I fell off the wagon about a year ago and yesterday decided to start over with Atkins. When I got on the scale thinking I was probably in the 280's and it read 293 I almost passed out. I'm over a 100 pounds heavier than my DH and he needs to lose about 70 pounds. I'm tired of all the water retention, feeling like crap and joint aches from all the excess weight.

Why did I fall off the wagon? Girl Scout cookies. I'm the cookie mom for my DD's troop and I was doing well in 2007 until the cookies arrived in February 2008. I was just as bad this year but even though I still have plenty of them here I don't want to eat them.

My plan is stay in induction for longer than 2 weeks. Right now I want to get down to 250 lbs before I start moving up the ladder.

Fortunately it's fairly easy to modify family dinners to fit my eating and we eat almost 100% of our meals at home.

Hope to get to meet all of you and lend support to your journey.

Good luck. Thanks for posting about your restart.
I keep trying to clean up my act as well.

I am with you, starting over...again. The past year has not been good for me, I not only fell off the wagon, but got run over by every wagon in train! Starting today I am going to try to stay with lowcarb. I have stuck to it so well in the past, I know that I can do it again.
Good luck and see you along the way down!

I'm with you. I haven't had as rough a time, but I've not been worrying for the past month about my weight and it has stayed the same. I have good days (when I've gotten decent sleep!) and bad days (when I haven't slept), and I'd like to have more good days where my appetite is controllable. I finally realized that I cannot lose weight when I'm exhausted no matter how I eat; my body just shuts down.

Do you find it easier to lose in the spring, or does it not matter where you live?

Welcome, and best to you in your journey. Congratulations on having the courage to face the numbers, deal with the shock, and let you use that information to move you to change.

You join a large percentage of us who are `retreads', who didn't learn all they needed to know the first time, or the second, or (insert # here if you're still counting)th time, so had to take another run at it. If you know anyone who had to take several tries before they were successful at quitting smoking, getting sober, or getting a college degree, it's pretty similar. Some people figure it out the first time, and others take awhile to figure out that this is about changing the way you eat for a lifetime, not for awhile; that changing the way you eat is something kind you do for yourself, not deprivation you impose on yourself. Eventually, I think if we keep on trying, we get it.

I have a suggestion for you: use what you're feeling right now.

Get in your journal, or somewhere else if you're not comfortable putting it there, and post in excruciating detail what day-to-day life is right now. Everything that you can think of that makes life more challenging at your size, every slight, every struggle to find something to wear--get it all on record somewhere.

Because you'll forget. Memory is merciful. Someday you'll find that again and marvel at how far you've come, and remember how hard this was, and it can give you strength to keep going.

If you just keep having good days, they string together into weeks, and months, and one day you look around and say, "Well. Would you look at that?" It really is possible.

Just say no to Samoas. Or come up w/an LC version.

Hey, look on the bright side. At least you were able to see the numbers on your scale. When I decided I had to "confront the numbers" I found I couldn't as I was so heavy my scale would not even weigh me!

In fact your starting weight is about my "now" weight, down about 75 pounds from where I started. So it could always be worse.

Good luck on your journey.

Welcome back! Best of luck to you!

Thanks for the welcome back. I'm very busy during the week so don't have much of a chance to post. I think I'm finally getting over the carb withdrawal phase. The last couple of days I had to up my carbs a little because I was so shaky and weak. But the scale is still moving down so all is good.

I'm doing well this time. Lost 13 pounds the first two weeks then gained 3 and then dropped 5 so I'm currently at 278 ..... where I started the last time (and the first time) I did Atkins.

Still staying at induction levels most days, a couple of days each week I'll add a small amount of berries or nuts. My plan is stay at this level until I hit 250.

15 pounds in two weeks, way to go!

Welcome back...........I agree it is not the number of times........... I certainly have been to goal and back up. I think more that you keep coming back. Congrats that is the hardest and sounds like you are well on your way!!

I like the idea to write how hard things are in our journals!
Good luck to you!!
Gloria