I hate to say it, but by and large that statement is not far from the truth. This forum is a wasteland of thousands of people who gave low carb a go, but did not stick to it. I myself attempted and failed at 'low carb dieting' dozens of times over more than 2 decades. Until now I never stuck to it longer than 6 months and even then I was cheating throughout.

So why do so many people fail at this WOE? I think the reasons that I failed before are common to most people that don't succeed. Reasons such as...

Bad dietary advice from the "professionals". They told us that we need carbs and that all that meat & fat in a LCHF diet was bad for your health. They steered us obese people onto a "low fat" diet that we cannot sustain with any more success. IMO - the only people who can succeed on a low fat diet are those that didn't have much of a weight issue in the first place. "Look at those healthy people eating a low fat lifestyle. Do what they do and you will be like them." Sounds simple enough. Unfortunately it doesn't work the way.

The world told us that food was food. A calorie is a calorie. Eat less, exercise more. Everything in moderation, but focus your everyday eating on healthy low fat fruits, vegetables, lean meats and whole grain foods. When dieting be sure to build "rewards", cheat days, and diet breaks into your plan so that you don't feel deprived and give up. Get your fat butt off the couch and get moving! No gravity was ever given to the addictive nature of processed carbs and sugar. There was a total lack of understanding about what some "food" did to insulin and BG levels. Part of my success is finally realizing food is not just about the calorie count. There are foods that I should not be eating -- addictive foods that keep me coming back -- foods that hammered my body with sugar, making me fat and sick over time. So "everything in moderation" & "Cheat Days"??? Terrible advice for an addict. But do you know what? That is exactly the advice I wanted to hear. Why? Because I was dying for some carbs and those cliché, oft repeated phrases were the perfect excuse to indulge.

We live in a carb centric world. The food industry plasters us daily with advertisements to buy and eat their crappy food - much of it under the guise of being "healthy" and good for us. Our traditions and daily food preferences & habits eating the SAD were carb centric. In the 1980's I tried to eat a better version of SAD eating government sanctioned healthy foods, avoiding fat, drinking juice instead of soda, etc. I gained my first 100 pounds trying to do that. Later on I preferred a poorer version of SAD: High fat, high protein, and very high carb processed food. I also ate fast food regularly. Any attempt at dieting was only going to be a temporary measure. I had no intention of making LC a lifestyle. I'd just be trading obesity for a heart attack, right? Well, that excuse is as good as any. But truth be told I was a carb addict and I didn't want to give them up.

So what could I do? I was a lost puppy just like most every obese person in this world. The only diet I could do to lose weight was bad for my health, or so I've been told. Sticking to a low carb diet was hard. Cravings were terrible and the pull to return to my old ways was strong. What did it matter; I could never keep the weight off anyway. Confusion reigns. Nothing works. I may as well just eat what I want until I have a need to lose weight again.

I only accepted that carbs truly are addictive after I'd broken free from them. That didn't happen until I was 50, weighed 400+ pounds, and was sick with diabetes. I never did low carb the right way before. I never planned on making this WOE a lifestyle. Even once I decided to do the lifestyle thing, the first several months were still very hard. It seems so much easier now, but it was a hard road to get here. I still wonder if I would have made it if I hadn't had multiple symptoms of diabetes all disappear during those early months when I was trying so hard to stick with my program. I'll never know for sure. I have been eating this way for 4 years now. LCHF does feel like my normal diet now and I have little trouble avoiding those foods that I consider poison to my body. Nothing is certain, but I feel confident that I will keep on doing my LCHF thing for the rest of my days.

So I made it. However, I've lost count of the number of LC buddies I've made on this forum who show up, do well for a while, and then fall off the wagon. Reaching LC nirvana is a rare accomplishment. But I think that isn't all that hard to do if you do it right. I am as weak as they come. I can't do it the hard way. I didn't overcome the odds to lose 250 pounds. I found the right path - one easy enough for me to do. Figuring out how to do this right is what is hard. There is so much noise, noise, noise out there screwing people up. Stick to your plan. Plan on making it how you eat for life NO MATTER WHAT. Stop cheating. Lose the cravings. Accept that this is a healthy way to eat. Watch your health markers get better over time. Before long you will be there. Keep listening to bad advice and you will inevitably wind up right back where you started. It happens every time.