I am so psyched and impressed by all of you TREMENDOUS WINNERS (not losers)!!! Losing so much weight is a tremendous accomplishment, but keeping it off over the long run is just SO amazing and what I want for me too. You all look SO GREAT in your gallery image pictures (before/during/after) - and thanks for sharing them as I am SO MOTIVATED to see the tremendous change and difference in each of you!!! Hoping for the same thing for myself.

I lost 100 lbs in the past (while in my 30's - I am now in my 40's), through NutriSystem (50lbs) and mostly salads and some Healthy Choice TV Dinners for the next 50. BUT I WAS ALWAYS HUNGRY (sometimes painfully so) and I got to working out 2-3 hours a day - weight training and cardio, running miles each day. Something that was not really SUSTAINABLE when you get caught up in your REAL LIFE (marriage, work, kids, etc). OK, I know some who do it, but it is really hard over the long haul, and most don't. Since I have been LCing (only since October) it I am not so awful hungry and feel better and better as I lose weight without a tremendous obligation to work myself into the ground.

I especially love the way my blood sugar is so stable and comfortable since I started. I used to get so jittery when my body needed some sugar fix and then so sleepy tired after I ate a big meal. Then getting dizzy or light headed sometimes. All that is gone!! I feel great! I took my blood sugar with my wifes meter and it has been 90 and at the most 130. No huge spikes and dropouts and insulin surges, etc. I feel so much better!! It is probably what I like most about this way of eating, even more than the weight loss.

I know as I go I will eventually work out some more than I am doing now (pretty much nothing). I have some serious circulatory problems in my legs thanks to a doctor giving me a prescriptive combination of 5 drugs you cannot/should never take together without bad things happening to you (at progressively higher doses). I got nagged and scared into seeing him over blood pressure (too high) and then he wanted to chemically prescribe my way into good health with statins (including Baycol and others), Niacin, and other drugs. My wife finally found the problem after multiple doctors didn't (including super-duper doctors at Vanderbilt) online on drug interaction web sites and I stopped the drugs and dropped the "doctor" I was seeing. Anyhow - that precludes any of the heavy walking and running I did in the past - at least for now. I can't without my calves and ankles swelling up terribly.

My decision to start this was based in part in meeting several different people who were successful with LC life. One fellow I worked with did great and lost alot. I met a doctor who I bragged to that I once lost a hundred pounds and kept it off for two years straight (then gained over the years and bloated up to the ~400 lbs I reached). He told me that HE had kept over a hundred pounds off for TEN YEARS! I asked him how and he said - no potatoes, no bread, no pasta, just meat and vegies mostly. No sweets and no deserts. No cokes. I was so impressed by that. Then when my brother called to say he'd lost ~80 lbs on an Atkins LC diet - I HAD to try.

Then one of my good lifelong friends who had gotten as big or bigger than I and did the stomach surgery route. He was so awfully miserable for so long, and can now still barely eat much at all - without getting sick (and he has to be super careful what he eats). But has had huge weight loss - but was practically suicidal & depressed for the first six months with awful misery.

That was it. I had to learn this low carb way of eating and see if I too could keep it off over the long haul just like that doctor did and avoid what I saw my friend go through.

You all are wonderful examples. I am so proud of those that have already lost the weight, and then have stuck with it afterwards - which is the whole deal, right?!!??

I am also so impressed by those who frequent the forums and help others even AFTER they themselves have already lost the weight they needed to lose. That is so great!!! I love seeing what an Ongoing Maintenance life is like, and how you can help others like this!

Highest Regards to you Weight Loss Champions!!!