. In fact, surely that is a good 50 or 60 of my extra pounds. Cheddar cheese!

So that is it folks, the Caradon Diet. We'll see if it starts to make a difference as I start implementing the exercise program I have in mind this summer. As I lose weight I will let you all know. Stay tuned!!