That was very optimistic of you. I gave up and donated all my smaller clothes. So now I have to start over again. But, those clothes would be well out of style by now. I bought some things in sizes 14, 12 and medium. I was very happy to get the size 14's on, zipped AND buttoned. They look like SAUSAGE SKIN, but I am ecstatic about even getting into them!

I've decided not to bother with maintenance. I'm just going to keep trying to lose weight for the rest of my life!!

M.

I was totally optimistic! After I hit goal on Atkins, I gained 20 lbs over the next few years. Instead of going back to Atkins, I kept trying OTHER ways to lose....counting calories, something called Full Plate, etc. THEN I gained 25 more lbs. I am not totally sane sometimes.

You are my sister from another mister!!

I'm the only person I know who actually gains weight on a diet while everyone else is losing on the very same diet! My company paid big bucks for Full Plate Living to come in and teach us the PROPER way to eat in order to lose optimum weight. So here I am this carb addict with a list of foods that included every fruit in the world plus beans, hummus, pita bread, all high carb foots and NO MEAT. Everyone else lost weight...I gained....of course, I gained! That's when I also discovered that I can actually eat 6 bananas while watching television in one evening.

Six bananas! That's impressive. That diet was a recipe for disaster!! We are not normal people and can't deal with a carb-y diet meant for weight loss. That wouldn't work for me either. A strawberry will send me to the ice cream shop, the bakery and burger king! One little old strawberry!

Thank goodness you are on the righty path now! We will not look at bananas and strawberries as innocuous food items ever again!

Hi Miche68...I'm also a recovering ice cream addict. I can walk right by so many things, but i crave ice cream every. single. day. 16 days in on LCHF and just talking about ice cream starts my mouth watering. JUST SAY NO. Cheating is not an option today.

LOL! So happy to be here and out of that brain fog. They had us doing high impact exercises every. single. day. on our lunch hours too. That was total madness!

It's so hard to give up the ONE thing which calls out to us the most. Mine is also the dreaded IC. I can't even keep it in the freezer for others. As long as I know it's there, I have to eat it ~ ALL. It's a terrible thing, isn't it, that mind-crave?

When I just can't stand it anymore and it calls to me from the freezer section in the market, I eat sour cream instead. It sounds gross, but with some AS to alter the taste, it's the right texture. I've also been known to prepare sugar-free instant pudding using heavy cream and substitute that for IC. Even with a few carbs, it's better than the alternative, which for me would be a half gallon of IC or a quart of gelato.

I know. Gross.

I thought I was the only human that could eat an entire 1/2 gallon of ice cream in 3 hours! That's how I developed the addiction to McDonald's soft serve. I would go thru drive-thru every evening after work and get an ice cream cone. Every evening. I told myself it was better to just have ONE cone a day instead of a 1/2 gallon! hhhmmmm

My evening treat now is sugar-free jello with a little heavy cream mixed in before it sets. No carbs and it makes me not crave the ice cream.

My ice cream and binge eating story: one evening when my husband was at work, I decided to sneak a little bit of his ice cream. I took a large soup spoon and dug a little bit out. It left a hole in the remaining ice cream so I had to eat a little more to fix the hole. Then I had a little more for good measure. Then I realized that I had left noticeably less ice cream in the container than I started with so I figured I may as well finish it off and run out to get another half gallon. So then, after I got the new ice cream, I had to eat it down to where the original container was when I started on it. It was a tough job, but somebody had to do it. Hubby never knew a thing and I discovered that if I eat enough ice cream I wheeze all night and then developed lactose intolerance. But that did not lessen my love for ice cream!!

But since ice cream is out of my life, I think your jello with heavy cream sounds yummy. Gonna make some today!

Hi, Ladies. I make my own ice cream out of cream, egg yolks, vanilla extract and stevia. No need to give up ice cream. It is the same mixture as old-fashioned baked custard.

For one pint of cream, I use 8 extra-large yolks, 2 Tablespoons of vanilla extract and whole-leaf stevia, to taste.

There is an older way of freezing, that works: Mix ingredients, put in small bowl. Put in freezer. Check every half hour and stir. Repeat until it is frozen enough to eat.

There are also various kinds of fancy, electric ice cream freezers on the market.

I wish you all a blessed Independence Day.

Thanks, Silver! That sounds easy enough! Maybe I could make some for my hubby. He is still an ice cream hound. I have an ice cream maker that I have used two times-both times to make sugar free ice cream that was only good when it came straight out of the machine. After freezing for a day it was rock hard!!

Hope your holiday is fun and relatively quiet!!

Wow, this is a great way to look at changing and maintaining our WOE. We often invest money for our future, I would have never thought to buy smaller clothes as an investment in my future, but it makes sense... I'm slowly coming out of 14p into 12's however my ultimate goal is a size 10. I have some 10s hanging in my closet right now (previous weight loss), the next time I go out shopping I'll look around for some 10s to purchase and consider those purchases my long term investment. A great way to stay motivated.