Fri, Jun-15-18, 13:09
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Say NO to Diabetes!
Posts: 8,671
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Plan: My own - < 30 net carbs
Stats: 440/228/210
BF:Energy Unleashed
Progress: 92%
Location: Central Virginia - USA
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I've had posts deleted on FB forums many times. I've been booted from a few and I've quit many more because I didn't like the moderation or overall content of the discussions. I was chastised on one LC forum for answering a question about the fitness tracker that I use. The owner of this popular page thought that any discussion of exercise promoted the idea "exercise more to lose more", so she curbs all discussions about exercise on her forum. While I understand the need for rules and following specific plans, I do find it frustrating when people ask me what I do and I cannot tell them on the public forum. I've tired of the FB format. I don't hang out there much anymore. I don't hang out here as much as I used to. I've got my life back and I'm living it.
As far as my definition of a "cheat" ... I am an abstainer. A food is either on plan or off plan. Eating an off plan food is cheating. I do my very best not to cheat. I've been on and off of low carb diets for pretty much my whole life until now. When I considered cheating part of dieting, when I considered cheating an OK thing for me to do, inevitably I'd cheat one too many times and get sucked back into my old WOE - regaining all of my weight back. A cheat didn't always derail my LC diet, but it always made sticking to the diet a struggle. If the diet was a struggle -- and with regular cheating it always was -- then I could not sustain it indefinitely.
Off plan foods, for me, are those that hammer my system with sugar, foods that I consider unhealthy (like certain vegetable oils), and even some formerly OP foods that didn't work out well in my regular food rotation. What I consider OP can change. Although it is not helpful for weight loss, I do not consider it cheating if I go over my carb limit with OP food. Such indulgences usually don't cause me an long term problems. Eating too much good "real" food is a much better alternative than relaxing my WOE to include junky carbs. I blame those foods for my life-long obesity problem. If I allow myself to eat them I will be obese again. It helps me to no end that I keep things black and white. I eat some foods. I don't eat others. I don't steer away from fat and I try to keep my carbs within limits. I've made some mistakes. When dining out I don't always know the carb counts of what I am eating. Sometimes I will ask questions. I do my best to make better choices. Why make it so hard? When I eat too many carbs then eating within reason becomes more difficult. I can and have gained weight eating OP foods. How much worse would it be if I allowed myself a pass every time I ate out? When I keep the carbs down I tend to eat less, life is easier, and I'm weight stable or losing weight. That approach has worked out pretty well for me.
Have I cheated since making LCHF my permanent WOE 4 years ago? Yes, a hand full of times. I did not cheat at all during the first year. I think that was important. I had some healing to do (diabetes, insulin resistance, etc.) and I needed time to free myself from my old crappy SAD diet. Cravings for my old favorite foods faded away and my regular LCHF foods became firmly entrenched as my new normal. Later on I did a couple of one item cheats as N=1 experiments to see how would respond. I did OK. I ate a lunch size pizza at a restaurant that I worked at for 10 years. I did OK. I just returned from a week long cruise. While on that vacation I did have two or three tastes of off-plan deserts. I don't know why I did it. I shouldn't have. But, again I did OK. None of those cheats really did much for me. I like my healthy food. Now that I don't really want to cheat, I seem to be able to get away with it every once in a while. But back when I'd cheat giving into a craving, it never worked out well. Cheating doesn't work out well for most everybody. It is best not to cheat. If you really want to find success, then don't cheat.
Last edited by khrussva : Fri, Jun-15-18 at 13:37.
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