I have been doing Atkins for more than 5 years. I've lost 82 lbs two times. I have gained it back fully once..then attacked it again and have lost 60+ lbs. I got to my lowest 164 lbs two years ago. I swore i would never ever gain it back. i remember the "high" the feeling great about myself and life..the accomplishment feeling. I felt unstoppable, smart, sexy, happy, healthy. Then the weight slowly came back on. Only about 12 lbs. when i quit smoking. I swore i would attack it and be right back to where i was. Well, thats been more than a year now. I go up and down over and over. At the highest 180. At the lowest 167. At the lowest weight i never ever look as good as i did at 164. Anyway, i swore to myself that I would do anything to drop that weight and feel good again. But, here i am, still going up and down. i am on the up take right now, probably back to 180. I binge on food. When i am done each time i swear it is the last, wont happen. I say that I'll do anything to be thing that I'd pay any price that I'd give up any food etc. But, it obviously isn't true or I'd be thin already. I obviously don't want it as much as i want to stuff my face with food when i am not hungry. I obviously don't want to feel good and healthy, enjoy how i look in my clothes..Not as much as i apparently want to take cups of peanut butter, or popcorn, or cans of fruit, and hide in my own house in order to eat them. I obviously don't want to be thin enough not to plan my next binge, to think not one meal, but two meals down the road-I'm thinking about dinner when i haven't even made breakfast. I cant seem to over come this food addiction this time. I have done this once before and so remember it, was the best time of my life. Yet, i can't want it bad enough or i wouldn't be sabotaging myself. Just had to get this out. While i haven't totally binged today i have been eating and eating when i';m not even hungry. I don't need to eat when i'm not hungry. I also abuse the eat as much meat as you want on atkins idea. Like i can eat limitless amounts of atkins allowed foods. How badly do i want this. Do i want to be thin more than i want to belittle myself and hate this one thing about msyelf. Do i want success so i dont' have to hide anymore. Do i want to have the attention again that made me so uncomfortable the first time, the looks and glances? I want to not feel like i have to be ashamed or hide my body when my husband touches me and i feel grossed out about how i look..Do i really really want all this or am i just stuck on the "wanting". Its obtainable, i have been there..What is it about myself that is holding me back?

Don't know if you have read any Gary Taubes but if not you really should. I have read a lot about emotional eating (Geneen Roth) and it never helped me to do much about my eating but I liked what she had to say about life being about more than losing that "last 20 pounds". Constantly agonizing about body image stuff is a lousy way to live our lives, isn't it?

His books spoke to me enormously and I YouTubed him too. Getting carbs out of the house has worked wonders yet I am still helpless at a desert table. I don't binge but I am 20+ pounds overweight if I eat "normally" with carbs. They are totally addictive.

I am breastfeeding my 4 month old son but next year if I am still dealing with this I am doing the HCG diet and that is that.

Good luck with your journey and take it easy on yourself. Life is about more than how we feed ourselves

This isn't about the food except that you're using it to self medicate.

I think you really want this but don't know how to cope with the destructive cycle of self hate that you experience that is causing you to binge.

One word.

Counseling.

Lisa

Wow, it's like we're linked somehow because you have typed out the thoughts I have had, now and in the past several years. I don't know if you need counseling, if you do though, I probably do, too. But I do know one thing that helps is exercise. On the days I exercise, I tend not to want to eat as much. Do you exercise? Do you find that to be true as well?

Maybe you could add that as a new lil' goal? I mean, still eat LC and everything, but make it a goal to also exercise everyday, or almost everyday. Walking, work-out videos (kick-boxing, walk away the pounds...), using any machines you may have...? It absolutely helps how you feel also. Endorphines (sp?) and what-not. Plus, it can't hurt the weight loss mission!

I had never understood how common food issues are until i joined this group a few years ago. I started Atkins about 5 years ago the first time. I turned to food after a long difficult divorce. I began Atkins and it helped, at the time i thought cured, the binge eating I discovered. It helped me with the cravings.

At the time it stopped all the food cravings, which used to be sugar and carbs. It had done this as well up until about a year or so ago when I quit smoking trying to improve my health again. Atkins was a Godsend! I gained only about 8 lbs. Throw in numerous health problems and countless surgeries i found myself back to food again. Only, what I've noticed is except for the binges that would include fruit, never was it potato chips, cake, candy etc like years ago.

After I was fully done with smoking, no cravings whatsoever, i still found myself wanting the food.I seemed to switch one habit for another. This one, the eating, has left me an emotional mess and reeling from losing control.

I had been walking several miles a day. It seemed to help, but didn't totally take the wanting to eat. It helps with the "using" up the energy I would put into eating. But, when home, like any other addict, it wakes up. I'm taking physical therapy currently for previous surgeries and pain has kept me from continuing to walk. I walked till it was impossible to keep going. I am hoping to get back to walking again soon.

What I have wondered is after years of success and feeling great, and saying i want it more than anything, how can i not kick this again, live clean from carbs and get back to not using food. Like tonight. I ate dinner, a very nice lc dinner. It was also more than enough to fill me up, normal serving, and yet i cant turn off the Rolodex in my mind thinking what is in the fridge that I can eat..wondering if i am in ketosis, if I'm not what would eating hurt anyway..talking to myself. Lol. Just being honest. Its the feeling of having an angel one side whispering to me that you can do this, your doing great, and then having the devil say come on, just a taste, or you've already messed up the day go ahead..make sense to anyone else?

Consoling, no. Haven't done it. I have begun reading several books on food and behavior. What I find helping the most is being honest with myself, putting it all in my journal here. Getting it out. I find myself going back and reading things and thinking things thru. Helps.

I just always remember hearing myself say I'd "give up anything, or do anything" to ever be "her" size, when i see someone walking down the street. But, we are given that chance, we know what to do and I was just trying to be honest with myself and admit to ME that apparently I wont "do anything" because I haven't been changing my "habits or behavior" and yet i keep saying i "want this" so badly.

I know... there are times (less often now that the cravings have lessened thanks to LC) where I have felt like I couldn't rest if there were certain foods in the house. I can't even buy wheat thins anymore because I will eat the whole box. Nilla wafers, too - peanut M&M's... part of the problem was that I would sit down with the box/bag instead of putting some in a dish. Before the first time I went on LC, I would eat a tub of frosting... it was really gross. And I felt awful after. Not just sick, (though I definitely did!) but terrible because there would be none left for anyone else, etc. It was really bad.

I eat now when I don't need it, too. Mostly it's because I'm not busy at the time. I think I need to be busy - or to feel really good, like I do after exercising. I am trying to be more aware of that, but it is really hard. I think it is worse after quitting smoking, too. I smoked for 15 years and quit 4 years ago (over those 4 years, I packed on the 30 pounds that I had reviously lost on LC). Because smoking was like a little "me" time or something. (?) And it was putting something in your mouth kind of, for 5 minutes or so. So, that is kind of what I ended up doing with food. I actually considered taking up smoking again, because I know I would go for a cigarette instead of to the cupboards/fridge. I even thought about the electronic kind, but I haven't... Just trying to concentrate on losing weight and make choices that will show on the scale in the morning.

Wanna hear something cool I found on here? I wish I could find it again so I could get the wording right, but re: once you've messed up for the day, feeling like you might as well screw it and start over tomorrow:

If you get a speeding ticket in the morning, do you spend the whole rest of the day breaking traffic laws?

Maybe it's not that cool to everyone, but it gave me another way to think about it. I used to be the 'go big or go home' type once I messed up for the day. Now I think of it as a fine or something, and I don't want the fines to keep adding up!

I truly believe that food addiction is every bit as real and as maddening as a serious hard drug/alcohol addiction. Recovering alcoholics always refer to themselves as "recovering," not "recovered." They always go to meetings for support and understanding. It is a life long thing. Even once we reach goal we can't stop being vigilant about the way we eat, and vigilant about our environment and our support network.

I suggest you go right back to basics...behave as if you are at the beginning of your weight loss journey. Remember the energy and the excitement of the beginning of the journey? Purge the house of anything that does not strictly comply with your chosen WOE. Limit the quantity of food you buy at any one time. Shape your environment to what you need it to be to support you in this time.

So many of us go through this...we make such excellent progress, and then...and then...it just sort of goes away, back into our old ways of thinking and our old behaviours. You have done an excellent thing in writing about it...you obviously DON'T want to be in your old mindset, but need help in breaking out of it again. I encourage you to purge your environment TODAY, and to make an appointment for councelling TODAY...if councelling is out, then keep writing it all down! Don't give up on yourself.

Thank you for all the support guys. It is an addiction, and I've been studying it. Today, is another good day and trying to be responsible and get back to where i was, be accountable and have a goal..get back to the 160's.

OMG, my very thoughts as well. I will literally sit and eat crap, fully aware it's crap,fully aware that I am sabbatoging myself,screaming to myself "WTF is wrong with you, you are killing your children's mother" as I inhale the crap... and the only answer I come up with is "i don't know".... I really don't know why I do it,so I am of no help guys....but I did want you to know you are not alone...

This is exactly what prompted me to be successful the first time around. i couldn't do anything with my kids. I know I'm doing it, yet at the same time I don't.

Have you read the addiction amoeba from DesMaisons? She talks about this:

http://www.radiantrecovery.com/reso...ctionamoeba.htm

Especially if you've had surgery and stress - that literally lights up the pain/pleasure centers in the brain and makes it hard to rebalance.

It all comes from our brains still being tilted from the addictive use of a substance. When I finally re-balanced the brain and body I quit that feeling of just moving from one thing to another.

I would say there's nothing wrong with your desire or will. It is just imbalance from the carbs, doing mind chatter.

Counseling? I've had tons. In my experience counseling while still eating carbs was like trying to stick a fridge magnet to a tree. Didn't work. But it was helpful along with concentrating on putting the good food IN and worrying less about taking the bad food out.

So what to do instead? When I get out of whack I clean up my meals one time period at a time. That always, always works for me. First fix my breakfasts - spot on, every day, on time. Then add lunch. Then add dinner. Finally, all my days are good days! But it does take a little experimenting to find great food. My taste and willingness to cook and shop keeps changing on me.

I've found this thread very moving and earnest. I felt bad my first post was so contrite but I had a screaming baby and a toddler who needed some nighttime books read etc. so I was short on "me" time and cut my post short.

Just to follow up, I've quit drinking, smoking, and sugar a few times before I decided to do LC all the way around and the eating has been very hard because it is so blurry compared to say smoking, which is an all or nothing deal. One cannot leave the house without incredible temptation! That just makes it very hard to create distance between you and the carb addiction that reeks havoc on your life.

I am a believer in counseling (and went myself for several years) but it takes a long term commitment for the results to become evident. But if you don't have support at home or need skilled therapeutic help it is a great resource. Library books are a great free way to delve deeper into your soul - just follow your heart on topics and the right books will find you (I love Eckhart Tolle personally).

These trying times are sometimes the pathway to spiritual growth and so take heart that there may be deeper meaning behind the battle with food and feelings of self hatred or worthlessness etc.

Thanks for sharing and thanks to all who responded so thoughtfully.

I've gone through some pretty horrible things in my life. The ONLY good thing about going through it though, is that now I'm in a position to help others. I teach high school, and those young people are SO vulnerable, inexperienced, and precious...they need adults in their lives who GET IT, and can talk to them...I've been able to talk to some young people about depression, horrific acne, body image, and more....I'm not in a space where I can say I'm glad I went through bad things, but I am truly glad I was able to help some of my students. I think maybe I am glad that my life wasn't always easy...I think I actually am glad that I wasn't an effortlessly beautiful person...so many of those are real snobs, no idea what it's like to struggle, and no empathy. I see them every day.

(((HUGS))) to you mainecyn...you hang in there!

I am so glad that I am not the only one! Well, I sorta wish I were the only one so u all wouldn't have to suffer with me. I try to explain it to friends but I feel like they will never really get it. Honestly I don't think I tell it all. I could never tell them honestly how much food I am capable of eating in one day. Or why I do it. I don't know why I do I. I say the same as many here, I want so badly to be thin, but I must be lying cuz here I am fat.

Tried counseling three times. Just canceled my appointment last week. Just isn't doing anything for me, though I may look for another counselor.

I've lost the weight twice with LC. 50 lbs both times. I am doing it a third time now. With Jehovah's help I prAY I won't put it all back on. I took off 40lbs or so This last year, but I'm up 12lbs. I've had a good week. Well a great week actually. So I am happy to be back on track... For now.

What I say is don't give in and don't give up. Keep fighting. One day u may win the war. For today try to win some battles.

Exercise helps me a lot. Unfortunately I've ruined my knees from bouncing on them while fat. Still I Zumba with all my heart until my knees says enough. It lifts my spirits and helps me not over eat that day.

Thank u for sharing. I needed to hear u all. Keep fighting ladies (men). We r worth it.

Still fighting the good fight. I am doing better currently. I admit i went thru some bad cycles of binging again. But, things seem to be good right now. i am really focusing on trying to work on myself and be happy.