I guess way back when I was thin, all my friends were on some sort of diet or another, so I never felt singled out unless I was the only one NOT dieting. There were times I wanted a double cheeseburger, but they were all eating salad... so I ate a salad.

Hopefully, by the time I reach goal or even close, my food choices will have become so ingrained that it won't matter to me what other people think of what I'm eating or not eating. Right now, all my friends seem to be on Weight Watchers, and I'm getting a little "overloaded" with WW chatter... so I've found other, non-food-related things to do with them. It makes it easier.

On another note, if I go too far loss-wise and can't see it, I hope they are still there to hit me over the head until I listen. The old "If more than three people tell you something, it's probably true" would be my motto.

I have this problem with people in my life as well. People have a difficult time wrapping their minds around the fact that I am still LC. I work in a steakhouse with lots of LC food. The managers put out a bunch of fried appatizers for us after a long busy night. If they did not order any buffalo wings, I will order my own dinner. When my coworkers see me eating and paying (discounted) for my own food, they just can't understand.

When I am in nursing school during the week, well, you can imagine the conversation around the lunch table. It has gotten to the point where I am so sick of defending my food choices and explaining myself that I eat (and study) in an obscure corner of the campus. I get more done that way anyways.

On the personal front, I have found that over time the vigelance level can be reduced. In maintenance you find what works for you. You make mistakes, gain a few, loose a few. My personal goal is to coustomize my plan to the point that the vigelance is no longer in the fore front. Sure I know, it will aways be there. But I do want to be "normal." Not normal as people on the SAD diet define it. Normal in that I can live MY life and make good food choices without the extream dietary vigelance. I know what foods are good/bad. I agree that one needs to be aware that their choices will have an effect on health. I just dont want to have to feel like I am being vigelant. It wears on me. You know????

It is nice to see others around that are interested in maintaning. It is a challange all it's own.

If you think about it, look how many dieters fail Maintenance 101 so why would we expect non-dieters to have even a shred of a clue as to what is involved in keeping the weight off?

I'm so glad that i found this post. People piss me off so much by constantly asking me questions like so when are you getting off this diet, and things like that. I'm in maintanence now but still use low carb products namely hoodmilk and sugar free jello. But i also have sandwiches on 100% whole wheat, and i eat alot of fresh fruits and vegetables. People don't understand why i chose salads at the local pizza place, and why i don't eat ice cream. I have to tell the same people over and over again, including my parents, that it's not a diet. These changes are for life and you'll have to accept them. I'm constantly accussed of not eating healthy but my response is "look at you with your mcdonalds and coke products, it's you..not i who is eating unhealthy" It's like eating bad food has become so normal for so much of america that when one eats healthy they're seen as strange and unhealthy. Now i admit recently i've been eating ALOT of the walden farms dips cuz they're just so good but only as a topping to strawberries or jello or something. We maintainers need to come up with some way to prove to the others that eating sugary stuff isn't necessary and that our *mostly* unprocessed ways of eating are better for your health.

Yea, Kryssi. I sometimes miss the feeling of "belonging" that goes along with trying to lose myself. It's strange because I don't quite feel like a "regular person" as I have to be so strict in what I eat, but I also don't feel like a dieter because I don't have goals and things like that (other than to not be complacent, but that's more like, well, maintaining something... boring and routine and personal).

I can totally understand how you feel. While I myself don't struggle with hypoglycemia of that degree, I know the trepidation and fear with carbohydrate food you speak of... worrying that if you eat it you might feel like crap later. For me, one blood sugar slip will mess me up all day... set me up for that "in a fog and just want to snack all the time" feeling. Not a pleasant experience.

I can indulge on occasion because my problems with carbs aren't as extreme as yours, but one thing I can't get complacent with is the weight thing. I will and do gain easily, so that is something I must be extreme about. It's not vain to highly prioritize important health issues like hypoglycemia control or control of obesity.

The problem I think is if people can't SEE the problem they don't realize it doesn't exist. To others you look like a regular person. They don't know you used to be 300 pounds, or they don't know that you used to faint all the time from sugar crashes. So when you order the salad instead of the pasta, or you have to eat less if you plan on eating pasta later to control weight... people think you're being neurotic about a problem that doesn't exist. They can't know the problem DOES exist, it's just that we're controlling it by these supposed "neurotic" behaviors.

Thanks Kryssi and congrats for taking charge of your health and sticking to it.

Hi Jo
I went through that fear of stopping too. I'm so glad that's behind me and I've experimented with changing up what I eat. For me it was important to prove to myself that I CAN and WANT to stay committed no matter what. I was afraid that if I tasted something not good for me that I would get distracted and compromise my goals. I was afraid if I had a pig out I would justify doing it again instead of fixing it. I've proven I can and will go back, that I actually want to go back without much struggle, which has made me way more comfortable in maintaining.

I experimented with eating lots of carbs and it didn't work well. I don't eat induction but many days if not most days carbs are rather low. I go as high as 25% without really struggling but often times carb count is like 75 grams or thereabouts because I eat mainly from veggies and meat food.

Thanks Kryssi
Yea I noticed that too. I think that those of us in maintenance who are on the thinner side are the ones who get the most flack. I mean if you're maintaining a healthy - but heavier - size, people are far less likely to ask why you're throwing out the bun and weighing your portions. Since people associate watching what you eat with losing weight it doesn't alarm them that a 5'5 150ish pound woman would do that (even though she's healthy at that size, she is not really thin). If a 5'5 110ish pound woman does it, people assume she must be mentally screwed up trying to lose more weight, or irrationally afraid of gaining weight. They don't realize I do what I do to prevent weight gain, and that my "fear" of gaining weight isn't some anorexic delusion but control of a real health condition - morbid obesity.

That's great Mary-Ann... it's so important to think about maintenance while you're losing. My maintenance was difficult because I focused so exclusively on weight loss, that I became dependent on it. Part of the problem is that I dealt with food abuse by using weight loss as a substitute. The other part, though, was ignorantly not really experimenting and taking the lazy-easy route of just choosing to reduce everything as much as I could while being healthy/satisfied. If I HAD eaten "normally" once in awhile out, and basically LIVED instead of "dieted" I wouldn't have the irrational fears I had.

Maintenance isn't hard. For me the diet is the same as weight loss, only difference is I don't take to under eating all the time and I allow myself treat - free meals on occasion (with later & prior compensation).
The struggle in maintenance is psychological. It's mostly scary. When you're losing you have the goal of getting rid of fatness to keep you motivated. When you're maintaining you have no motivation. You have to keep yourself motivated by constantly reminding yourself why you need to maintain. The fear comes in that you fret one day you might forget why you're doing this and stop. Complacency will set in.

Experimenting with carbs socially actually helps remind why I do this. When you're in the throes of it full on, you remember what they do to you and why you need to eat restricted.

Great posts, Woo.

It really does come down to that. Maintenance is tough if the things that made you over-eat in the first place will never go away. I was raised as a compulsive junk food eater and my deep-down desire to eat and drink everything in sight will never really go away. Funny - just yesterday, I arrived in the city a few hours before my brother was going to pick me up. There was a McDonalds. I stood there for a good five or ten minutes arguing with myself about what to do. I have a bunch of canker sores right now, so I honestly entertained the idea of a Flurry. In the meantime, I kept glancing at my watch, looking like I was waiting for someone, so people wouldn't think I was nuts. In the end, I went to a nearby salad bar and got a pile of spinach, bacon and cheese. But I felt somewhat... bereft.

There you have it, folks. It doesn't always feel as good as it looks.

These two quotations (from different people) reflect two different ways of handling maintenance when you are eating with other people. It's more obtrusive to "throw away the bun" than to order a main dish salad, isn't it? Most of the time it should be possible to eat in a way that doesn't seem so extraordinary to others, no? And weighing food for every meal should not be necessary after long experience with low carbing. Sure, you want to do it some of the time if it helps assure you about portion size, but it seems desirable not to weigh at every meal. The less attention you call to your different way of eating, the less flak you have to take from "civilians" .

I'm just marking this thread...interesting discussion and I want to keep track of it!

You can also do that by clicking on "thread tools" and choosing "subscribe" from the drop down list.

I totally agree with the way people look at my eating habits now that I'm really thin. They just don't understand how LCing works and that you can not eat starchy foods and satisfy yourself calorie wise and not lose anymore weight. They still think I'm "dieting".

I just hate the horrified look of "ARE YOU STILL TRYING TO LOSE MORE WEIGHT???!!" because I ordered my hamburger without a bun.

So I just tell them that I don't feel like falling asleep in an hour after eating the bun. Then they remember my condition and shut up.

Kristine,



What you have written here really hit home with me. This internal battle between good and evil when out of the home. I have this problem too. I didn't really understand this about myself before I read this. I want badly to be normal. And normal for me would not be to struggle with this internal battle. It really wears me down. It has gotten better for me in my home, being that it is a controlled environment with PLENTY of yummy good food. I rarley if ever have the urge to go off the deep end when I am home.



I am really feeling you on this Been there numerous times. I need to find a way to work on my attitudes about food. I have succeded in the home, and work/school environments, now need to figure out how to approch going out while feeling normal in the process. .....

Who knows, maybe it is normal to have this internal battle. I have never been able to read other peoples minds. It's funny how we have expectations of what things will be like once we reach goal.

So lets say that this is a battle in our minds. We have pushed the enemy out of various territories in our lives. But on one front, the battle lives on. After a while you become tired of the battle and the enemy gains ground (work, home, where ever) becoming more powerful. If you don't pay enough attention to this, you can become overwhelmed and defeated. This paints a grim picture.

Now for a newbie, they are fighting on multiple fronts. Many give up, while some become hyper focused and use tools such as fitday, weighing food, count carbs/cals ect. By mastering the tangible aspects of what you are up against, you can manipulate the enemy. By doing reserch, you can learn the mechanics of the enemys tactics (insulin/bs/cravings). You do these things in able to gain the upper hand by becoming stronger reducing the physical blows. But what if in the end, you have the enemy cornered in your mind? You know what to do, but your mind turns against you. What if in cirtain circumstances the enemy still has some power? You stand in front of that McDonalds for ten minutes battling it out in your head, all the while looking at your watch as to lok "normal" to others around you. You still have the choice, but how do you win whats in your mind. Your own worst enemy, or best friend.

It takes diligence to push the enemy back and gain ground. Why should anyone believe that we should ditch all dilligance once we reach goal. If the psychological issues are not dealt with, you will continue to have the same issues issues with food. I hold onto the hope that I can conqure ground in areas in my life so I can have some semblance of normal. For now, maintenance is not a nice from the inside as it outwordly appears.

Good topic WOO