Hi!! Would you like to join us in the weekly weigh in?

You are more than welcome to...if you want to!!

Where is it so I can look?

I do belong to another weigh-in group - people on all diets, not just low-carb, and some are even crash dieting (ick!).

The weigh in thread for maintenance has been incredible!! Helps me to stay accountable and supported thru the good and bad times.

Heres the link:
http://forum.lowcarber.org/showthre...448#post6198448

Its right here in this forum. Hope that you join us!!

I finally recalled the correct 3 things that all successful maintainers do ...and here they are:
1- Eat breakfast daily
2- weigh daily
3- exercise daily

The hardest part is adjustment into maintenance. Not just the nutritional aspects, but the psychological ones. So many others have already said this; it's like waking up from a coma, realizing you've missed out on so much, trying to accept your new self, while yet make peace that you always were the same person... basically, you have to find yourself. It's kind of scary. It's much easier to keep searching in weight loss, because that is like hiding or sleeping - it's like eating and being fat, but more hopeful that one day you'll get there . Of course you can't lose weight forever. One day you have to face yourself and everything else too.

I think most maintenance difficulties eventually stem down to not being ready to "handle" life and yourself. We hide from problems and life in food. We hide in fat. We say if only we were thin, we could handle everything. So then you lose the weight and you realize your dreams didn't come true, you've still got to grow and hurt and all of that... and you can't just default to eating or wanting to lose weight to handle things.
This person is going to lose too much, or relapse into poor eating... because this person is unaware that the main problem is they are running from issues (old problems, poorly established sense of self, fears and anxieties).

The hardest part of this journey for me wasn't the weight loss or the maintenance. It's the fight against returning to my old ways. And the danger of that is just as great in both places. I've been low-carbing for 2 1/2 years and I still think it would take me less than a month to be right back into my old (horrible, horrible) eating patterns if I didn't use the tools I have (exercise, the scale, my clothes, my support system, online & in real life) to choose everyday to live a healthier life.

That is the hard part for me, choosing the healthy option everyday when the old, unhealthy option is easier (and frankly, far tastier). This hasn't gotten much easier in maintenance, but it's not harder either. If anything it does get minutely more easy every day, I guess slowly habits form and the new way becomes normal. I have to say, the early days of my journey, the first couple of months, were hard. The journey ahead seemed impossible, the lure of my old lifestyle was strong and seductive, and everyday my choice to live a more healthy lifestyle seemed like drudgery.

So, after thinking it over, I have to say I think starting was the hardest part for me, making it past the transition from my old ways to where the new ways at least started to feel a little normal. Maybe I was "lucky" I had so much weight to lose and took a long time to lose the last 30 lbs, it let me make that transition to maintenance without the difficulty that some others have.

Val

Frustration when the scale won't budge ... and I'm a SLOOOOWWW loser, so it's stayed put for months and months on end!

This is all about my perfectionism and stubbornness. I'm healthy, I've been LCing for five years so it really is a way of life for me, and I enjoy the food. But way back when, I set a goal of 120 for myself, and it KILLS me that I can't seem to get there! So really, the problem is not weight loss per se, it's that I'm caught between a rock and a hard place - I refuse to "give up," and yet I may have picked a goal weight that's unrealistically low, given my age and family background (diabetes, high cholesterol, obesity).

Let's face it, the scale number is pretty arbitrary! No one will notice if I lose that last 7-8 pounds but myself. So for me, the hardest part is to accept my five years of hard work and success for what it is and not lambaste myself for "giving up" before I reach some arbitrary goal. I need to focus on the large gains I've made in terms of appearance and health rather than on the small amount I've "failed" to attain.

Rachel

Rachel

Can I ask what you eat? Have you tried other plans?

I hit 2 stalls as I lost my weight. I asked for help, Thanks Nora!!, and was told to cut out nuts and cheese and see what happens...it worked for me. It seems that I needed to cut back on calories to keep losing.

My second stall, I use carb cycling to break it. I could have done it the "right" way eating brown rice, oatmeal, sweet potatoes etc.....but I figured that if I needed to kick my metabolism in the butt, that I'd enjoy it with some foods that I now avoid ie: flour and sugar. So I spent a couple of days eating a bagel here and a muffin there.......not binging but just eating carby stuff. The scale went up a few but as soon as I got back to my plan, I broke through my stall. It was fun while it lasted but I did not feel very good as all that processed crap worked its way through my body.

Hi, Judy! I've tried various levels of Atkins and "tweaks."

The first couple of years were strict Atkins, 20-30 carbs/day. Stalled out after about 20 pounds lost, tried carb cycling, fat fasting, all sorts of things to not much avail. Maintained 20-pound loss a couple of years without much trouble. During that time I gradually reduced fat and upped carbs to about 40/day. Exercised regularly (weight training) during most of that time.

Last summer I joined Curves and, at the same time, started counting calories. Much to my surprise, I lost another 15 pounds that summer! I've maintained that until now, eating moderate fat and trying to keep calories down without really counting them. About 40 carbs/day, maybe around 1600 cals.

Now I'm trying to shave off that last 10 pounds or so. The last three weeks or thereabouts I've been calorie-counting (averaging about 1200/day) and reducing carbs. I think I've lost size, but not pounds. (I know, inches are more important, so I may be making more progress than I think!) I'll keep it up over the summer and see what happens.

Normally I don't eat a lot of high-fat foods. I use reduced-fat cheese, try to watch it on the nuts (my downfall!), watch the mayo, etc. I often peel my chicken, choose lean cuts of meat, and eat fish 3-4 times a week. I consume some soy products, flax, homemade LC muffins, the odd Ross bar for a treat. I don't go crazy on LC "products," but I don't ban them altogether. A few times a year, on special occasions, I allow myself a "carb-fest" and go right back on LC the next day, no problem. In brief, I've been on Maintenance!

Now, if I can shift this last 10 pounds, I'd be ecstatic! But I've been making efforts to return to losing mode since early May with the same two pounds lost and regained. For the last few days, in an effort to shake things up a bit, I've been in strict Atkins Induction, trying not to let cals creep over 1400/day. I plan to stay on Induction for about two weeks.

Thanks for your interest, Judy! Hope that's not too much information!

Rachel

The hardest part is dealing with the opinions of people that think I'm a weirdo because I refuse to eat what they are eating (fattening food) and the suspicion in my mind that they feel rejected by me because I refuse to eat what they eat. They offer me food and I refuse because to me being true to myself is more important than being accepted by them in that moment.
I'm socially separated from them when we eat. It's a sacrifice
and I wish I could eat "normal/fattening food" with them, but I don't want to be fat anymore. Dealing with the insults and jealousy is hard too. I almost feel guilty-almost.