Feel free to add to the list!


1) When you buy new clothes, you get to wear them for awhile before they get too big.

2) Our minds and body have the time to synchronize - we should wind up with an accurate body image.

3) We don't have to "defend" our low carb lifestyle quite as much as the quick losers. Other people generally don't see our weight loss as unnaturally fast and therefore unhealthy.

applause, atriana! a good list

To your 1), I'd add, as I'm going back down through my old clothes in size, I get a lot of time to wear old favorites before they don't fit well anymore. And I'm doing a retrogressive tour of 20th Century fashion, too! I'm currently in what I think of as my Wham--or technopop--phase of old clothes. All these decorative zippers! But I love the jumpsuits...hope they come back in fashion soon.

4) your skin has some time to catch up to the loss--less chance of looking, at the end of the process, like you're wearing an oversized, wrinkled "skin suit"

5) (credit to Karen for the concept) it gives us emotional/spiritual/psychological time to deal with the underlying causes of our addiction and our fears of being slender and unprotected by a wall of fat.

I am trying to appreciate the bags and wrinkles I have attained through the weight loss I have achieved.
The only way I know is to say....
I got those from the first pregnancy, those from the second pregnancy, that from surgery, this from enjoying food!
More of the bags and sags are from life itself than from an over enjoyment of eating things not in my new wol.
The clothes, they are the best reward. I was much more flamboyant with my purchases when I was thin. I'm into some of them, the rest will have to wait till the turtle wol gets me there.
Thanks for sharing the good things about slow and easy!
You are all GREAT!
Murp

Thanks for this idea, I would not have been able to think of anything positive about being a turtle, as with everything I want it now. And as I write in my journal the first time I did the wol I got the incredible quick weight loss and loved it. I have been so frustrated this time around, but I appreciate having found this web site, and your post provided a new thought
Thanks!

Actually I scared myself the first week losing 7 lbs and then losing 4lbs. the 3rd week. I added back in some carbs that I had missed and the loss has gone to 1lb a week or every other week. My DH only wanted to lose 10 lbs. so now he is happy at the level he's at. But he's kind of funny about how I lose weight. Especially with the monthly fluctuation that I go through. He doesn't get water weight thing at all. But I'm comfortable being a turtle and it's true all of the things you said. You get to wear your clothes longer. The size 12's got too big and now the size 10's are getting looser and I'll be able to wear these for a little while longer. Hopefully all of the 70's stuff will be out of style when it's time to buy size 8's.

I have one - my stretch marks (don't really like them on my booby's but am used to it now...sigh).

I consider each one a trophy!! Another few pounds off the bod - marks of success!

I'm pretty much a turtle too. I never had a big whoosh at the beginning, but I have noticed that if I do the program right and exercise I might lose a pound every few days. I have heard people on this forum say that after about a month or so, your weight loss will probably slow to 1-2 pounds a month. I don't see how this could be possible given that the body is supposed to be using up so much fat for energy. Have you turtles noticed that even though your weight loss is slow, it has maintained a steady rate and not slowed down that much? I would comfort me to know that. I was expecting to lose at least 10 pounds a month while I stay on induction level carb intake.

I have and I've gotten to liking it this way. Like you said, slow and steady...

Yeah it's just that the results are sometimes not encouraging enough to make me stick with the program.

my doctor gave me another way to look at slow loss the last time I was in. I looked at his computer record of my weight and noticed I'd been in exactly a year before. "Hey," I said, "I've lost 18 pounds in a year. That's not bad. If I continued to lose 18 pounds a year..." and I trailed off, starting to to the math in my head. But he finished for me

"...you'd be dead in four years."

lmbo! He's right, too--three more years of that rate would have me in the hospital on IVs, four would have me dead. When you're at the beginning, 'turtling' seems frustrating...but when you step back and look at the whole pattern, it really does add up!
This program is for life. If we don't take it that way, we can be fatter than ever in 3 years...or we can be at goal in 3 years. That seems a no-brainer to me.

OK, Turtle Queen here ..... 35 lbs lost in the first 8 months, and 10 lbs lost in the last 16 months .. and never a steady loss, but extreme yo-yo's the whole time. Not to discourage anybody else .. I have many chronic health problems affecting my losses .. BUT .. the sentiment is the same.

For me, this isn't a diet that will come to an end at some time in the future. This truly is my Way Of Life (WOL) and I can honestly say that I didn't feel this way a year ago. Right now .. eating steak and salad for breakfast .. or ordering a restaurant meal with no potato, please substitute extra vegetable or salad .. is second nature. I genuinely and sincerely do not want to eat potato or bread.

Having been on quick weight-loss schemes in the past ... I know that I never, ever felt that the way I was eating at the time was going to be the way I ate for the rest of my life.

I do now

Doreen

Hi all,
sorry I've been away. My son was here for a month, now my daughters are here. Hard to find time to get on the computer with work, school and bowling in between!
I am still on 156 and holding, however, I am maintaining while eating more carbs and a little bit of sugar now and then. I did start an excercise program, however, it went on hold when company got here. I will get back on it monday when company leave, and hopefully, work will smooth out soon too!
Take care, and take it one step, and one day at a time.
Don't forget that wonderful water!
Murp

My Bra is looser.....LOL not as much to flop!!!!