Recently I have been inspired to try an experiment, where I lower my carbs and increase my calories from fatty meats to see if this will allow me to maintain weight, reduce body fat and increase muscle without focusing so much on calorie restriction. I feel like my metabolism is slow, and my health is not ideal in certain ways. I think the restriction on food to suppress my weight combined with too high carbs might be behind it. SO I'm trying something new: higher ("unrestricted") cals and lower carbs. I figure the worst that could happen is I gain a little weight and get in a over eating cycle, neither of which are so traumatically bad considering my present weight is below my "range" of 115-120.

This is going somewhere I promise .
At first everything is okay, but eventually when I attempt to let myself eat "whatever" even of low carb food, it feels so scary and out of control.
Every time I attempt to really really convince myself in my mind that food is not going to "hurt me"... I invariably wind up just wanting to eat everything I see. Once I really make a part of myself believe it is "okay" to eat, I feel like I lose control of myself and I eat too much and feel too full. Right now I am only eating this way with meat (and low carb veggies) so it's not so bad since that is self limiting. But I know the mindset, once I start thinking like this it is only a hop and a skip away from binging.

This feeling of being less in control of what I am eating makes me feel really bad about myself and I feel like I am gaining weight. I am still counting calories (trying to but it is difficult when you eat before you weigh stuff) and my calories are not excessively high... although they are much higher than they are when I am controlling myself by "forbidding food".


1) Is this normal to get like this after restricting calories? I know I have been restricting myself so some kind of (hopefully temporary) over eating response is expected, but I am so terrified of what could happen that it makes me just want to forget this. If I had some kind of assurance that eventually this behavior would stop , I would feel a lot more motivated to suffer out this discomfort of feeling out of control.

2) Do other maintainers maintain their weight by feeling totally in control of what and how much they eat? Maybe this "thing" I keep trying to get rid of is actually just part of weight loss and I need to accept it. It might very well be possible that I can't be thin without always having a voice there telling me not to eat stuff (even LC food). :/ That would suck, but if I knew it was normal and part of the process I would at least be forced to face reality and either accept it or gain weight... instead of kidding myself and trying to do the impossible (maintain weight without consciously under eating all the time) .

3) Is it possible I'm really NOT losing control, and this IS normal eating? Perhaps the only thing abnormal about my eating is how I feel about it. I do recognize my perceptions could be really screwed up, and the way and amount my body is eating is actually normal (not excessive or obesity inducing). My calorie levels are never higher than 1800, even if we assume I am under counting by a margin of over 10% (I try to overestimate).
Then again, I DO feel very very full right now... sluggish and overfed. That I feel so sluggish and overfed and still kinda want more food is what bothers me the most.

4) Yet on a third invisible hand maybe my body wants me to over eat, so, I shouldn't try to stop it? It's possible that I feel sluggish and overfed because I have been under eating, so technically to my body this IS over eating... but it's normal and part of the process? I know you have to increase your tolerance for food, maybe that's what's going on here. Does that make sense?

Blah. These questions are so confused I doubt anyone can even understand them ... but I appreciate anyone who tries to help and answer them! Thanks

Well, this would be the basis of an Atkins diet - losing weight on a higher calorie but low carb diet. So it seems worth a shot...and some studies have indicated that much of the weight loss on low fat diets is muscle mass, whereas weight loss on Atkins is fat. You've obviously had great success with whatever plan you've been following - yay! - so what's going on now for you?

A loose quote from Barnaby's cookbook is "no one ever got fat from eating too many vegetables." Some types of food will hurt us, but I don't think that spinach, broccoli, etc. and salmon, chicken, and yes, even tenderloin, are going to do us in. It's the doughnuts, Doritos, pretzels, white bread, things with lots of carbs and no nutrients or fiber that are dangerous. I really sympathize with the "losing control" thing - for me, control is key. And the control hinges on refocussing what food categories I allow myself to splurge on. It may seem boring, but it means I don't count carbs from any non-starchy vegetables. And I allow myself pretty unlimited protein. Fat in moderation - I don't stint on dairy products, but I don't slather things in mayo and butter to make them taste good. I found, after about 8 months on Atkins, that I finally started to taste the foods and spices themselves, and that was plenty satisfying!


I don't know what kind of plan you've been trying to follow - but the coolest thing about Atkins is that you're not restricting calories so much that you feel hungry and you never feel like you're punishing yourself. You do have to get over not having sticky buns and pizza - but there are so many other delicious and satisfying things that you can have...Restricting calories - we can all do that, but can we do it with joy for the rest of our lives? I can't. Doesn't mean you can ignore them, but you can choose what kind of calories you consume, and the kind does make a difference, no matter what the government health idiots say.

Yes. Sorry. I've found this WOL to be one of constant vigilance against hidden sugars and doughy white stuff. It would be so easy to slide back into the "this one dessert won't hurt" or "how can I hurt the hostess' feelings by refusing the fried potatoes and homemade pecan pie." Frankly, I'm just not strong enough to go there. I'm sure I could have the occasional piece of pie and my weight would not suffer. But could I do it only occasionally? Doubt it. Best - for me - to just make it a hard and fast rule of no.

I'm not claiming to have any of the answers, but I'll offer my perspective in case any of it helps you in thinking it through.



I feel as if it's only now, after 2 years of maintenance, that I'm starting to learn to eat "normally." To let my appetite guide my portion sizes, and not count everything. I didn't have a weight problem until my late 30s, when I somehow developed a habit of living on toast and pasta, so I have the experience of spending my childhood and 20s eating freely and not having any problems. Even with that experience, it's very hard for me to start to trust myself to just eat what I want. I would think that it must be even harder when you've never been a healthy weight while eating freely. So I think you should give yourself plenty of time before expecting it to just come naturally.



I have spent time counting everything, cooking with scales and notebook in hand. I'm getting away from that now, because it really isn't the way I want to be eating for the rest of my life. But I think there are as many takes on this as there are maintainers. Some do it by sticking to a fairly narrow range of foods, so they know what's "allowed," some keep on entering it all in fitday for year after year, and some just avoid the white stuff, and don't worry about the rest.



I don't know. When I feel sluggish and overfed, I generally don't want to eat. In fact I find that eating the next meal on time, even if I don't feel like it is the best way for me to get back to feeling normal, and snacky foods like some nuts and cheese somehow don't help, it has to be a "proper meal." But then I'll keep the meals a bit lighter for the next day or so to get rid of the overfed feeling. Those sort of unbalanced times tend to happen especially if the overeating involves more carbs than usual, but too much of anything can do it.



It does take time to get used to eating more, or less. If you take it fairly gradually, though, you should be able to make the adjustment without feeling totally yucky while you do it.

I really don't know the feelings that come with the kind of problem you have right now, you have posted that you often have control issues in the past, almost punishing yourself in order to get thin, but here are my observations...

Is your problem that you are merely experiencing a 'healthy' appetite, now that your body has got to the lowest it's been?

Maybe when you introduce more cals, your body automatically gets use to that, hence the increase in appetite?

Surely just eating heathy whole foods can do you no harm, simply giving your body what it needs is the key to remaining healthy?

Obviously going into mainanence can be scairy because you don't want to over eat, but you know your body more than anyone else, and so if you eat little and often, it probably doesn't matter so much about the cals...it's about maintaining a healthy metabolism, and the only way to do that is to keep fueling it along and not starving yourself.