Learning the hard way via errors and ignorance
 

I'll be honest; this "weight loss" thing has been torturous. Not only am I depriving myself of foods I have always enjoyed and loved, certain foods which let's face it, for over-weight i.e. fat people bring ENORMOUS joy into our lives, but also when I see the long road to becoming "normal", and no longer being obese, just knowing the enormity of such a task can be over-whelming and deflating.

So, it is totally understandable when people who are afflicted with such a difficult task want to get it over as soon as possible. My weight loss journey has been about 2.5 months long and it has been equal parts frustration, agony, and also, for a magical three week period, incredibly joyous and rewarding at seeing the scale move downwards, which I DEFINITELY check every morning without fail. Honestly, sometimes, the results of my weigh-in can set the tone for the rest of the day, and I have ZERO shame in saying it. I don't know how some people can ignore the scale. For me, good or bad, I NEED to know how I'm doing.

Lately, i.e. the past 2.5 weeks, the scale has turned into a monster, disappointing me daily, and even mocking me when it somehow moved UPWARDS despite my faithful adherence to the atkins w.o.e. (ironic that the atkins way of eating = woe ).

So long story short, I finally joined the gym a few days ago, and am exercising. And after 2.5 torturous weeks of grievous stalling, I see light at the end of the tunnel.

So what have I learned from this?

In any diet, you will stall at some point. The Body is designed to adjust to an infinite number of circumstances ranging from gluttony to starvation. Rest assured, it will adjust eventually to lo carb, low calorie dieting!

Wonderfully, Exercise is the great equalizer. By exercising, the body will break out of any stall and will begin to burn fat once more.

So, those who are suffering this malady, try exercising and you will once more be happy and content as one can be during this misery known as weight loss.

Psalm 139:14
I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvellous are thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well.

Weight goes down. Weight goes up. Weight stays the same. Wait.



If you are certain it was the exercise then you have made a great discovery for yourself!

Keep up the good work.

Not certain yet, but I have lost a total of about two pounds for two straight days, a trend which I haven't seen in quite a while.

But it does make sense that exercise is a "stall-breaker", and a "plateau-slayer". My latest idea is that Metabolism is nothing more than the total amount of energy the body daily expends, and over time, metabolism will decrease as we lower calories and lose weight. The body is designed to adjust to any dietary situation from famine to gluttony. So the natural counter-balance to this built-in mechanism is to force the body to burn fat i.e. increase metabolism by way of exercise, which we are wonderfully in control over!

So while I am not certain I have struck gold, I am optimistic that I could be on the right path. And it certainly beats waiting around for weeks at a time, trying to figure out what's going on.

Keep at it! My understanding from hanging around here, and it could be wrong, is that the exercising body will use what fuel is available at the time the exercise is taking place. I think what might set us up for the "win" of burning fat is being in a metabolic state, prior to the exercise itself, that has created the fuel that will be "burned" during the exercise.

I believe this is accomplished by diet.

Another note: I "excercise" quite a bit - mostly board sports. I noticed that when I was much heavier and had a lot of fat accumulated, my appetite was suppressed by the activity. Now that I am much nearer or perhaps even at my "normal" body size activity creates hunger more times than not. This was a switch for me. I had heard people talk about it but didn't experience it until now.

I'm a true believer in letting the body move via enjoyable activity. This is sustainable for me. Exercise for exercises sake, like running on a treadmill or pumping weights in a gym is a dead end for me. This is grievous toucher for me. For others, it is their liberation - I hope you are one of these and I'm glad you've seen the light at the end of the tunnel ;)

You will do well LC4LIFE!

"Weight goes down. Weight goes up. Weight stays the same. Wait."

Thud, I love this. I've just added it to my list of inspirational sayings.

I've been there. I learned:

• That "ENORMOUS joy" is actually the sugar rush hitting my brain -- this stuff actually does not taste good. Once I was away from it, and indulged, I discovered it is really sweetened cardboard.
• What you are missing is not the food -- it is the rush. And there are far better ways to get it. For some, exercise works that way.
• Now, properly hungry and facing a ribeye steak and a salad with blue cheese dressing -- I find out what delicious really means. It is different, and better, than the sugar rush. For one thing, when I'm not hungry any more, it shuts itself off. For another, it is triggered by actual nutrients. And there's no upset stomach, no "food hangover," no bad consequences. This is the body working as it should.
• If you are motivated by seeing the numbers go down on the scale, what will happen as you near goal and this feedback slows down drastically? Will you gain, to lose, just to get that particular rush again? It's been known to happen.

Don't sabotage yourself with mistaken strategies. Offered in case it helps!

This . . . should be a sticky. Excellent guidelines and things to keep in mind along the journey of LCHF no matter where you are in the quest.

Yes, for those of us who have this insulin resistance disorder caused by a lifetime abuse of carbs, this is our new reality. For the rest of our lives, we must eat the Atkins W.O.E in order to function normally. Our bodies have been permanently damaged by our poor eating habits, and the remedy is a low carb diet.

While I do enjoy eating meats and vegetables, I also know that I in the past enjoyed carbs. There are many people around the world that subsist primarily on carbs and are perfectly fine, living long healthy lives. The reason is, their bodies are not damaged as ours are.

So I am not quite ready or willing to say carbs is a poison to humanity and everyone in the entire world should be on this w.o.e. Carbs are only a kind of poison to us fat people because we abused carbs to the point of no return. We have a physical bodily disorder and a low carb diet is the only remedy.

I think those of us who are willing to accept this reality will succeed on this w.o.e. Too many of Atkins dieters think they can return to their old way of eating, and tragically regain all of their weight back, and beyond.

I don't intend to return to my old way of eating because I know that path is guaranteed to lead to obesity and premature death.

Hi, lc4life!

What you wrote above is so true! I have been very successful in the past at losing weight via low carb eating, but every time I have added carbs back, it very quickly gets out of control and the weight is back on. I know now that I cannot go back to eating high carb foods, and especially sugar. It's the only way I can be healthy.

Best of luck to you!

Mary

It took me a long time to get over the carbs - I would practically drool seeing someone else eat a dessert! I couldn't cook potatoes for my husband because I'd want some so badly.

But now? Much easier - my husband gets his potatoes (& my version tastes much better than what most restaurants dish up) & other things I can't eat. I no longer drool at the sight of pastries or ice cream. :D

This WOE is for the rest of my life as I have diabetes.

Fried potato hint - I LOVED potatoes fried in butter. I've since found that LC veggies fried in butter taste just as good - if not better. So far, I haven't found anything that doesn't taste good this way.

Butter and bacon are some of our secret weapons!

I found the best way to get over sweet or carby "enormous joy" foods was to indulge in vLC foods that I missed when they were banned in my high-carb, low-cal starvation diet days. For me it is prime rib with salt & horseradish, salad with real full-fat blue cheese dressing, or chicken salad with lots of mayo, mashed cauliflower with plenty of butter and salt, blended frozen blueberries with a TBS of water and a couple of drops of stevia - a very blueberryey sorbet. These are my new "enormous joy" foods.

Butter and bacon. Yup. Not that I have tons of either; but I've tried LC and LF at the same time and it is impossible!! Everything seems bland. I can't even eat most of the LF stuff because it tastes horrible. For me, at least, being able to have that full fat mayo in my tuna, or little bit of salty butter on my string beans......well........it's not 'dieting'. It is simply eating great food that I have baked/cooked/fried. Yum.

I know what it's like to feel upset when the scale stays the same or goes up a pound when I've eaten hardly anything and worked out. I have to use all of these methods of tracking my weight: step on the scale every morning, measure once a week, take pictures every day from different angles, and have some completely non-stretch pants as a goal item. The mirror is not useful as we don't see our weight loss very well. I remember feeling just as fat at 140 as I did at 180 and yet the pictures show a huge difference. You will not believe you are thinner if you wear yoga pants or if you never took pictures at your higher weights.

So when the scale won't budge, I check my photos and my measurements and then I see - yes, I am thinner, even if I can't see it in the mirror. The pictures prove it. And I try on those smaller pants about once a week to see how many inches my waist has already gone down. The minute the pants are loose I go to the next smaller size.

The other thing is the exercise. I started a formal program in May and write it down every day, how many minutes. This keeps me accountable and regimented and I can't let it slide. If I can't exercise for some reason, I will usually stay the same. If I overeat, even low carb, I will usually stay the same. And the plateaus even when I am doing everything right. They go on so long, but I have the photos going way back and I can look at them and see for myself that yes, I have lost weight gradually, and it will get even easier now because there is less fat to lose. I like to visualize 29 pounds of butter stacked up. That's how much I have lost so far. That's a lot, even though I am not thin yet. I give myself credit for doing something about it and not giving up.

I have low carbed this whole year and I found that changing things up every ten pounds or every month really helped me keep things moving forward at a good pace. Sometimes changing things up is as simple as adding a new exercise it could mean going from the Bike to walking outside for 30 minutes. It could mean adding a fast day once a week or doing inf . I did all these things and more and I think it keep my body from getting used to any one thing. Most importlantly it keep me from being bored . I am a person that tends to get comfortable doing the same thing so doing this I felt like I was atively moving forward .