The EL/EM diet vs the EM/EM diet - WTF?

Beel, for years, has said he's going to make a million bucks by writing a book called the EL/EM diet.  That would be, Eat Less/Exercise More diet.  Which is the key to losing weight, but it's not what people want to hear.  We all want a quick weight-loss solution, which is why it's a multi-million dollar industry.

The EL/EM diet worked for me for 26#, at which point I plateaued with a lot of pounds to go.  My body said, "I'm happy where I'm at, thankyouverymuch."  And I said, "I don't give a damn, I need to lose more weight."  And, well, we got into a bit of a snit with each other, with the body winning.

And then I got the Bodybugg; I could track calories burned, which I did for six weeks, but I never really bought into the whole food diary thing.  And I stayed plateau'd.  My body told me, "Nanner, nanner, nanner, I told you I'm happy where I'm at."  At which point, I said some very not pleasant things to my body, who smuggly gained five pounds just to make her point.  She's a real bitch, that one.

So I took my problem to my fellow Buggers (yes, that's what we're called) and they told me I now had to follow the EM/EM diet.  Eat More/Exercise More diet. 

W.

T.

F.?

Seems counter-intuitive, but the way it was explained to me makes perfect sense.  At some point, you're body's going to stick it's tongue out at you (I told you she was a bitch) and plateau.  She's found some sort of balance, but it's a tricky balance.  You decrease what you eat (Eat Less) and increase your exercise (Exercise More), which in turn increases your caloric deficit (what you burn - what you eat = deficit).  Make that deficit too big (over 1,000 cals/day) and she goes into starvation panic mode.  Instead of burning calories, that crazy bitch your body starts storing calories and the scale begins to creep up.

The fix?  Promise the crazy bitch your body that you're not starving her to death and start giving her more calories to burn (Eat More), then start burning those calories (Exercise More).

I increased my caloric intake by 400 calories/day and increased my calorie burn about 300 calories/day and dropped 2.5# in one week after being plateau'd for almost six months.

Seeing that loss has energized me in a way nothing else has been able to.  I'm actually enjoying going to the gym (but I miss The Little Bastard El Poquito Diablo like you wouldn't believe) and seeing my progress on the Bodybugg program.  In fact, as soon as I wrap up my posts here, I'm headed to the gym for an hour and I'll go back tonight when RCC gets off of work.