yo yo and confused dieter

[blobalbob]

Hi,
Firstly greetings to everyone, I've only found this forum today for the first time.

I'm at a weight loss crossroads and a bit confused which way to go. I want to find out other peoples experiences about low carb diets and do they work in the long term?

I've now 'done Atkins' twice and on both occassions lost a lot of weight relativly quickly. The First time I tried it I lost around 30lbs and the second time I lost around 40lbs. The problem is that on both occaisions I found it too hard to continue with the diet after 4 -5 months and gradually reverted back to carbs. On both occasions the lbs piled back on, doing this over 2 years I have now gone from being 230lbs up to 265lbs!

This has obviosuly made me pretty depressed, and as you will understand makes me eat more!

Since I started Atkins over 2 years ago there has been a lot of negative press about what it can do to you and how this yo yo effect is what happens to most people on the diet. I'm desperate to get my weight down but nervous to do atkins again in case it takes me up to 300lbs if it fails again.

I've recently been trying to eat low cal for a number of months and I've not really lost anything at all. I've tried food combining and calorie counting diets but neither seems to work or satisfy. I think I have one of the slowest metabolisms in the world as I walk to work and back each day (3 hours in total) and I keep my calories under 2500.

My questions for the forum are what are other peoples real experiences of this diet, has it worked and kept your weight down permenantly? How are you managing this? I'm not a sweet foods person at all but I really do like pizza and pasta, how have other people got round these foods? I should say I am in the UK and we do not have many 'low carb' alternatives for these types of food.

Many thanks in advance for all your help,
Richard

[cs_carver]

peoples experiences about low carb diets and do they work in the long term?

Nope. Pretty clear from all research on all "diets" that as used in modern conversation, "diets" don't work. Doesn't really matter which one you pick, if you're on a diet, you'll come off. Inherent in the way we use the word today. What DOES work is a WOL, or at least a WOE (way of eating). Life changes, in other words. Not very unlike the change needed to being a non-smoker. High carb foods are simply not in my life anymore. And sorry about the pizza, bud, but I gave HC foods 44 years and I know where they got me. I'm giving the LC WOL the next 44, and when I'm 88, I'll decide.

You may want to test a few more times, but it does rather sound like you "get" the pattern of the problem and you can see a long ways down the path to where it's heading.

I've now 'done Atkins' twice and on both occassions lost a lot of weight relativly quickly. The First time I tried it I lost around 30lbs and the second time I lost around 40lbs. The problem is that on both occaisions I found it too hard to continue with the diet after 4 -5 months and gradually reverted back to carbs. On both occasions the lbs piled back on, doing this over 2 years I have now gone from being 230lbs up to 265lbs!?

Yeah. That happens.


Since I started Atkins over 2 years ago there has been a lot of negative press about what it can do to you and how this yo yo effect is what happens to most people on the diet. I'm desperate to get my weight down but nervous to do atkins again in case it takes me up to 300lbs if it fails again.

No. The "yo yo" effect is what happens to people who go OFF this WOE, or who treat it as a diet. The WOE works. I don't understand why one would expect it to KEEP working when you're NOT doing it. Kinda like expecting your car to run when you don't want to put gas in it. And AA doesn't work for people who go back to drinking....

Negative press about what it can do to you? Can you be more specific? My blood # are very good. My attitude is better, my moods are stable, and while I still overeat, I do so with LC foods and have far fewer consequences. What "negatives" are you concerned about, apart from the yoyo, which I don't believe is a consequence of the plan itself, but of going off it?

I've recently been trying to eat low cal for a number of months and I've not really lost anything at all. I've tried food combining and calorie counting diets but neither seems to work or satisfy. I think I have one of the slowest metabolisms in the world as I walk to work and back each day (3 hours in total) and I keep my calories under 2500.

2500 is a lot if you're trying to lose weight. Traditional (and not good) low cal diets work more around 1400 calories, or 800 for the really nasty semi-starvation programs.

My questions for the forum are what are other peoples real experiences of this diet, has it worked and kept your weight down permenantly? How are you managing this? I'm not a sweet foods person at all but I really do like pizza and pasta, how have other people got round these foods? I should say I am in the UK and we do not have many 'low carb' alternatives for these types of food.

It works, when I work it. IMO, "weight" and "permanent" are simply not in the same universe of thought. Weight maintenance is a daily decision, made every time I put something in my mouth. As long as those somethings are LC, I do pretty OK.

WRT the pizza and pasta: Well, I liked cigarettes too. Maybe one day I'll smoke again. For today, I realize that in order to have the life and health I want, I can't smoke and have to give up the way cigarettes made me feel. I love tucking into a bagel and there simply IS no LC alternative (my situation is complicated by gluten sensitivity). OK. I also love tucking into jeans that fit. I can't have them both.

I don't recall "asking" for this metabolism and set of reactions to different foods, but I guess I picked my grandparents, if you buy that train of thought, and they certainly set me up for this genetic challenge. This is where I am today. Other people have other challenges. Some people (including my brother) can eat pizza safely. Others (my sister) eat it and live with more weight than I want to haul around the world. If I want to be the weight I am now, I have to give up something.

Life's a bitch. But it's way easier today, accepting that I have to stay away from some aisles in the grocery, and as a result, I get all this other good stuff, than trying to insist I have to have it all.

[mkduggan]

Carbs are a killer for sure...And your calorie intake is as well...I dont want to tell you which road to go down...But since you are male...this weight will come off very fast for you...But you have to make a decision...Carbs or Bust??? They go straight on me as well and being female you can only guess where (not my eyelids-either). If you choose Cals. get yourself under 2000 and limit yourself to one starch a day...maybe you like a potatoe with dinner or toast w/breakfast...one or the other! Good luck...

[Judynyc]

Hi! :wave:

Welcome!!

As cscarver has explained to you, eating low carb cannot be a diet if you don't want to be a yoyo. It has to become a way of life to keep the weight loss.

As an older yo-yo dieter, I can tell you that I finally got it about being on a diet....diets don't work because you end them and then revert back to old eating habits. In order to keep what I have, I had to change the way I feel and think about certain food groups, ie: bread, pasta and other starches. :idea: While I don't eat them daily as I used to, I still will eat them on occassion...more like a treat. :idea:

I feel that teaching myself to eat this way for life, is what will help me to keep my weight loss. Eventhough I'm at goal and in maintenance, I still keep eating this way...because it works!! I found ways to have my favorite foods, just not everyday!! :agree:

Have you thought about giving South Beach a try? :D

[foxgluvs]

I started out almost 2 years ago with Atkins, that was 82lbs ago and I can honestly say that if I hadn't made it a way of life rather than viewing it as a 'diet' I wouldn't still be here.
The trick is, if you fall down one day you get right back up the next and don't trun a bad meal into a bad day/week/month and so on.
You need to be consistent....I know you can do it because I was in your shoes when I first started!

I am in the UK too - so hello from a fellow LCer. If you ever need to come and look me up, click on the link to my journal.
Good luck

[blobalbob]

Thanks for your thoughts CS, it sounds likeyou are succeeding well with your way of eating.


No. The "yo yo" effect is what happens to people who go OFF this WOE, or who treat it as a diet. The WOE works. I don't understand why one would expect it to KEEP working when you're NOT doing it. Kinda like expecting your car to run when you don't want to put gas in it. And AA doesn't work for people who go back to drinking....


I understand that the diet should be a WOE but to be honest I found each time that after 4-6 months it got pretty hard to keep up. It is similar to a low cal diet from a restriction point of view. What I am also concerned about is that when I stopped my cravings and eating of carbs went crazy, almost binge like. I started to crave sweets, cola and chocolate - I've never been interested in these food types before?

I'd really like to hear from more people who have successfully stuck to this way of eating long term and have maintained their weight. I'd also like to hear from other people who may have 'fallen off' their LC WOE and what effects it has had on them. I'm trying to make an educated choice as to the way forward. As you'll see in my profile I've kicked a 40 a day cigarette habit and alcohol habit as well. It's now war on the fat and I want to make sure I make the right choice for the way ahead.
Cheers,
Richard

[boree]

While I am doing Atkins, DH is doing South Beach, Atkins was just not working for him, which is ok, I just wanted him to find what worked for him. Anyway, he has been on it since the first of November and he has lost 40 pounds.

[blobalbob]

Hi also Boree, JudyNYC, MKDuggan and Foxgloves,

thanks all for replying to my post. I've never tried South Beach, but looking at it it seems a bit like GI, which I did try for about a week and found really hard to stick to.

I guess I really did like Atkins and for me it did work, I agree if i could make it a WOE then I would not have had a problem.

I think where I went wrong is after losing all the weight I gradulally let my old ways slip back in, eating a few extra carbs, finding ways to 'cheat' on the carbs with carb replacement foods and worst of all adding low carb beer into the mix (not good if you had an alchohol problem).

last time towards the end I found that I kept stalling and despite burning around 1500 extra calories a day by walking to work and weight training my weight stopped coming off.

I'm gonna keep researching for a while but I think that low carb is probably the way for me to go foward and beat this gut!

[Aetheana]

Anything is hard to stick to for a week.

It takes something like 3 weeks for something to become a habit. so whereas low gi was hard to stick to for a week, try giving it more time.

and as cscarver said, you gotta give up something. if you dont want to give up your pizza and pasta (which isnt full of nutrients and inherantly healthy for you anyway) then you gotta live with being overweight, overfat.

you have to learn how to NOURISH your BODY not satisfy some appetite that is broken because of a long time of eating non-nourishing food.

seems to me like you might have blood sugar issues, maybe went through carb withdrawal on low gi. maybe you should check out carbohydrates addicts diet (CAD) on this forum and ask for their successes there. there are SO MANY healthy low carb eating plans. just shop around til you find your own.

dont forget about protein power either cuz thats my favorite. ;)