On Like Donkey Kong, Ladies!!!

Howdy, Kristin here.    :o)

So I'm finally fed-up with the restrictiveness of dieting in general.  
This is why I'm failing at it.  This is why I can't stick to it.  
This is why I'm ready to chew my own arm off with hunger and only stop myself because I have no BBQ sauce handy.

I have realized a few things in the past week that I'd like to share with the "class."

First of all, dieting is NOT the same in our 40's as it was in our 30's - OR our 20's.  Plain and simple.  It's completely, totally, utterly different.  
I suspect that my older, soggy, decrepit metabolism is to blame, but what goes hand-in-hand with that is that the urgency and necessity to lose pounds I felt in my early 30's is gone.  I don't feel like my life will be worse if I don't lose 40 pounds; I feel like I'll just be fatter, but life would go on otherwise.

How do I find the motivation to lose the weight, then?  If my desire to lose the weight is wishy-washy at best, then I have to find something else; some other reason to do it.

Do I do it for my husband?  Do I tell myself that because I'm 40 pounds heavier than I was when he married me 3 1/2 years ago, I should want to lose the weight for him, so that he'll be attracted to me and proud to be seen in public with me?

Do I do it for my health?  Do I figure out a way to convince myself that if I don't lose these extra pounds, then I'm that much more unhealthy, and being unhealthy is BAD?

Do I do it for my kids?  Do I tell myself that because of my extra weight, I have less energy to spend doing things with my kids, and therefore, I'm a less-fun Mommy?

Do I do it for vanity?  Do I plaster my bathroom mirror and refrigerator with cutout magazine pictures of skinny people and Biggest Loser transformations, to try and inspire me to just get off my lazy ass and DO IT?

Do I do it for personal satisfaction?  Do I find some way, somehow, to convince myself that I would be personally happier and more satified with life in general if I weighed what I feel I should weigh?

Or do I take all of the above reasons and combine them into one giant reason?  Motivate myself by reminding myself that I'm doing it for ALL of these reasons, not just one of them, and that any of them alone should be reason enough to "just do it," but all of them lumped together add up to me having ZERO EXCUSE to not give it my very best, 110% effort, every day, every week?!

<sigh>

I'm just so tired of thinking about food all the time.  I had a little rant / meltdown last night spewing on and on about how tired I am of it.  (Here's the whole thing, at:  http://otherblatantlies.blogspot.com/)

I feel like I have too many factors that are beyond my control, all fighting to contribute to my ultimate dieting failure every week.  I start each week with the very best of intentions.  By mid-week, my intentions may still be there but my willpower and control are all shot to hell and I'm going through the McDonald's drive-thru in the morning for a bacon-egg & cheese biscuit.  (With a large Dr. Pepper, naturally.)

I am going to spend the next day or two tweaking and re-vamping my eating plan / dieting goals / lifestyle changes / or whatever the hell buzz-word you want to plug in there.  It's all the same thing.  It all adds up to "finding that magic formula that's going to WORK for ME." 

I have not found it yet, but as of 12:37 p.m. today... I still want to.