I've been a low carber for about four months now. I had lost around 25 pounds on a low-cal/low fat diet prior to starting the low carb WOE. It was the hardest diet I had ever been on, after a lifetime of dieting. The weight just wouldn't come off, so I started taking an ECA stack. That at least brought me to a normal rate of weight loss. I got within 5 pounds of my goal, and then began to lose my "discipline". I managed to maintain my weight, but only by continuing to take the ECA stack and exercising, while eating the sorriest diet imaginable. I pretty much lived on bread, vegetables and no- or low-fat candy. I decided to adopt the low-carb WOE to try to dig myself out of the hole I was in. It was my intention from the start to make it a WOL, but it's been a tough and frustrating experience. I began with Atkins. I lost a pound, and then I gained 7! I was eating those evil Advantage Bars, Atkins Shakes, and a slew of other supposedly "legal" foods. It took me far too long to realize that one size definitely does not fit all when it comes to low carb eating. I have spent the last four months gaining and losing the same 4 pounds over and over again, and I've never even been able to get back to my starting weight, much less lose the final 5 pounds I wanted to drop. I tried the fat fast. I tried the meat fast. Reading the book on one low-carb plan simply wasn't enough. It's taken me what seems like an eternity to learn what foods I can tolerate, and I'm still not done. I eat no artificial sweeteners, no caffeine, take supplements, and drink my water. I've gradually given up one dairy food after another, processed meats, nuts, and I finally decided to go on the Neanderthin diet. It seems to me that I'm better off working from the bottom up rather than the top down. Perhaps I can lose what I want to lose with Neanderthin, without the fruit and nuts, and then can gradually start adding foods back. Through all of this, I've maintained my resolve to stick with it. I still suffer from food cravings, but nothing like what used to plague me, and I know I'm so much healthier than I was, even if I weigh more. Even when I've given in to those cravings, it's been with "legal" candy bars, or one of the foods I should stay away from but are low carb, like nuts. Has anyone else had an experience like mine? I'm so grateful I found this website because it's given me a wealth of information with which to arm myself. Is my problem because I was on low-fat/low cal for so long and that I'm a lifelong yo-yo dieter? Is my metabolism permanently screwed up, or will it ever even out again, and if so, how long will it take? Thanks for any feedback.

Julie

That is pretty tough. I must say I had it very easy. Hang on in there.

I would suggest strongly that you start a journal and list every single thing that you eat. People will help if they can. You will have a full record of your journey. Wouldn't it be great if 6-12 months down the line you reach goal weight and read from your first post how you felt when you began your journey.

Hope the Neanderthin works better for you.

Take care. Keep

Glad to know that there is another sad soul out there. Maybe we'll figure it out together. I have been in the same exact boat 3 years ago. Low fat/low cal/low everything diet, screwed up health, ECA stack, Pyruvate, hours in the gym... the whole nine yards. Then i realized that i can't do this anymore. I dropped my calorie intake down to about 800 a day and all of it was steamed low carb veggies and some dry cottage cheese for protein. Every time i would increase calories by as much as 200 a day, i'd gain. Very frustrating. Meanwhile nerves were ready to give up (they need saturated fat), energy was dropping and anger was rising. Started to research diets and found Atkins.
I have not been able to loose a pound while on Atkins, but my health is dramatically better. I am full of energy and immune system is just bullet proof. I can't cheat on Atkins and have to stay permanently on induction just to maintain weight. I don't mind because i like the food and feel well. I was at a party last night and had wine and strawberries. This morning i am 2 lb heavier and are not feeling very energetic (not hangover, i did not drink much). I know that by sticking with induction i will be back to my 147 lb by Wednesday, but will not go any lower. Now let's see: this calculates to ~15% body fat, which is what we are supposed to expect on atkins as a goal and which is thought of as ideal for men (20% for women). So maybe our weight goals are not so realistic. If we want to go lower in fat % then we need to work out more, probably weight lifting.
I know that i can eat a lot of fatty foods without gaining as long as i drink a lot of water and stay away from carbs, art. sweets(discovered the hard way), soy and unfortunately alcohol (i am a big wine buff, have collection that i cannot touch, bummer!). So this means that something does work because my calorie intake can sometimes be a lot more then what is thought of as optimal. I actually discovered most of these things in a past month or two. Before i think i tried to do some sort of low fat/low carb thing.
So, i intend on sticking with induction for at least 2 months without cheating and see what comes out of this. I am trying to eat only natural foods, no processed meats, no dairy including cheeses. Drink only water and tea. Caffeine does not seem to affect me much. I used to bake a lot of things, using soy powder and flour, this had to be forgotten (so sad, i got really good at this). Salads and some low carb veggies with dressings that i prefer to make myself (this way i know what is in them). Supplements and water, water... Since i gave up art. sweets - water and unsweet. tea actually taste a lot better. I actually know that if i crave something sweet it probably means that my insulin has risen and i analyze until i figure out why.

I know, it's slow, but at least not painful.

Keep in touch and don't give up. Important thing is that we are feeling better, right.

Cheers,
Sam

Dear Julie & Sam,

You are both my saviours.....reading your stories has give me renewed hope and incentive.

Because nothing has been happening for me while LCing, I keep giving up, thinking I'll eat low fat and watch my intake of food, get on the scales after eating nothing and have put on weight, so I low carb again, nothing happens....................as you can see it's a vicious circle and I'm doing myself more harm than good. I don't want to be one of those people Dr Atkins talks about in his book, that I just have to accept the size I am and get on with life. I can never do that because I've been thin and I liked it!

Sam I identify with you about not being able to drink. I love wine and it's hard being the only one not having anything when everyone else has had a couple and seem to be enjoying themselves. I don't miss the hangover, but even one these days seem to make me feel seedy the next day......maybe that's the age thing!

Frances

I've done exactly that for a bit too until i decided to try and stick with the plan to it's strictest for at least a month. Does not seem to make me loose pounds very fast, but at least i don't gain and feel great. Give it a shot. I think it will take some time before our metabolic processes come to normal and then it might start working for us just like the rest of the folk here. I am trying to stick with the Induction type of regime, high fat (about 70% cals) no art. sweet. , very limited dairy (no cheeses, but this could be my personal sensitivity), no processed meat and 3-4 cups of green leafy stuff. Oh, yeah and buckets of water, i should move my desk to the bathroom. All i can say is - hang in there, we'll make it work.

Thanks so much for your thoughtful reply, Fiona. I'll think about a food journal. It would have helped me a lot more three or four months ago. These days, I really only eat unprocessed meat, poultry and fish, eggs, low-carb vegetables, olive oil, vinegar (which I'll have to dump to do Neanderthin), lemon juice, herb teas, spices, pork rinds, mustard, and an occasional bite, not piece, but bite, of low carb fruit.

Sam and Frances, it does seem that we are cut from the same cloth. I'm having a slightly harder time than you, Sam, probably because I'm female and much smaller. Have you two dieted all your lives? I keep thinking that each thing I give up will solve the problem and the weight will start to come off, but it never does. Maybe I just eat too much. It's hard to break the habits of a lifetime of being a compulsive eater, and it wasn't until I gave up everything except the foods I listed above that I really began to feel my cravings truly start to subside. I don't think that my goal is unrealistic. At this point, I'd just be happy to get back to the weight I was when I started low-carbing. It's just so disheartening to follow all the rules and wake up to see the scale up two pounds for some inexplicable reason. At least if I gain after eating a Carbolite candy bar, I know why. But I even make my own mayonnaise and salad dressings so I know what I'm eating, and I won't even buy turkey breast or roast beef from the deli anymore, just in case there are additives. One thing I did notice is that I actually do better over the long haul if I eat plenty of vegetables. I was trying for such a long time to keep my carbs as close to zero as possible, and I was starting to show some very unhealthy signs, and I had a harder time keeping my weight down.

I'm sorry to hear that there are other people as stymied as I am, but it's nice to know I'm not a loner. What do you guys think is at the heart of our problem? It seems that age has something to do with it for me. Until I turned about 42, at least when I went on a diet and followed all the rules and didn't cheat, I lost weight. On this last low fat/low cal diet before I went low carb, it took me 3 months to lose seven pounds until I started taking the ECA stack. I've tried using the ECA stack with low carbing, but it doesn't seem to make a difference, and it's so bad for you. That was one of the reasons I went to Atkins in the first place, so I could start eating like a sane human being and stop taking those awful things. My doctor told me there's such a thing as "Caveman Syndrome". It happens to some people after a lifetime of yo-yo dieting. Your body pretty much says "enough is enough already", and I've seen other references to it in this forum, just not called by that name. What I want to know is, is there any recovering from that, or once you cross over some invisible metabolic line, are you doomed forever?

Julie,

God I hope not...................I have been advised that I should accept how I am and live with it.........I wish I could, but I'm not at that place yet. I still want to look good and feel good, for myself as much as for anyone else. I think I have to stop putting a time frame on it and hope that eventually something will happen. I keep saying to myself at least LCing wont put weight on where as everything else does.

Wow I'm depressing.........what's a good joke?

Frances

Well, i don't know how good it is but here goes(seems to fit in context of the site):
What's a Jewish dilema? Pork roast at half price.

Yes, i pretty much had to watch what i eat for the past 10 years or so. Most of it was veggie/fruit with some lean meat type of deal that worked well to some point.
If there is recovering then people that experienced it have not responded yet. I hope there is. I am just experimenting with very low carb now and intend on sticking with it as long as i don't gain weigh for about a month. If it does not work then .... i guess i'll go back to what used to work to some extent, lean meat in moderation twice a day, yoghurt and cottage cheese with flax meal for brearfast and a lot of cooked veggies to fill the void. The only problem with this is that i get hungry faster and energy levels are not the same, but on the plus side my digestive system works a whole lot better (if you know what i mean).
Julie, just out of curiosity, how long was it since you started to only eat natural foods? BTW, more veggies seems to work for me as well.

Sam

I've only been doing Neanderthin for about a week and a half, and I still haven't given up vinegar in my mayo and salad dressing. I've given up so much already. The only thing left before I started this was cream in my coffee (decaf, of course) and butter. I 'm not sure how I'm doing. I certainly don't expect this to be a magic pill, so I suspect if I lose, it will take a long time before I see any real results. If I can just stabilize and quit gaining back what I can only lose with a meat fast, I'll feel a little better. I've quit weighing myself, believe it or not, and I quit taking measurements, too. We'll see how long that lasts, but I was driving myself crazy with the scale, and I can tell with my clothes if I'm gaining and have to take drastic measures. I'm taking it as a bad sign that there are only three of us on this thread. Others I've read have tons of people involved. Does this mean that most people that encounter this kind of resistance just give up and bag it, or there really aren't very many like us? Frances, I've read in more than one place that the more times you quit and re-start low-carbing, the harder it is to lose. To be perfectly honest, one of the biggest reasons I've stuck with this is because I'm terrified that if I give up and go back to my old way of eating (which pretty much kept my weight off but was sooo unhealthy since it was overloaded with sugar and bread), I'll gain back everything I lost and then some. My body is no longer accustomed to handling all of that sugar. If Neanderthin doesn't work, I guess if I want to take this off, I can start restricting calories within the Neanderthin program and see if that works. The thought of low cal makes me cringe. Is that what you're talking about doing, Sam, if strict Induction doesn't pay off? Frances, how long have you been trying to do LC? Try not to give up yet. One thing I've learned (the hard way) is that you have to tailor LC to your own body, and boy, does that ever take time. One VERY helpful book I read is The Secret to Low Carb Success by Laura Richard. She gives a quick overview of a number of low carb programs, sets up a chart comparing them, and then devotes a number of chapters to explaining what you can realistically expect from any of them, what the stumbling blocks are, and some strategies to get through the tough times.

I've been doing atkins for a little over a month, and other than the intitial 4-5 pounds I lost in the first 2 weeks, I have lost NOTHING on the scale. However, Ihave noticed my clothes fitting better (i.e. looser, lol!), my skin is doing GREAT (all that water I think) and I have decreased my appetite a lot.
Granted, this is my second time to try the Atkins plan. The first time, I lost just scads of weight very fast, almost 30 pounds in about 3-4 months. Alas, I stopped the WOE, and it all came back I think that is why I am having such a hard time getting the scale to move now, due to all the yo-yo dieting I have done.
I am hoping that sticking with this WOE/WOL for the long run will get me back down to where I need to be. I am going to stick with it anyway, just because I feel better than ever eating this way, and even if I don't see any changes in the scale, my health is worth that much to me.

You guys aren't alone, there are a bunch of us struggling. Just don't give up!

No, I'm not giving up. What makes me feel like such a freak is that I GAINED weight when I went on Atkins. Other people get stalled when they eat the Atkins bars and shakes. I gain. Other people stall using artificial sweeteners. I gain. I gain eating cheese. I gain on everything that causes stalls in other people. That's why I'm trying Neanderthin, but I'm leaving out fruit and nuts. I'm just so incredibly frustrated and disheartened.

I don't think that this is enough time to draw any conclusions. I'd say a month should be somewhat good indicator. Remember that unless you have a lot of weight to loose the results will not show as quick. Also when trying to ditch those last 5 lb, diet alone is not everything (far from everything, actually). At this level you are trying to get fit, not just size down. As far as i can see you are not very big now. What kind of exercise do you do. Weight training may be good in your case, but i would not advise on anything without enough info.

No, oh my god, no !.... even if i gain a little i will never go back to that nightmare. Health is so much more important. Tailoring of LC is a good point though. Neanderthin without the fruit sounds like something that people here call KISS. Whatever, those are just names. What i was referring to is lowering the fat intake from Atkins levels to say ProteinPower and increasing carbs in a form of veggies and berries. Not obsessing about every gram of carbs like on the induction. I think that this is a way to go for people that are near goal weight. My impression from reading other messages on the board is that large quantities of fat, super low carb and ketosis work really well at the beginning, for those that are say over 50lb overweight. At the end it's more leaner sources of protein and veg. fats and oils. But this is just my statistical observation, i may be wrong. The reason i do induction is just a scientifical experiment, more of trying to see if there is such thing as easy weight loss with ketosis.

I would not start resticting calories just cause it does not work. However, knowing how much calories you are taking in and how much do you need is certainly nesessary. It may turn out that you are not eating enough. There are plenty of resourses on this site that will help you to figure it out.

julius,

My story started just after my 21st birthday, when I saw photos of myself and realised how big I really was. Mum and Dad said I had to do something and would pay whatever the cost!

After having tried diets but never really seriously, I went through the Yellow Pages and came across this man who just happened to live 5 minutes away from my home. He was a hypnotist working from his home. But his diet was just protein. Not LCing, but just protein!

Now I don't know wether it was being hypnotised or what, but for 6 months I did this and never even thought of breaking the diet and I lost six stone!!

So now my life really changes.........I went from being obese to thin and feeling georgeous! Of course you never want to get big again, but you always think that if you did it once you can do it again, and this is what I did while I was having my family. I stopped being neuortic about my weight, wnjoyed my pregnancies and said I'd worry about the weight loss later!!!!! Big mistake!!!!!!!!!!!

For the last 15 years I've been trying to loose weight and can't. I don't seem to have the patience for slow loss, and so chop and change diets and make it harder for myself. That's the intellectual me saying that, The emotional side keeps saying keep changing you'll find something will work. If I added up the time I've spent changing diets (with no success) and actually spent that time LCing, I'd be thin again.

You've got to wonder why we start on the 'have to be thin to be loved' road in the first place!

Frances

Oh I know a week and a half isn't enough to tell anything. Like I said, I don't expect this to be a magic pill. That's why I've quit weighing myself. I'm going to try to just do it once a month. HA! That's an interesting theory you have, Sam, about what works well at the beginning and what works well at the end. I haven't read Protein Power yet, but I have a copy of it. I was under the impression that it was like Atkins but more liberal, but it seems there's a great deal more to it than that. If you think that PP is the better approach when you're close to goal, then why are you doing Atkins Induction? I don't know about how much ketosis makes a difference. I've been in ketosis when I've gained weight, so I don't even bother checking anymore. As far as exercise, I do an aerobic workout for 50-60 minutes three or four times a week. I usually use wrist weights while doing it, and I just bought a book on weight training, but haven't started it yet. Sigh. I'm trying to stop being so driven by this weight obsession. I know exactly what you mean, Frances, about feeling like you have to be thin to be lovable, even acceptable, but our culture supports that idea. I don't know about you, but when I'm thin, I hear all kinds of disparaging remarks that people (who obviously have never been fat) make about overweight people. They arbitrarily attribute all sorts of personality flaws, from laziness to slovenliness, to people that are overweight. Blech. Now I'm the one being depressing! Well, all I can say is that I thank God that I finally understand that my unbearable food cravings have nothing to do with weak will, self-indulgence or gluttony. Knowing that they are biochemical in nature is positively liberating, and gives me hope I've never had before. Doing low-carb has freed me from a tortured life of being driven by food cravings and obsessions. Sugar used to rule my life. Now I rule it.

Sam, I almost forgot. What's KISS?