This my last effort (hah) before resorting to weight loss surgery. I figured not much thinking with lo carb, like weight watchers the past year or two. Finding this web site is like finding gold!

Welcome I wish you great success and motivation on your journey!

Welcome!!

This is the first time I have ever had help loosing weight. I love this place!

Has anyone lost 100 or more on low carb? I've battled this for a mere 35 years, lost and gained 100 pounds 3 times, in 10 year intervals. Looking for heavy encouragement.....

Glad to see you hear. Make a commitment to Atkins, think of it as a way of life not a diet and good things will happen. Post often and keep engage with others on the forum, there is a lot of good advice on this site in regards to food alternatives, how to deal with physical and psychological cravings, how to get through the tough spots and how to deal with expectations of family, friends, and yourself. Best to you in your journey to health and fitness.

Welcome Wezi!! You're going to LOVE this forum!! There are MANY who have lost over 100#'s on LC. Check out the Triple Digit forum here or I think there's a few threads in the Countdown, Buddies, and Challenge Threads. The most I've every lost was 35#'s several years ago. I just didn't stick with it and gradually the pounds crept back on. I'm determined to get to my goal this time!
GOOD LUCK TO YOU!!

Welcome.. Very best of luck with the diet. However, you'll find that there is thinking involved in any diet, even the low-carb diet. You have to be committed, determined, and face your demons. You need to learn to resist temptation and social pressure. Your mind is your greatest asset in the diet, but it can be your greatest enemy. It can tell you things like:

"It's a holiday"
"I can go back on the diet tomorrow"
"I'll only have a little piece"
"One little cheat won't matter"
"It's not fair - why can they eat all that and not put on weight"
"I haven't lost weight since last week - the diet isn't working"
"I haven't cheated at all, so why haven't I lost weight"
"I've been really good so I deserve a treat"
"Other people have lost fast on this diet, so that will happen for me."
"I am doing the Atkins diet, but I don't need to read the book, I just need to eat a load of meat"
"I don't care what I eat - I will just eat the same thing every day"
"I will spend time searching out and cooking sweet tasting "treats" and dessert substitutes. That is a lot more appealing than learning how to cook proper, delicious low-carb meals."
"Once I have lost the weight, I will be able to enjoy all these foods again"
"Everyone else is having one, and one won't hurt me"
"I don't want to be different"
"It's a party"
"There's nothing low-carb available so I have no choice"
"It's fruit - it's healthy!"

and more

You have to be strong enough to stick with the diet. If you get the balance right and keep the insulin levels stable, it gives you a huge advantage, but the part of your mind which is addicted to carbs will play all the above tricks on you, to try to give you a reason to quit the diet and feed your addiction.

You've gotta be strong, and you've gotta read the literature and do a bit of work. You'll get loads of help from this forum, and you will find a great deal of information by visiting regularly and paying attention to the posts of people who are successful losers. Take the posts of people who are still almost 300lb after 10 years of dieting with a pinch of salt, particularly when they are showing you tempting pictures of dessert substitutes. Like you need that kind of temptation. I feel sorry for people who cannot get away from that mentality, but I am not on this site for new chums. I want to lose weight, and I need the site for support, inspiration and all the wonderful tools, like MyPlan it provides. I don't look at the "sweet treats". I don't look at the journals of people who eat them. I don't look at the recipe section which contains those types of recipes and I wouldn't read a thread about sweet stuff. Now, maybe your mind will tell you that you cannot diet without crutches like those.. In fact, you can diet without them. You won't die so it is just another trick of your mind. If you really cannot stick the diet without something, then there are recipes and many ideas out there, and in the Atkins book itself, and particularly at the beginning of the diet, it is good to find things just till you wean yourself off sweet stuff. But over time, you will have to wean yourself off sweet stuff. The further down the road you go in trying to cut out sweet, the easier the diet becomes.

Accept that it's not going to be easy, but you have the potential to change your life if you can get the diet working for you, and stick with it through the ups, downs, slow times and the period afterwards when the real challenge starts - that of keeping your weight stable when you have reached a healthy weight and are on the maintenance rung of the diet. That, for me, is when it gets really tough, because the motivation to lose weight is no longer there, and one bite literally won't hurt you... unless you add more and more bites after the first.

One realisation that you must make is that as someone who has a considerable weight problem, you are going to have to come to terms with the fact that you can never go back to your previous way of eating if you want to maintain a healthy weight. You are going to have to watch your weight for the rest of your life. I had to come to that realisation myself, and the diet gets easier when you really accept that fact. You will have to accept that Dr. Atkins' diet is a life-time plan, and allows for wonderful food, and a lot of indulgent eating, but it is a healthy plan, and there is only so much latitude it will allow, even at maintenance level.

I don't usually write this much for a first "hello", but the thought that you are considering a drastic option like surgery has impelled me to encourage you to get with the diet.. There are risks with surgery.. Probably a lot more than you realise. It sounds like an easy option, but it is a life-threatening solution and you will still have to diet afterwards. There is also a danger of moving the food addiction elsewhere, such as into alcohol, so facing up to the issues which might be holding you back is really, really important.

Good luck with the diet. I hope I'll see you posting here in future.. not only looking for support with the diet, but encouraging other people to get on board, and giving them advice based on the knowledge you've acquired during your successful weight-loss journey.

Thanks for the encouragement, especially with the Surgery. Actually, I've been an avocate against Weight loss surgery for 35 years, and yet, find myself willing to face death or maiming, every so often and just get the darn surgery! I have personally known 27 deaths including 3 major complications. Many others had success, but gained most all back and/or surgery once or twice therafter...It is not the answer, only another optionally dangerous tool ...Even my weight posted here is 100 pounds off, I always do that, talk about denial, I'm 388 not 288, now 384 as of last Monday...1 pound a day lost so far since my newest journey began, a lifelong journey to healthy descions. I have so much to contribute, and even more to learn about this most disabling disease of the mind, I can hardly contain myself!

THIS!!! I was at lunch with my husband today. We are going to his parent's house for Easter dinner and they're having Honey Baked Ham. I told my husband that I was going to make myself a very small pork tenderloin and share if anyone wants it because I wasn't going to eat the ham. He requested I make the pork with a blueberry glaze as I have done in the past and I refused. I told him it's too much sugar for me right now (and really at any point, though I do admit it's 100% homemade and really friggin good) and he said "One meal won't hurt you. It's Easter" so I put on a serious face and told him I'm nto someone who can just come back from 'one meal' this early in the game. I lost 5 pounds and I'm NOT going to screw it up. Some people can eat stuff like that and see it just as one meal but I don't especially because I begin craving more things like cake or brownies that will definitely be there or wine.. He agreed and then said he was proud of me for sticking to it. Sometimes you just need to thoroughly explain yourself to people and if they understand then it makes it even easier to stick to your guns.

I've lost over 130 pounds several times. Still working on learning maintenance, but it doesn't appear that maintenance after surgery is any easier, and that's REALLY scary.

Actually, I was in the same position as you when I came here in August of '07: Considering surgery. (was approved, actually, but had to complete a 6 month doctor-supervised diet first as an insurance requirement). I had tried low carb a couple times before, liked it, but never lost much. Turns out, I was taking Dr. Atkins far too literally when he said don't count calories, you can eat all you want. (Yes, i know he never really said that, but I heard what I wanted to). So in '07, when I also minded the calories, the weight started to fall off, and I just stuck with it. Was SO glad I didn't do the surgery.

This place is great for support and information! Start a journal, get yourself an account with fitday.com to track your food and your progress to help in the motivation and accountability departments, (or use MyPlan here), and good luck to you!

MissKitty - I love you! You are always so wise, so kind, so encouraging, and such a source of inspiration for people like me. I am like you - I can lose, and I can gain, but I cannot maintain... Well, maybe I can now.. Time will tell.

What a wonderful post. It made me feel so humbled. We all kid ourselves or others, rather than face the truth, but it takes a lot of courage to write a post like this.



Yes... I think that possibly for some people, they need to get inner healing, or maybe just learn some cognitive behaviour therapy to help them overcome their food issues.

I think that a lot of people are dragging around a lot of pain. Learning to love yourself is a really, really important lesson to learn in life. I read a book once which suggested that I look into a mirror and tell myself I love myself. I was very surprised to find that when I did that, I realised I was full of self-hatred, and when I asked myself why, I realised I hated myself because my marriage had ended in divorce. Just realising that, and thinking about that issue made such a difference and really it enabled me to move on from all that poisonous and destructive subconscious mentality. I recommend that you do the same thing. Don't look critically and think about your weight.. Look at yourself as a person - acknowledge the good things you like about yourself, and start the healing process towards loving yourself.

That mirror exercise came out of a handbook by Louise Hay, but I am not sure which one it was. I found this on Amazon:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Love-Yourse.../ref=pd_sim_b_4

I'm going to buy it. You can read the first few pages of the book, so you'll get an idea of whether it would suit you. It is a workbook, so most of it will be asking you questions, and you write the answers in it.

I think Louise Hay's books are pretty special. I am not a huge self-help book reader - I tend to go for chick lit, lol, but on the odd occasion I have dipped into one of hers, it has always been worthwhile.

Your local library will have a selection of self-help books which you can browse through and borrow, to see if any would help you. That way needn't waste your money on things which won't suit you.

Well, I hope I haven't written too much, but my heart was really touched by your posts.

Thank you Kirsteen, and I always feel the same about your posts.

OP, you were very brave to "out" yourself, now I encourage you to list your real weight in your profile. There's many here in the 300's and even 400's. Sometimes it can be helpful to find the others (and have them find you) that are in the same boat, regardless to what size a boat it is, as they will have a unique understanding of the challenges faced at that size. It's just another layer of support that comes in handy.

Yes, and i wish I could say I was one but I'm almost to 75 lbs. off..on my way to 100 and then beyond. Best wishes to you!

To me, failure is when you fall down and you do not get up, those that get up again are always successful....