is it considered cheating if you overindulge in a LC treat???

I think it depends if it feels like cheating to you and derails your progress?

I don't really like the term "cheating." It's sort of demoralizing. I agree with Jschwab's analysis: if it doesn't feel right and it isn't getting you closer to your goal, it's probably not good.

Some people leave their low carb treats for weekends only, or only on one day a week.

I tend to not keep a lot of treat foods around, or else I eat them. One thing I like to have around is Lindt's 85% extra dark chocolate. It is so strong that it is self-limiting.

You're probably better off over-indulging in something LC rather than carbs. LC treats probably won't cause blood sugar issues or cravings like the sugary stuff would.

I don't consider it cheating, but then, I don't really believe in cheats. IMO, everyone eats off plan now and then. It's really impossible not to, if you want to have any kind of life. Why beat yourself up about being normal?

As far as overeating LC treats, I consider it off-plan if it's a commercial product, like Russell Stover's sf candy, but if it's something I've made at home, it's usually low enough in carbs that I don't bother being concerned. I don't indulge like that as a routine, though. If I find myself doing so, I get back on Induction to suppress my cravings for sweets. Just my way of doing things.

reason i started this post is because i made a lc pumpkin cheese cake sorta pie thingy lol and it was so good and i was so hungry because i pratically hadn't eaten all day so i ate 3 slices and boy was i sick afterward... i estimate that each slice was approx. 5 grams carbs

I am so with you on the lc cheesecake thing

Is it cheating if it is lc? I think, I bet, I wonder if, most people here will admit that it is not necessarily the food choices we have made over the years, but the portion control. ? If I were at my perfect weight, whatever that is, and I ate normal portions of whatever I want, would weight be an issue? Or is the issue that I cannot stop at 3 oreos, or one handful of chips, or one piece of pizza, but rather I will eat two rows of oreos before coming up for breath, that I will nestle on the couch with the entire 16 oz bag of lays potato chips and not stop until my potato/salt coma is breached by the need for liquid, that I will scan the pizza, determine just how many pieces I can fit on my plate with some breadsticks and dipping sauce?

I think it is not so much about the food, but the portions. That being said, I have eaten an entire half of a giant lc peanut butter cheesecake in the past two days.

If I eat too many carbs at one time, sometimes I skip a meal or lift weights. I picture my glycogen stores as a big thermometer type thing filling up and going back down. I like it to be low, because then I'm in ketosis and less hungry. If it gets up too high, I have to help it get back down before it fills up and starts making fat.

Hi Ashley,

I read the `cheating' thread first, and then your Red Lobster thread, and felt like a time-traveler trying to warn someone of danger while reading this: "No, Ashley, don't make the cheesecake!"

If you're going to be successful at this in spite of obstacles, it's critical that you plan ahead for at least the predictable roadblocks. I think that most of us get into a position where we are faced with a meal not of our choosing, and make the best of things, or pick the lesser of two evils. However, home should not be a place where you're faced with those kinds of choices. That's the place where you are the adult in charge, and you have control over what's in your fridge and cupboard.

You know that work presents some challenges, so you need to have a plan. You were hungry, and you ate. That's not being bad--that's every cell in your body saying, "Send down some calories, stat--we are HUNGRY here!"

If you schedule a cooking marathon sometime on the weekend, you can just grab things and run on weekdays. Make a big bowl of salad greens, washed and torn and ready. Bag up five little ziplocks of grated cheese and bacon. Keep a bowl of garnishes--red pepper, tomato, etc.,--cut and ready to go. Cook up some chicken breast and freeze them individually, then use them in your lunch bag like an ice pack to keep the salad cook as it thaws. Make up two dozen deviled eggs. Make up a breakfast quiche that you can eat on the run, out of hand. Walmart has some pretty decent canned red salmon which you can keep on hand at work for emergencies.

If we don't have the appropriate foods around the house, and don't get enough to eat, then the lc cheesecake lost weekends are an inevitability.

Hope this doesn't sound like a scold--not my intention. Just sayin'. The old saw never rang truer than in this WOE-WOL: if we fail to plan, we plan to fail.

We all make mistakes; all we can do to move forward in a positive way is learn from them and do better the next time. It's just part of the learning process.

P.S.--I like your dad. What a *dad* thing to do, to offer to take you to another restaurant because you were hungry.

A life without treats would be sad. Even if I couldn't have lc sweet treats, I'd have something.

I don't find a life without a lot of treats to be so bad.

Some people (and I suspect I'm a member of that group) respond to artificial sweeteners with the same outpouring of insulin that they would get from regular sugar.

Something? How about mobility, self-respect, health, clothes that fit, the freedom to live the life you desire, romance, children, joy in movement, willingness to look at oneself in the mirror?

Not having these is sadder. By magnitudes inexpressible.

You want sad? Make eye contact with the people you see riding around in carts because they're too fat to walk.

You want sad? Look at the face of the beautiful young obese woman at her friends' weddings, trying so hard to be happy for them, wondering if it's ever going to be her turn.

You want sad? Read this:
STUART, Fla. -- A 480-pound Martin County woman has died after emergency workers tried to remove her from the couch where she had remained for about six years.

Gayle Laverne Grinds, 40, died Wednesday, after a failed six-hour effort to dislodge her from the couch in her home. Workers say the home was filthy, and Grinds was too large to get up from the couch to even use the bathroom.

Everyone going inside the home had to wear protective gear. The stench was so powerful they had to blast in fresh air.

A preliminary autopsy on the the four-foot, ten-inch woman lists the cause of death as "morbid obesity." But officials want to know more about the circumstances inside the home.

Investigators say Grinds lived with a man named Herman Thomas, who says he tried to take care of her the best he could. He has told them he tried repeatedly to get her up, but simply couldn't. No charges have been filed, but officials are looking into negligence issues.

Emergency workers had to remove some sliding glass doors and lift the couch, with Grinds still on it, to a trailer behind a pickup truck. Removing her from the couch would be too painful, since her body was grafted to the fabric. After years of staying put, her skin had literally become one with the sofa and had to be surgically removed.

She died at Martin Memorial Hospital South, still attached to the couch.


You want sad? When she died, people laughed.

Holy Hamburger, Batman. The OP asks about whether overindulging in a low carb treat is cheating and gets lectured. Some other poor unfortunate come along and says that a life without any treats is sad and gets a lecture culminating in death.

Just a little over the top, maybe?

I'm going to go with way over the top!

If you really believe you're going to go through life without another food "treat", then good for you. I don't buy it though. Everyone has a different version of treats: a glass of wine, DaVinci syrup, cheesecake, whatever... what one person finds acceptable may be way past what another person would allow in their plan. Not allowing yourself some version of what you enjoy will not bode well for long-term success, at least from what I've seen.

Anyway, Ashley, I don't think lc pumpkin cheesecake is really bad at all--- you may have felt sick just because it's so calorie-dense, and/or you used sugar alcohols. Just try to learn from the situation and you'll do fine.

thanks everyone for the responses...kathleen i didnt feel that you were scolding me... all this is good info...i guess everyone has a different opinion.. but i come to realize portion control is important but on the atkins diet portion control is out of the question so i guess i was kinda torn between the two... i know i overindulged because i was to the point were i was sick so now i know better.....

i guess the word "cheat" wasnt the correct word to use...i shuld have described my expierence as a lack of planning and not choosing the best option. anyhow the day goes on and im on day 3 of atkins so far so good....

and as for sweet treats...im going to try to portion them out next time and freeze what im not going to eat (as i read someone does on the forum) and make the treat something only when im in dire need for something sweet and want to stay on plan

Maybe.

I've been hanging out in the journals recently, some where people are being successful, and some where they are struggling daily, and am acutely reminded of the pain and dangers of morbid obesity. I remember when Ashley came bubbling into this forum, and I've watched her recent struggles with concern, watched her come to a carefully-considered decision in her young adulthood to go with surgery, and am aware that she's trying to make some changes to get ready for that. To the extent that she welcomes it, she has my respect and support. Anything that I said to her was intended to be supportive. Could be I missed my mark; it that's the case, Ashley, please accept my sincere apologies.

J-Lo's comment took me by surprise. I may have read it in a way that was not intended, but it struck me as like to telling an alcoholic that it's just too sad that they can't drink anymore.

This being a forum for people who are trying to win a battle with morbid obesity suggests to me that an earlier death, although unlikely to be that dramatic as the one posted above, is one of the possible outcomes we're talking to avert. I know we've lost at least one member who posted regularly, and I've wondered about a few others. Every year or so I post in their journal, but so far they haven't resurfaced. I've read posts from people who have lost a parent, sibling, or friend to this battle. I've lost a close friend and a cousin to complications of obesity, and seen others whose quality of life became squat as an outcome. So yep, I actually *do* look at it as a life-and-death kinda thing.

Ashley did not describe having a sweet treat and enjoying it; she talked about feeling ill after eating half a cheesecake. Not doing that is not, to me, a sad thing. It's choosing reality and choosing life.




Blondie, I'm assuming that I'm the `you' in your post, so will respond based on that assumption. I am not saying that I will never go through life without a sweet treat. I eat dark chocolate at will, I sweeten my berries and yogurt. Not everyone here has that option, and I don't see their quality of life diminished by that. It just is what it is. For some folks, as they go along they have to give up dairy to keep on losing, maintaining, or being healthy. I still think they're better off with those restrictions than they were before they discovered LC.

My eating plan is about saying `yes' to the foods that make me healthier and help me lose weight, not self-denial. However, if I needed to give up the sweets to reach my goal, then I would probably look for other things that I enjoy. For me, as I deduced was the case with the cheesecake, overeating treats (or any other food) has never been a source of joy or pleasure.

J-Lo, please accept my apology if this response seemed extreme. It was my intention to respond to your comment, not to attack you as a person.

TDC'ers, I apologize if this came across as a flame. Life is too short for that, and it's not how I get my kicks. As I've said before, I cherish peace here because it's an important lifeline to a lot of folks.

Wandering back to the journals now . . .