Why and how are you losing the weight? good question

We have all seen the stories on other peoples blogs.
I remember starting every new diet with a fire in my belly and my feet on fire. I was really pumped. I was going to do it....two weeks later, saying no to fast food became a temptation too great to bear, I would figure, "What's the point?"
Or
"I'll start again on Monday."
But monday never came. At that point, every diet for me was temporary. In my mind, I was going to "Lose this weight...fast." The idea of watching what I ate for the rest of my life was not even a concept I looked at...I would lose the weight and.....
Then I would 'BE NORMAL'.
That meant, eat like I used to. But when I really thought about it, I knew that wasn't true. I wasn't going to be able to eat fast food all the time. I would stick with it for three or four weeks, decide things weren't moving fast enough and binge. Get upset that the scale wasn't moving. Do two or three 1200 calorie (or less) days....get hungry, Binge again. Go to the gym and work out for two hours thinking I could wipe away the binge. Get on the scale, and see little to no movement and figure "I can't lose weight, I am destined to be fat."
This style of dieting was crazy, nonproductive and destructive.
Then I would quit until the next time I hopped on a scale only to notice that my weight was higher than ever. I would completely freak out and then start the cycle all over again.

I am going to write down a list of sure fire ways to fail at losing weight that I have tried:

1.) Thinking a pill will cure you. I've tried a few pills in my time, pills to stop the hunger, pills to "speed up the metabolism", pills to pass the fat through your system.
Magic pills only work in fairy tales.

2.) Starving myself....it may work in the short term, but it is completely unsustainable. Nobody wants to live hungry the rest of their lives. Especially not me.

3.)Exercise myself thin....I was eating what I've always eaten and exercising 30-60 minutes a day. I may have been staving off a gain, but I sure wasn't losing any weight. No matter how I wished the walks would take off the fat, it didn't work. I just had a decent cardiovascular system and a bunch of fat.

4.) An all or nothing extreme diet. If I start telling myself that I am 'only going to do this extreme diet for a week or two to get a "head start".' Iwill fail. I will get the idea in my head that this is how it is always going to be, I am hungry, sick of meat, sick of grapefruit..cabbages or apples. I would want a piece of chocolate or some other 'bad food'. Then when I inevitably quit these 'diets', I would feel like I had 'failed'. I did starving, apples before each meal, atkins, south beach (which is actually just fruits veggies and lean meats in moderation, it was my disordered thinking that screwed that one up). The reason this fails is that while the diet may work, it wasn't giving me the tools to use for the rest of my life.

5.) Weight loss with a termination date-
I want to lose weight for ___________. Insert some dire emergency here....family reunion, high school reunion, bathing suit season, wedding....you may lose it, but if I don't see weight loss as a long term solution to a long term problem...I will gain it all back. (I have done all of these...)

6.) Losing weight to please ____________?
Anybody but myself in that slot is the wrong answer.

Like I said before, I Eat less and exercise more. I Work with solid numbers. I went online and found out my rmr and bmr. Body by pizza has Jillian Micheals calculations for bmr and rmr on her blog. It's in the December 2008 portion.
I count my calories. Now there are some meals I know the calorie count to by heart. Will I have to weigh and measure EVERYTHING FOR THE RESTOFMYLIFE....no. I used to say and think that. Now I know, that there are meals I generally like to eat. Once I know the general calorie count of what I am consuming, I know it. It's only new foods, or new meals that I will have to measure or count. Most restaurants have nutrition info. At maintenance, it is going to take some monkeying around to find what and how much I can and can't eat to maintain my weight. I can still have the occasional treat. If I really watch my calories five days a week, and have an extra 800-1000 calories left. On Friday, I can have some pizza or lasagna or pie. It's for life, there shouldn't be bad or good foods. Just well planned foods. Weight loss is totally doable in a slow, methodical way. I have just slowed my mind down and now I let it happen. It may well take a year to do, or two. But, heck....what else have I got to do, Right? This IS for life
Well that's all for now. Be good to yourselves.
Today I ate 1505 calories and exercised for an hour and 15 minutes and burned 680 calories...woohoo...My Arnold knows how to burn it down.
Have a great wednesday.
Hugs,
Chris