Okay I started our new Hard Core Atkins '72 Induction Group #7 Thread. Here's the URL:

http://forum.lowcarber.org/showthread.php?t=469784

See you all there!!!

Deleted to move to new thread!

Deleted to move to new thread!

Paulette--you are I are in the same place, and facing the having the same questions pretty much but you have been there longer. That yesterday lost pound showed back up today. Had not a darn thing to do with diet or exercise either! Just popped away and then popped back.

It is super frustrating to not drop any weight or see many changes. Like you, I'm not considering this a diet but a lifestyle and I am very happy with the weight I've lost. Like you, I"m working on making it a lifestyle I can live with comfortably. That means, for me, adding more variety of foods so I don't feel like I'm so limited.

What I'm doing is pretty much following the book which does have you adding carbs very, very slowly. Like you, I'm adding dairy carbs and a few (very few) berries. I'm giving "net carbs" a lot of attention as I broaden my eating range. Like you I'm also wondering if this is the group for me? I really like you guys so I've been hanging around just kind of doing my new diet in the closet.

I've stopped monitoring anything but ketones. I eat what I want to eat, when I want to eat it, with a very, very intense interests in carbs and ketones. At the end of the day I think to myself, did I feel deprived at all? Trying to really, totally lose the "diet" mentality and get into the "rest of my life" mentality is not a little or an easy thing to do. Walking away from the "diet" emotional highs and getting to the "this is just me living my life" state of mind is tricky. I suspect I absolutely do not want to feel deprived--that feeling has got to the kiss of death over the long term.

My long term plan is to stay in ketosis and add foods and calories until I reach the point where I'm super comfortable and eating as many calories and carbs as I can while maintaining my weight rock hard solid. (Although I'm not counting calories at all--they are just happening as I watch carbs and increase variety.) Then perhaps for the new year I'm going to go really hard core again and shake off these last few pounds.

I think my body is showing me that it is ready to maintain my loses for a while and that it is just flat out not going to let me lose more weight right now. Doesn't matter if I'm happy with it, that is the way it is. So I want it to maintain those loses at as high a carb/calorie range as I can. Then when it is very happily settled into a higher carb/calorie maintenance, I'm going to shake it up again and hopefully reach my goal.

So let me know if you are moving to some other group and I'll join you. I don't want to mess up the people who are so successfully hard coring so I'm having real doubts about staying here. On the other hand I really like everyone and enjoy sharing the journeys--but I'm feeling kind of sneaky staying here--very mixed feelings.