Oh, you forgot the BIGGIE.... Menopause!

Nope, didn't forget it....I must have been a bit obtuse but menopause and perimenopause was what I meant by this:




The big M is always the first on my list these days

There already is a long-ongoing Optimal thread at:
http://forum.lowcarber.org/showthread.php?t=394198

An awful lot of reading there, but some very good information about the plan too, especially the posts from Pangolina.

Wolf--you might have found a home

From yesterdays posts by JM of his egg fest diet:



I know it's only been 2-3 weeks but still.....
I think he may finally get it!

JM, I'm rootn' for ya!!!

CNMlisa,I was following the optimal diet all this time.But my new venture is to eat meat as it comes and as much as you want.So my eating plan is not Optimal anymore but meat and eggs.

I wish Jimmy luck as well.He can do this and I hope he reaches his goal and stays close to it this time around.

Me too but boy am I dreading his first taste of sweet. It's human nature to test if they still don't speak to him, and if he does it before the 4-6 month mark, he'll be a sitting duck. The neurological receptors take a while to downregulate and if they haven't - the taste of sweet will be like he died and went to heaven. Oh dear.

I don't feel this has to be necessarily so. I gave up all sweets when I went on a VLC/ZC diet last fall, and basically lost my taste for them. But I still *missed* them in an odd sort of way. I was bored with the VLC/ZC eating plan.

And eventually, at some point, I ended up having a sweet treat. It tasted good to me, but I felt no urge to fall face-down into the sweet treats, or to binge on carbs or anything. I still stuck with my LC eating plan, but incorporated occasional sweet treats.

My weight loss *has* slowed considerably since then, but I have still lost weight and not gained anything back, and I enjoy the occasional sweet treat without going overboard. Now that Easter has come and gone maybe I'll think about trying ZC/VLC again, but right now I'm enjoyng my variety. I just had a great lunch of Easter dinner leftovers - roast pork loin, asparagus with Hollandaise sauce, a spinach/artichoke/ricotta dish my sister made, some sweet potatoes roasted in heavy cream - and a bit of a sweet treat, some sweetened baked rhubarb with whipped cream. Still have more Easter leftovers to eat, then we will see where I want to go.

That is good to hear Debbie. Do you remember how long you had been sweet-free before you tested it, and then didn't have a face-down icky reaction? It took me quite a while as I recall.

That Easter meal all sounds so delicious.

Hmm, I'd say it was probably about six weeks.

I never seem to overindulge on the lemon egg custard I make. Sometimes I even go for days without remember I have some available. It is sweet, creamy, lemony... marvelous stuff. But I don't go nuts.

But low carb cheesecake...that's a different story.

And I'm just the opposite! The thought of eating a piece of cake filled with sugar, white flour, etc, just totally grosses me out - yet it might also have the power to derail me (it has in the past - before I got as committed to healthy eating as I have now). But an occasional LC sweet treat definitely helps me stay on plan, and has never ever made me want to go back to carb addiction.

Hmmn. Actually my observation about my own body is this:

If I think of a food and I think -- with no emotion whatsoever -- "that sounds good, I should try that," then I am in a good place to do so.

If I think of a food and I think -- with some 'feeling' involved -- "that sounds so good! I've love to have that." -- then I am not in a good place and I need to eat protein/fat and definitely NO sugar or whatever I was feeling about.

If I think of a food and I think, "Oh god. Food. I really can't stomach eating anything for a long while." Then I'm not high enough in my fats+carbs and am probably getting anorexic, my calories and intake will drop, then I'll be LOW on protein and lose energy, then I'll crave carbs, then I'll end up off plan. (Sung to the tune of the Hokey Pokey...)

So in short, what it boils down to is:
* If I really WANT it, with a sense of anticipation, I can't have it.
* If I really couldn't care less, it's ok to have it.
* If I pointedly DON'T want anything, with a sense of rejection, I probably need some.

I know this is hilarious and stupid but that is really what I've come (via experience) to think is true for my body.

Actually, I think it's neither hilarious nor stupid, let alone both. I found it a rather profound observation.

Thanks for sharing.

I'm with you. I find having even that one carby treat a slippery slope but having an LC treat, homemade ones, never seems to cause issues. Oh, if I make a whole cheesecake or cream-y pie I might pig out until it's gone but if so, it was all LC. Better than trying to smash down the cravings I have after going for the full-carb kind.