Wow Gab! Fantastic story! Thanks for sharing, and congrats again on your huge success!

Way to go Gabrielle!


Loved this part

Wa'il

You story is very well written, in addition to being motivating. I continue to be impressed by you.

That is awesome Gabrielle! Mad props to you girl. You look fabulous!

WOOHOO!!!!! WTG GAB!!!!

Wow.. it's amazing how many times the journey ends up NOT being about the food, but about our journey to discover ourselves and who we want to be.

I'm sooo glad you found yourself.. and I'm glad to see your story here!!

Congrats again Gab!!!

Mike

Hey Everyone, thanks so much for taking the time to read my success story. I use to dream of one day sitting down and writing it and how wonderful it would feel when I was done. I reached goal in December so I figured I had procrastinated enough.

Gabrielle

Your time spent thinking and dreaming about writting your success story was very well deserved. Extremely well written and truly inspiring.

Congratulations on your success and the rest of your life! ~toni

What a great story - thank you!

Beautiful story! Did you ever slip up and if you did, was it hard getting back on track?

Congratulations Gabrielle...what an inspiration you are to us all

Congratulations!

And stretch marks, like bad memories, do fade with time.

Hey, Gabrielle! I've been out of sight, but you haven't been out of my mind! I love your story - it's from the heart. You are one beautiful lady, and I'm not just talking about physical beauty! Thanks for sharing your story.

Your friend,

Congratulatulations on exceeding your goal.... great story.... wishing you continued success!!

You are such an inspiration!!!! I can feel the pain that you once had in the words that you used. You should be so proud of all the strength that you had to endure!!!

To make a "long story short" I hid from the world for the last 7 yrs.......after many trials and depressing episodes "I just wanted to hide".

I gained alot of weight by taking my son to Chuck e Cheese. I wanted to help him get over some things that had happened to him, and I would sit and eat pizza on almost every day off that I had..... we lived a block from there!!!

Thankyou again for all of your encouragement!!!"

You are awesome...........!!!! take care, Gina

A lovely story, Gabrielle. Very honest and thought provoking, and many things you mentioned struck a cord. Please let us know about anything that helped or hindered you on your journey, any tips or advice?
Karen

Oh wow, thanks for all the responses to my "success" story. I appreciate you all taking the time to read it. Karen I'll swing by your journal in a sec to answer your question but oh yeah I have had missteps. I feel sorry for anyone that hasn't personally I gain a lot of strength in knowing that I have fought my carb cravings and not only survived but thrived. I'll swing by your journal and answer in more detail.

From Stylus' Journal

The things that helped are fairly easy to list. I never gave up. I reread the book every so often and I never strayed far from the support of this forum. Hurdles however, were a learning experience.

The first hurdle I had to leap over was kicking the LC treats habits. I had a hard time getting my head around the fact that after over a year of not counting I had to start counting the sugar alcohols as carbs if I wanted to loose the last 20 pounds.

Another hindrance was my fear of the gym. I stopped going because I felt awkward using the equipment with other people around. I eventually did have to incorporate more exercise (along with walking) by using exercise videos. I did return to the gym at the beginning of this year and I love it.

When I realized that calories do count for me I went to the extreme. I lowered my calories to 1200 calories for an extended time to loose the last 20 pounds. The problem with doing this is that eventually my metabolism learned to function very well off the lower calories. If I ate something remotely off plan or salty my weight would shoot up by 3 pounds or more. This had a paralyzing effect on me because I was extremely fearful of moving through the phases as Dr. A instructs.

My solution was to remove the final hindrance from the equation. The scale. I put my scale in the garage and I only weigh in once a week now. Before, I weighed in daily. The body can and will go up in weight when you start moving up the carb later. If you do it slowly and as Dr A instructs the water should disappear as it did with me. Seeing my body’s every fluctuation made me not WANT to do anything that would make me gain weight. I’m sure the fluctuations are still there. I just don’t see them now.