I have used LC most of my life. On diet, off diet. But it's been a WOL. I have never been obese I just diet again if I start gaining. My highest weight was 162 when I quit smoking. Before I was a senior citizen I used to keep my weight lower than I do now. My face gets too wrinkled looking now at the lower weights.

I would hate to think my repeated failings would end up being a deterrent to anyone's quest for health. I think when I saw this posts, some part of me said "Well, alright! A new thing to feel guilty over!"

If the future holds that I will restart for the 100th or the 1000th time, then so be it. I can't change my past and I am (not yet) psychic enough to see the future. If I fall 999 times and write in my journal I was able to get back up again for the 1000th time, I could see that being sad to some people. If I was able to learn 1000 truths about myself in the process then I wouldn't see it being equal to only failures. I'll honestly don't know what the total number of my tries add up to, but I know I won't keep trying the same exact thing 1000 times! I will keep "tweaking" my attempts. I also feel that I will keep trying to improve on my health until they spread my ashes to the winds.

Everyone's journey is different. You can take joy in other people's successes, you can feel empathy in other people's pain, but none of that will indicate how your journey will progress. Learn what you can from others, see if it can be implemented in your life. If it fits, great! If not, try something else! You can learn from failures, you can learn from success. Just keep wanting to learn, regardless of the outcome.

Better to try and fail than never try.

The word persistence applies to trying and failing and trying again. This is a trait we like, right? Let's not be so critical of those who display a rather good trait.

I'm 53 and it's taken me most of my lifetime so far to figure some things out.

Patience, grasshopper.

Ah, I would venture to say that if you think it can't happen to you then it's very likely that it will. There are many things still to be learned on your journey.

This is really a learning process. There are people, right now, on these very forums, who are LOSING, right now(!!) and they talk about when they'll have their first "cheat meal" or how they will go back to eating their favorite snacks "in moderation." A big problem with this WOE is that, as a short-term diet, it's still pretty successful. You can easily get somewhere- perhaps further than you've ever gone on any diet, and feel "safe." It's really easy to ignore food issues because of the initial drop in cravings, and satisfaction with a little success. As your weight loss slows, you get a little hungrier, your size 16 no longer feels like a good thing like it did when you were recently a 22... so starts the creep. Your commitment takes a dive. You step out of your body as you watch yourself make really bad choices.

Anybody restarting after that- awesome. They can learn from their mistakes. But look. There may be more mistakes. There will probably be more mistakes. Quite a few of the long term maintainers (a lot of them already participating in this conversation) started and restarted multiple times.

i think this is a very useful conversation to have. Thanks for bringing it up.

i would like to say that i am more than confident that there will not be a restart. i think it can happen to me - sure. but i am not going to go back to the way i was eating when i was pregnant. i am not judging others, only wondering about all the restarts and other peoples thoughts on them. i totally get it now and give everyone props for starting again. i appreciate the feedback.

I guess you could say that i am newly overweight since having a baby. i haven't gone through a long length of time with having to lose 40lbs.

If you feel strongly all your excess weight is related to nothing more than your pregnancy, you may have a healthier relationship with food than the people here. No "restart" story here that I have ever read has been about someone who merely has some baby weight to lose, and has spent most of her life at a healthy weight. You may have nothing to worry about. And in that case, it really may be hard to fully understand the complex issues surrounding weight regain.

yes, i do understand. and perhaps i understand even better after reading peoples responses. Regardless of where the weight came from, i still need to lose it. 40 lbs is nothing to sneeze at and its not like it is just melting off my body. i guess you can say i "feel strongly" that it came from pregnancy - only because i didn't weigh almost 200 lbs before i got pregnant. For many people, i'm sure baby weight snowballed into a much larger problem.

all i am saying is, if i restarted this WOA a dozen times or more i would start to question how realistic it was for me.

and yes, i agree. i can see how it is like quitting smoking. i smoked for 13 years and successfully quit in 2010.

(Shrug) I'm just pointing out that a majority of the people who restart have been overweight a majority of their life and have major issues with food. "merely some baby weight to lose" was careless wording. I didn't mean to offend you, or suggest 40 pounds is nothing to lose, just that I truly believe you have less to worry about than many of the people struggling here. I'm sure you will be successful.

I've held off in getting involved in this thread because frankly, to the OP even if you don't mean to sound judgemental, you do IMO.

You say you've never had a weight problem until now.

You say that you attribute your weight to your pregnancy.

You say that you're not going to go back to eating the way you did prior to your pregnancy.

You say you don't feel that you will be one of these people, so you're not really worried about it happening to you.... the whole thing just strikes you as odd.

Very strong convictions for one who has never really had a weight problem and have attempted the journey to lose it.

How lucky for you that you haven't spent many years struggling with your weight and the emotional and physical issues surrounding it.

Weight and losing weight is not just about the "food". For the majority of overweight individuals there is a HUGE psychological/emotional component involved--whether food used for comfort, entertainment, stress relief, depression, shame relief--you get the idea, a form of self medication.

You are very lucky if for YOU it is just all about the food and food choices. For others...not so lucky.

As for restarting....



I can easily think of people who went on...

Jenny Craig
WW
Nutrisystem
Optimal
Cabbage diet
Scarsdale

With the same outcome. It's not just a LC phenom. Until an individual deals with thier emotional relationship with food and makes the paradigm shift that this (whatever chosen plan) needs to be for life to obtain and maintain success, there will always be starts and restarts.

The sad part is not the start and restarts. To me the sad part are those who never start or those who have started, failed and see failure as the end game.

Progress not perfection.

Lisa

I'm taking a shortcut because what Lisa said here is SPOT on! I've only - in the past 3 weeks - really SEEN, UNDERSTOOD, and ACKNOWLEDGED my slipping off Low Carb for what it really is: feeding my emotions as a way to keep them below the surface. I'm particularly adept at it with anger and fear, although I do it with shame and sadness as well. Oddly enough I don't do with happiness or excitement. Mind you a friend pointed this out to me about a year or so ago and I denied it. It took me this long to recognize the truth of what he said. And it is a HUGE conscious effort to change it.

That all said, it is wonderful for you if you can lose the weight only once and stick to eating low carb - no matter what life throws at you. You have a leg up on a lot of people in this world.

There was something else I was going to add but danged if I can remember it.

I suspect this is 99% of it. Not just us being addicted, but the society at large is, too.

How many relatives are shocked at your low carb intentions? How many friends freak out? How many co-workers slip you a donut because they can't believe you are serious? How many life partners pout because a favorite dining activity is now seen as off limits? How many hear from fellow parents that "children have to have treats"? How many search food outlets in vain for low carb options? How many get lectured by their doctors? How many get tired of telling wait staff not to put pancake batter in their omelettes?

When we look at how many giant, foot snagging, high hurdles EVERY SINGLE FOOD TRANSACTION puts in front of us constantly... the wonder isn't that people try and fail. The amazing thing is that any of us are successful at all!

That's a good point. The truth is that even people at a healthy weight seem to get antsy just at the suggestion that they go without their wheat products.

I also find it discouraging that so many people have to do any diet over and over just to gain back more. I think alot of the problem is we put so much emotional and physical energy into the diet portion that we don,t have alot left over for the maintaining stage. It takes alot of energy to have to be on top of something all the time and never let down your gaurd for more than a minute, and thats what it takes to maintain. Its easy to busy with kids and family or work or all the above and lose control for just a few days and you tell yourself that after things settle down a little I,ll get back on plan or I,ll get back on plan tomarrow. Reality is life is crazy and hectic and tomarrow is always a day away. It might just take a few do overs to learn that today is what counts when it comes to maintaining. Let tomarrow takecare of itself and focus on today. It also comes as a suprise to most of us that maintaining takes just as much energy and diligence as dieting did . For alot of us the minute we think we got it licked and let down our garde the regain begins.

Spot on as always Lisa.