"New" Here--Again--After a 5 Year "Vacation"
Hello All 
I am not new to low-carbing and have even tried it a couple of times over the last five years since I last posted here (along with other diets). A lot happened during my time away, and a lot was happening AT that time. I was five years younger and the issues of life were such that I wasn't ready to commit to this WOL. I thought I was ready, and I was ready to a certain degree. But the pull of other things was stronger.
I lost my mother the year I started logging on here at the Forum in 2004. It was a difficult year to be sure, surrounding hospitals and tests and doctors and home care mostly handled by me and my sister. We both had young children too, which meant that they were more in need of intensive training, overseeing, etc, and me adding in LEARNING how to do low-carb was too much. If I was caring for a dying parent, caring for small children, running a home and entering college full time all at once, I couldn't have felt more stressed about what I put on my plate and into my mouth! I've never understood food, and though I have diabetes and heart problems in my medical history, I really felt overwhelmed trying to figure it all out. It was just too much for me.
So, in 2004, Life (and the end of a life) took precedence over my own dieting plans. I stopped logging into this site, stopped even reading about what everyone else was doing, and reverted to my old unsuccessful (but familiar) ways of handling my weight: often skipping meals, often several in a row, often drinking just coffee all day, trying to lose weight and slowing my metabolism in the bargain. It's just how I was raised and all my siblings still do this.
My weight hasn't changed much since I was here last time. I might have been a few pounds heavier when I started this five years ago, maybe closer to 240 lbs, but this time I started at 232 lbs and I'm now down to 220 in abt 2 weeks. That's nice, sure, but I know my weight will not drop that fast forever, it will slow down---but that won't change the fact that this must be done, and I am okay with that. My goal weight is 115 and it will be 115 whether I get there at ten pound losses every week (I wish!!!  ) or at 10 pound losses a month. That's reality. That's the way things are and that's got to be okay.
My cooking creativity is often stretched on low carb, but that will get better as I go---and low-carb cook books consulted a day, or three, ahead of meals is very helpful.
Anyway, my head is into this as it never has been. Even five years ago, when I look at those posts I wrote and saw how encouraged I was and how geared up, I remember that I was TRYING to be geared up, trying to be encouraged and definitely trying to encourage others, and that's a good thing! SOMETIMES WE HAVE TO ACT LIKE WE'RE GOING TO SUCCEED IN ORDER TO GET IN THE PLACE WHERE WE CAN SUCCEED!  But I admit my head wasn't wrapped around this as a long term thing five years ago, nor was my heart fully in it. My idea was that I had to accept the inevitable: I would be eating bacon, no carb cheese, beef, tons of eggs and a few vegetables the rest of my life. ICK!! But I wanted to lose the weight and felt that was the only way. Now I see that my food options are greater than I imagined them to be, and though I have begun on Atkins Induction, I will find my way closer to my goal weight, find the fit that works for me, to keep my weight down, to maintain a good weight for the long haul, for the rest of my life. I know my family medical history demands it.
I cannot promise that I will always be in a good mood about it, that I will always try to find the silver lining, because I am no longer the young woman who believes that succeeding at this requires me to pretend I'm not having a bad day. To be fully honest, I am NOT excited about this, but I AM peaceful about it as never before. I am TRULY okay with it, and I think this is just the maturity that comes with being 45 and having built up some "life experience." I feel steady. I feel contented--yes even at this weight, I feel contented because I am able to focus on my health again, not as a quick-fix, but as a person learning, day by day, how to live in the long term.
START WHERE YOU ARE.
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