Good luck in Australia. I'm sure your daughter will eventually understand it's an important health issue for you, provided you don't give in and take the fudge. In my experience, well-meaning people who want to "treat" me with sweets and grains only "get it" if I stick to my guns. Then, they eventually stop pushing the treats at me and even show some interest in my food choices. The reverse is also true. If I have just one chocolate (or whatever they are offering) it reinforces to them that they are doing a good thing and making me happy, which of course is not the case at all, but having lost all credibility I can never again convince them otherwise.

I'm cynical enough to think that you often just can't convince people your path is right for you or get through to them that you've decided to cut certain things from your diet. It starts a cascade of push-pull, tug of war, becomes all about to eat or not to eat . . . I may be wrong, some people are very understanding, but so much of this is a matter of self-education and thinking through what's best for you.

I often take the coward's way out and just tell people I'm allergic (to chocolate, wheat, whatever) and that seems to be the one thing that people can get on board with. So many of the other words like carb, Atkins, paleo are so highly charged and people get defensive. I recently got into something with a family member when I mentioned my diet was primarily "keto," I thought that was safe but the same arguments about how you need a balanced diet blah blah blah.

I finally reread the thread. I still think "drivel" was excessive. But I sort of understand the frustration.

I think there's a sort of priming in this community to react a certain way to certain words. If a person says they can do something by willpower--in this case, go off the diet and then back on--sometimes we'll take this as an implication that if it's something we can't do, then we ourselves are weak-willed. There are people who take this attitude--but not everybody who says they did something by willpower does.

When you say "I have pretty good willpower, so I'll have no problem getting back on plan," okay, maybe willpower is a factor. (That's a paraphrase, I hope an accurate one). But we can't really know how hard something is--for two people, it may take more willpower to do a certain thing for one than the other--this doesn't necessarily mean that one person's willpower is stronger than the other's, because they can do it but the other can't. It just means that their willpower is up to the task at hand. Your saying that you have the willpower to resist any carb cravings you might have after a cheat isn't the same as you claiming that you'd have the willpower to resist the cravings if they were as strong as mine, or anybody else's--just yours.

And when you were accused of being patronizing for saying thank you and that you were glad you had never suffered from emotional eating--you were just responding to WereBear, who had specifically referred to herself as having had problems with emotional eating in the past.

My willpower is phenomenal when it comes to cigarettes. After quitting smoking I can be around smokers, have a pack sitting invitingly in front of me, the power of resistance is MINE.

The fact that "quitting" involved smoking one cigarette once back in 1990 just to see what the fuss was about, and saying "that's gross and pointless" would cause some to say it had nothing to do with willpower. Regardless, I know dozens of smokers and ex-smokers that would LOVE to have my frame of mind when it comes to tobacco.

Which brings us back to the main 'vibe' of this thread. Everybody is different. Everybody will react in different ways. Doesn't mean that you should not use caution when making decisions that affect your health and well-being though. And acknowledging the experiences of others DOES help formulate an idea of future possibilities.

Just wanted to pop in 7 months later to tell you, you're still wrong. From the time you had your tantrum above I am now 25-30 lbs lighter. In fact I recently started another thread about eating carbs more frequently.

What's the statute of limitations on these things? If I p'd you off a year ago, should I expect to hear about it?

First of all, change your stats so that they are current.
Second, why do you keep needing to prove that you're doing things that are working for you? Is this really necessary?

As you've been advised, try posting to areas of the board where there are people who eat some carbs like you. WOW, what a concept!

IMO you could eat low carb while on vacation planning one meal a day to add some sort of carb that you might like to enjoy but limit the eating to one hour and try to skip days. You will likely deal with cravings so be ready for it. I think you would rapidly gain about 10 lbs in those two weeks but could be more or less.

Whitecrane, I think you're not getting a good reaction here because most on the forum can't actually deal with having carb up days or meals and so aren't going to recommend it for you. It's a bit like trying to cut down on alcohol and then asking alcoholics 'hey, I'm thinking of having a drinking session every few weeks what do you think? I don't have a problem with alcohol so I think it will be ok for me'.

Some people can manage processed carbs regularly without issue, but those people are not likely to be here, and those that successfully maintain here don't (as far as I'm aware) have regular carb ups. So I think you're asking the question of the wrong crowd. You may want to try body building forums where there are plenty of guys of your age and some will have followed low carb and carb ups are a more acknowledged and understood thing. They may be able to help you with possible pitfalls and advice on how to implement such a regime. Whatever you choose, I hope you have a successful maintenance.

I think a middle-aged, or older, woman is going to have a totally different result than a young man. Can't expect everyone to have such awesome results from cheats, or such disasters either.

That's so awesome, exactly what I was waiting for, think I'll go eat a bunch of carbs now. No never mind over a decade of experience with how that would affect my body, somebody on the internet said that must be wrong.

Not sure why anybody would visit a low-carb board for the sole purpose of starting discussions about how people should be able to eat more carbs, but that's life I suppose.

To me the word cheat(ing) certainly fits. By being obese I am cheating myself out of being able to be in less pain, sleep less and feel better. I also can not have the job I want because of my health. My kids spend less time with me because I am always sleeping.

One thing I see in this thread (read the whole thing, yesterday and today) is a frequent reference to weight gained from cheating being only "water weight". IT IS NOT.

The second you start spiking insulin, it will start to carry the foods you eat to the fat cells for storage, and water along with it. During the time that you are producing higher amounts of insulin, your body won't have nutrition--because everything is being stored for future use. So, you want to eat more. And more, and more.

Studies done to deliberately overfeed people showed that it's impossible to eat enough HFHP to cause people to gain weight. But that, even on a weight gain diet of 10K calories a day, a high carb diet resulted in the participants being hungry all day long.

Whitecrane, you are lucky enough to be young and male. When I was younger, as a female, I could lose weight more easily, even on diets with higher carb loads. But eating low carb isn't just about losing weight. It's about being healthier. It's about avoiding the inflammatory responses throughout the body caused by eating grains. It's about HEALTHY.

There is nothing healthy about eating at IHOP. Ever. There is nothing healthy about eating junky food or drinking to excess. EVER.

Tomorrow is my anniversary, and my husband and I went on a dinner cruise on the St. Croix River. I had less than one glass of Chardonnay. I drank water, had salad with no dressing, as the only dressings available were high sugar. I had chicken, fish, prime rib and horseradish. A small slice of cheesecake, scraping off the sugary topping and skipping the crust.

Later, after walking along the river, I had about 3 oz from a bottle of hard cider.

It was more carbs than usual, in the evening. But 5 more, probably, not 100 more. And only once.

I don't want to eat junk, because my body is worth more than a donut.

You, of course, have the right and the responsibility to make your own decisions. But rather than ask US about the results of cheating, read some of the well written and researched books and studies available. Gary Taubes. "The Grain Brain". Use google scholar to read the studies that are hidden by Big Pharma and Big Food, because they demonstrate that carbs are unnecessary and harmful, in general.

Will is like a muscle, the more you use it the stronger it gets. Let it fall into disuse and it will atrophy. It is very dangerous to return to unhealthy habits and a week is quite some time. I would not recommend eating less than a healthy diet at any time.

Let me be explicit. You're not allowed to talk about will power here. If you do, someone will become offended and accuse you of acting dominant.

By the way, I lost 80 lbs since this thread was created a year and a half ago, cheating for weeks as needed. Molly B was wrong. Plain and simple.