This is my first attempt at losing weight on Adkins. I've only dieted two times in my life. The low fat way and I was always hungery. I Did manage to lose about 40 lbs each time, but became very discouraged and hungry.

I notice that many of you have been on Adkins before and have lost huge amounts of weight, only to regain them. It would be nice if you can share your pitfalls. Maybe that would help me to notice what to be careful of and to look for signs that I might miss. I'm very committed to this WOL and I'm sure many of you were.

Thanks in advance! You guys are extremely supportive and I am grateful for that.

From what I have seen over the past year not only in these forums but also from co-workers is this:

People lose the weight they wanted, then treat this as a diet and go off of it. Learning NOTHING about proper eating habits, nutrition. It's like the totally forget why they went on Atkin's. Then months maybe years later they gained it all back with extra and try it again.


In order to be successful you MUST change your eating habits for LIFE. Not just while trying to lose the pounds. I am not sure why some people don't understand this. The more you yo-yo back and forth, the older you get and the slower your metobolism is going to get, thereby making it harder and harder to lose the pounds. Pretty soon your system won't even respond to the induction level's of Atkin's.

Pretty sad actually.

Don't look at this as a short term solution to losing weight, but a lifetime goal of eating healthy, feeling great and living life worry free of gaining.

Agonycat is SO right...

I did CALP and lost 60lbs. Stopped mostly because of boredom and laziness. Became bored with the foods I was eating but did nothing to learn about new recipes to keep myself interested. Then I stopped stocking my house with the right things to eat and eventually fell back into the old way of eating. In a flash I had gained back 60+30 more.

But the lessons learned by my failure made a huge impression on me. I now fully understand that this is a lifetime change in my WOE. I'm educating myself on how to LC cook and shop. As time goes on, it gets easier and more interesting. It empowers me.

My advice...don't think of this as a diet with a beginning and an end. It's your new WOE and you'll have to be thoughtful about what you eat for the rest of your life. But that's a good thing.

Bood luck!

Donald

I would definately have to echo Agonycat and DWRolfe's advice.
I also found that social situations take some planning. I don't know about you ,but in my world there is a lot of eating and drinking goin' on!! I find that if I am planning a dinner at my home I must make it low carb with a few higher-carb additions for the rest of the folk. When I go out for dinner I realize that there are going to be many things I can not have if I want to stay true to myself. This is life. It all comes down to the choices we make. If I chose to have a couple of rye & water's and a glass of wine with my dinner, the chances that my fat loss will slow down are pretty much guaranteed. It will burn the alcohol first and my fat will just sit there waiting for its turn. I want my fat to go away as fast as possible so I make my decisions accordingly. We all have the ability to retrain ourselves not to reach for the "breadbasket". If we want to feel well physically, mentally and emotionally, we have to take care of the one and only "vessel" we are given to sail through life with. Personally, I want to upgrade to a sleeker, faster more dependable model!!
Find out what you want and GO FOR IT!!

Sunshine Smiles!!

yup, have to agree with all of the above

This is what we mean by 'way of eating' and "way of life" and why we use those terms and not 'dieting.' diets don't work. Changing the way you eat permanently does. Part of why I think LC is a reasonable long-term treatment for obesity is that I believe it's much more sustainable than is low-cal or low-fat eating.

I think the way I'll be able to maintain is to stay away from grains and sugar 99% of the time (may have them birthdays, christmas, that sort of rare special scheduled event, but will also be aware that I'll wake up the next day feeling hungover and craving more). I will carefully add back in occasional lentils, potatoes, hicher-carb fruit, because I know these aren't my personal trigger foods (ones that make me crave more or binge on them). You will likely find your trigger foods are different than mine.

The effort of discovering one's own trigger foods, treating one's own emotional disorders, developing strategies for staying junk-food free in a junk food world: this is really too big an order for a lot of people.

mystery, good question--and a smart one, too!

You guy seems to have all the answers. Boy, is it a relief to have people travel the same road you have to travel and give you so much knowledge along the way.

Often times people comment about this way of life and often ask when are you going off the diet, how much weight do you want to lose, and you can't stay in ketosis for too long. It's often discouraging to have conversations with people, because they all seem to want to sabatoge your postive thoughts.

I will make sure that I re-affirm the notion that this is not a diet and also remember that I have to watch what I eat for a lifetime. Thanks for you input, you have no idea how valuable you words are to so many people.

My major issue these days, is the consistant use of the bathroom scale and worrying about how fast I want to lose the weight. I'm very aware that this weight did not come on overnight. But, I'm working so hard to have it come off and I want quick results. Mentally, I know this is not a healthy way to think. But, it does cross my mind a few times a day. Hopefully, I can continue to pray and ask for guidance and remember that I should a) take my time and remember if it takes longer to take the weight off it will stay away for good b) that I have plenty of time and being healthy is a lifetime battle so it will never be over c) love myself more, whatever weight I am.

So, as you can see I have the tools, I just need to practice using them.

The only successful weight loss campaign I have done in the past was when I was 20 and I took off about 35 pounds one summer. The way I did it was to cut my calories to 800 per day and run every night. I was very happy with the way I looked, but I couldn't keep it up forever. Soon I would be reaching for the pizza after I came home from work. My starting point at that time was 165 and I got down to about 130. Now I'm 190, so you see how good I am at dieting. I actually gained back twice what I had lost over the course of 4 years. I'm still looking for proof that Atkins works for me. My sticks show I am in ketosis, but I won't believe it until my clothes start loosening. I hope it happens soon.

If you follow Atkins stricktly, does the quantum of food you consume have a significant impact on your body's propensity to gain weight like when you generally overeat on a conventional diet?

There is no restriction on amounts as long as the food is within low-carb guidelines and what you have learned about what works best for you. But you are cautioned not to overeat.

With low-carbing, eating too much rarely becomes an issue. The problem is eating enough calories. And most newbies are astounded by the number of calories they can consume, especially if they have come from calorically deprived regimens.

Low-carbing has a natural appetite suppression effect, so taking in calories in the form of fat insures that you are getting the right amount for basic bodily functions - survival - and your body is assured that it is OK to drop to the weight.

Most long-term low-carbers eventually figure out that a diet that has at least 60% of it's calories from fat is what works for them.

As with all things low-carb, a great part of the process is "do it and learn." There are some general principles that apply to most people, but finding out what the right food choices are from OWL onto Maintenance ensures long-term success. Basically, you are re-teaching yourself how to eat and it's an intertesting, rewarding and at times frustrating process.

Karen

Great advice to such a wise question in this thread!! I pesonally have also made the mistake of losing 100 pounds on Atkins, and then thinking I could do some sort of combo LC and low calorie, sort of switching day to day. During that time I figured if I kept up my exercise (as I was so much more active than I had been before) I would be more free to "reach for the breadbasket". What I didn't count on, and quite frankly was not watchful enough to notice and clue into, was that once I started reaching for the breadbasket, my old cravings came back, and I was back to rationalizing eating the wrong things. Slowly I felt worse, but I didn't credit it to the food, I was having more problems with stress control and blamed the stress for how I was feeling. Since I was feeling worse I started exercising less. As you can tell the cycle was out of control and as a result over two years I gained back 60 pounds. I am now working on losing that, and it is really true that it comes off sooooooo much slower the second time. I am grateful I finally woke up before I gained it all back, and hope that this time I truly accept that this is a WOL, and don't just get excited when I am thinner and treat myself to much.

I wish you so much luck, and hope that hearing our "sob stories" will help you avoid being where I am now. 60 pounds heavier, out of clothes (that is mostly what finally made me snap out of it, I gave away most of my clothes as I got smaller and got to the point where I was going to have to buy a bigger wardrobe) except for a few new ones I have bought, and struggling to get back into shape, while I am now two years older!!

On the other hand, once you have experienced this WOL, you know if is the answer if you are a carb addict, and now that I am back to my senses, whenever I think about quitting because the weight isn't coming off, I just remember how much better I feel now. I want to be thinner, but even now while I am not I still feel better, and I hope you do to!

All of the above plus..once I lost the 44#'s on Adkins before, my weight came back gradually, just the same way it came off..that was my fooler. I would add more and more more carbs and not see the scale move up until all of a sudden..Hsoohw (whoosh spelled backward)...10#'s would suddenly show up on the scale but my clothes would still fit ...until suddenly Hsoohw..I needed something a bit larger to wear as my dryer seemed to be shrinking my pants and then my shirts etc..(even got a new dryer)
DENIAL...Then I made a conscious choice that I had a "right" to eat what I wanted, when I wanted, and as much as I wanted..that my body would only get just so big...and that eventually I would be in control.....also remembered Adkins as being a very easy way to lose once I had regained......WRONG ON ALL COUNTS.....iT HAS BEEN SUCH A STRUGGLE THIS TIME..I DON'T EVER WANT TO FORGET........Thank God w/ the help of people on this site I am finally beginning to reverse the process and maybe one last time this WOE will work for me. It's so much easier to maintain than to go back and do it over again Oh that I have finally truely learned that my body reacts to carbs the same way an alcoholic reacts to that first drink..a spiral to HELL..
Thanks for such a nice thread..

These replies are all so helpful. I have regained twice, and both times, it had to do with "taking a break." Christmas season was the killer both years.

I spent countless years hating myself for lack of willpower while my insulin reaction to the carbs I was eating screamed for more.
What I love about low-carb is that, given enough time, the raving cravings disappear. Now I have all the willpower in the world!

The danger is in reactivating the cravings!

Oh yeah . . . and I wish I'd known that the weight doesn't come off as easily after the first time. You have to be more strict and fight harder to make it happen.

If only someone had told me: "The first time you low-carb, the easy weight loss is an amazing gift - don't squander it."

Ladies and Gents,


I want to thank you for sharing all of your pitfalls. I truly want this to work for me and I do learn from other people's mistakes. So far I'm very happy with the diet. I seem to be dropping weight and inches so nicely.

Good Luck to all of you and once again thanks so very much for sharing. I know I will have trying times, but I will remember how passionate all of you are in continuing with your weight loss even though many of you have bump in the roads. I'm sure I will to, but the response to this thread will help me keep on track.

Thanks again!!

My pittfall is very much like Sandy3's. It is so much harder now. Coming off LC and getting back on is the hard way to do it. Better to start and stay there. Low Carb for life!