My most recent backslides was 5 pounds, much of which was carb bloat. Still, I freaked out and slammed on the brakes, went right back to induction type of eating and that 5 lbs. has come right off. Now I'm back where I was hanging for a long time, trying to get past that point.

This says it all for me..

Well done to all those who pick themselves back up and keep on trucking, however many attempts it takes.

Its hard to believe that we put so much energy into dieting, but we do. I get tired, emotional tired of always being on top of my food intake, worrying about parties, and if everything is right. I have days when I want to say screw it and eat what I want, so much easier!

But, I plug on, and use more energy for dieting.

My thought is this: we "restart" every single day! Each day we have to decide if we're going to follow our adopted WOL or not. "Restarting" shouldn't be looked at as a failure ... but rather as success.

I love this!

Brilliant!

I had one screwup that lasted for a few months, and I gained back 20. Fortunately, trying on the summer clothes gave me a stark wakeup call.

Now, after going gluten-free, getting more Paleo/Primal, and cooking more; the summer clothes still fit! And this was after a horrible winter with illness, antibiotics, and some starches creeping into my meals to cope with the stomach upsets.

I've reached a point where I'm comfortable in the size I'm at, and I'm comfortable with what I do to stay there.

I'm dealing with why people fall off the wagon right now. I havn't fallen off yet, today but I'm PMSing, feeling stressed about a party tomorrow where they turned what I had planned to be a fun day into a dessert stuff themselves day. and family stress. My sister lives with my ex husband, for a year now and he's weaseled his ass into my family.

I baked 3 pies today expected that to be the only dessert served and I am told by BF that he told 4 people to bring more desserts. I'm stressing, I'm actually in tears, Isn't my apple pies enough? I know the PMS is making it all worse than it is, and I want to eat everything I shouldn't. Do they not give a damb that all the junk food is hard on me to stay away from? I'm having issues, I'm tired of being healthy and eating different from everyone else.

Thats one (or 3) of the reasons why people would fall off the wagon and descide to be smart and healthy and get back with the program.

Just look under my username. I've had that for at least the past 3 years. I don't care if you have 7 years, 7 months, 7 days, 7 hours under your belt. It all starts all over again every day.

Well said, I agree completely. I was on a roller coaster of endless starts and restarts for simply years and years, and I didn't get things under control until I took the attitude that while I might mess up one day, the next day I got right back on track. I've had a heckofa lot of Day One's! If you can get away from setting off on a run of bad eating that can continue for days, weeks even, but rather, get right back on track immediately, things do go better and all this gets increasingly easier, and more like habit.

haha - no i did not "fall off the wagon", i'm just not very into this board.

everything is fine over here in my low carb world... good luck to everyone. and sorry for being accidentally judgemental! it was a sincere question.

Apology accepted. As you have read, its easy to fall off, and all is good when we jump right back in. Dieting is har, If it were easy, we would all be skinny

It is frustrating. To steal another poster's quote: if you do what you've always done, you'll get what you've always gotten.

So - if you cannot maintain a healthy weight on a SAD where you just eat whatever you want, then you must CHANGE YOUR WAYS PERMANENTLY to lose weight and keep it off.

As soon as you go back to the SAD that got you fat in the first place... guess what... you'll get fat again!!

Hope that clears things up.

I'm sure that when/if you need support, you might remember how open we all are.

I'm not sure what caused you to be "not into" the forum, but it's here for people who need it - so I guess if you don't want help or advice you wouldn't have found it in the first place.

I don't worry about restarting. I don't see how you can make a permanent change in your life without looking at it as something you might not slip up doing occasionally. With low carb/lower carb, we are constantly fighting our upbringing (who comes from an upbringing where what we eat even on moderate carb is normal?), studies being pushed in the media regarding fat consumption, our own addictions or difficulties giving up what we know is bad for us, our bodies for failing to regulate calories properly, advertising and food formulas made to be incredibly enticing, government policy which favours carbohydrate consumption over the other macronutrients (both in subsidies and recommendations), etc, etc. It's not all that different for people on other diets either. How many restart those?

I quit smoking after 15+ years smoking, and I quit smoking by never giving up giving up. Even if I screwed up, I knew that I didn't want to be a smoker any more and I tried again to quit. It took me years (about 5 of those 15 years smoking were my quitting years), but I did it.

So I don't worry about restarting 100 times. I worry about the day I give up on even trying.

I agree so much with this! We need to come to terms with our behavior, but sometimes I think we're so quick to castigate ourselves for being sugar/carb addicts that we minimize the outrage, negation, and hazing we face all the time trying to stay on this WOE.

There are so many people armed with so much wrong information who are so quick to tell us what they think of our choices! Of course we should tell them to mind their own business, but sometimes in life we slip and there are moments of weakness, dark times of self-doubt or depression, or illness when we don't resist the onslaught of criticism and lapse back into the old behaviors.

About 15 years ago when I started low-carbing (without much self-education about it, just one of the Atkins books), and I went back to visit some family, my mother practically went into hysterics seeing me put heavy whipping cream into my coffee and eating corned beef without the rye. She freaked me out and I didn't have a lot of the awareness and information I have now, so while I didn't give up, I think it affected my confidence in what I was doing.

And earlier that year, I asked my doctor to recommend me to a nutritionist; I was feeling very proactive and wanted help with recent weight gain. They put me on a low-calorie/low-fat diet that was ridiculously restrictive, e.g., half a plain toasted bagel for breakfast, beef boullion for a snack. Even the (overweight) nutritionist radiated depression and a total lack of confidence in that plan when she gave it to me (and this was at a prestigious university teaching hospital).

In so many ways we have to do this all ourselves, sort though so much wrong information and media messages, and summon the courage to face the opposition. Just going to a restaurant or supermarket, or having surgery in a hospital, presents all kinds of threats to our WOE even if we KNOW it's best for us and are 100% committed.

The longer you stay with this, and the better you feel, the more you have the strength to stay with it. But it's a process sometimes that you have to grow into.

And while I used to bemoan the fact that I wasn't losing as much weight as I hoped or as quick as I want, I increasingly realize that one of the major benefits of this WOE is how it helps make you more intelligent! Brain fog clears, thinking is calmer, you don't have all the ups and downs and erratic mood swings that get in the way of making good choices once your metabolism starts healing up. And then you start making better and better choices, and stabilizing in your new pattern, and your whole life improves and you're much stronger than before. But we all have different histories and character makeup, and it just takes time, which doesn't mean you've failed if you have to start and restart for a while to keep it going.