Diets suck

Getting older comes with lots of pros and cons.  The biggest issue I've had with "getting older" is my ever shrinking metabolism (where did it go??) Here's a brief timeline of my metabolism: in high school, I was skinny and didn't really ever have to worry about what or when I ate.  I enjoyed running then, and did it a few times a week and basically maintained the same weight the entire time. Lucky me!  College:  Ms. Metabolism started changing.  I actually had my first real "weight gain" in college when I moved here.  The culprit was cases of beer and boxes of pizza more often than I'd care to admit.  I remember that moment when I realized I had gained about 10 pounds, which was a lot!!  With some increased exercise and cutting back on so much pizza, it was lost quite easily.  Pregnancy stage: I was at my lowest adult weight ever when I was pregnant with Abby.  I gained 50 pounds with her, YIKES! Breastfeeding and some light exercise helped me lose it all within about 8 months of having her.  When I was pregnant with Jacob, I swore I wasn't going to gain as much and didn't.  I gained a whopping 5 pounds less than with Abby, haha! BUT here was the beginning of the decline.  The same "breastfeeding and light exercise" routine applied before did not quite work so well.  I has to bump up the workouts and still ended up holding on to 5 pounds.  When I was pregnant with Hannah, I SWORE I was going to gain less having realized that my metabolism was changing and it was obviously more difficult to lose weight than it had before.  With her, I only gained 35 pounds and began p90x at 6 weeks of having her.  I began counting calories and really watching what I ate.  I did that for a few months and then felt I had a nice grasp on how many calories I was suppose to eat. A year later, I ran my first half marathon and thought I looked dang good.  Running at that time was easier, and I lost an extra few pounds while I was at it.  I didn't really change my diet too much either. I lots all the baby weight and that extra 5 pounds from Jake. Fast forward to now.  Yet another notch heading downhill.  I'm currently training for my second half marathon that will be in October.  The running itself is going fine, I am increasing my distance by a mile a week and are currently at 5 miles.  I'm trying to run 4x a week and are also adding in a few mini-strength workouts in.  Here's the problem: I'm not losing any weight, this week I actually GAINED a few pounds, and it's not muscle, TRUST ME.  WHAT, WHAT?!? I'm seriously freaking out over here.  One part is water weight.  My body is weird and I will literally gain and lose a few pounds a day because of water weight.  Its annoying, am I the only one??  As I got on the scale at the beginning of the week, I had a mini-heart attack.  So I had to evaluate what I was doing wrong.  Obviously I could work out more, we all could.  I don't eat a lot of sweets, but I guess food was the issue.  I don't eat a ton, but definitely haven't been "watching what I ate".  So my metabolism seems to have vanished into the abyss of getting older.  Boo.  So I am starting a "diet" tomorrow.  I say "diet" because I'm going to not eat what ever I want, and to me, that's a diet.  ;)  I'm going to begin to count my calories again for awhile.  400 cals for breakfast and lunch each and 500 for dinner.  I'll add in a few 100-150 snacks a day and see how it goes.  I downloaded "my fitness pal" on my phone and the ipad so I can help keep track of how much I'm eating and I created a "diet food" board on pinterest with lots of ideas of yummy smaller meals.  I'll focus on increasing my water intake as well.  This is all stuff I SHOULD be doing, it's just more of a pain.  It's not fair that I can't eat a whole pizza if I want to!  Whaaa :(  I ideally would like to lose 10 pounds, but I'm going to allow myself to go out and eat and yes, I will still have a glass of wine at night if I see fit!!  I debated on blogging about this because its a) not super interesting and b) if I wrote it down and shared it, I'd have to stick with it.  The later is the reason I decided to.  It'll help hold me accountable.  So here I go again down this road....wish me luck!!  Anyone want to "diet" with me??