[beavis000]

Same here. I switched to a very low glycemic diet and I've gone from 193 to 181 in less than 2 weeks with very little effort. Note -- reading the research on the damage of glucose spikes over a prolonged period of time (read: years) has made it easy for me to want to avoid sugar and "white" carb. Going low glycemic has required little to no willpower on my part; i've found a way to turn my hypochondria/anxiety into a helpful/beneficial thing. I suggest reading "Glucose Revolution" (yes, the title makes me cringe, and it's written on an 8th grade level) -- it contains lots of easy tricks for lowering glucose spikes that work, even for people that aren't compelled to adopt a super duper low glycemic diet like me.

[hirundo]

There's a great benefit to extremism for me in this case. By vastly simplifying my menu I emptied and repacked my kitchen with about 80% fewer things in it. I can more easily buy in bulk now which makes this expensive diet a lot cheaper and shaves a lot of shopping time. Food preparation is greatly simpler and faster. Yet at the same time I'm enjoying food more than ever, maybe because it satisfies me more. And there's more than enough variety to keep it from getting tedious for me. Food has become a much smaller part of my life while getting better. Perhaps mostly, improving my fuel mixture has greatly improved my mood and energy all day long.

I don't know what the right mixture is for anyone else, but I do know that going from wrong to right can make life worth living.