Depressing Diet Blogs

I tried something today that I hadn't tried before: I googled "diet blog" to see what would come up.

The result is depressing. Nearly every blog I looked at had been abandoned, some after only a few entries. Lots of people chronicled a week or two of not losing weight, then gave up.

So it seems the world of diet blogging isn't any different than the world of dieting.

Losing weight is really really hard. You're fighting millions of years of evolution, plus your brain's own hard-wired pleasure circuitry. And all for the somewhat abstract goal of being healthier and more attractive. Dieting is the ultimate in delayed gratification

Something else I noticed: a lot of the dieters are profoundly lonely and unhappy, and they're dieting because they think it will make them happier and bring them a mate.

I guess that makes me something of an anomaly. Not only have I actually stuck to this diet thing for six months so far, but I'm also basically a happy guy (I'm also a guy, which is another unusual thing among dieters). I've been happily married over a decade, and I'm not losing weight because I think it will make me happier or unlonely. Healthier and better-looking yes, but not necessarily happier.

Another unusual thing about me is that I'm not writing this diet blog for attention. I've never publicized this site, and I'm using it for my benefit. If someone else finds it useful and reads it, great, but that's not why I'm writing. I maintain two other blogs, and believe me if I wanted huge numbers of people to read this, I know how to do it.

Having said all that, there's no question that this blog is helping me stick to my diet. Forcing myself to weigh in every day, and post something thoughtful (or failing that, at least coherent) every day gives me a chance to reflect on how things are going and try to make strategies for sticking to it. But blogging is not a miracle cure for losing weight. It's just one tool to help me maintain discipline and recover when I stumble (as I have been stumbling lately).