Howdy From Texas

[kaybee718]

Hi!

I'm Karen and I'm a 50 year old CT native who's been living in the Lone Star State since 2007.

I am starting the Atkins/LCHF way of life on Sunday, May 15. I am extremely committed to it, and I plan to see it through. I've been overweight for most of my adult life and it's WAY PAST time to change. I had some ugly blood work results last month and that was my big wake-up call....that, and some truly horrible pix where I look like the Michelin Woman.

I live with my 20 year old daughter who is very sugar addicted and I'm trying to get her on board but no dice. She could stand to lose about 25-30 lbs, but I'm not going to tell her that because it would hurt her feelings.

I'm under a cardiologist's care because of high blood pressure, which I take medications for. They've also put me on a statin, which I'm not thrilled about, but I'm not seeing a lot of side effects.

I had open heart surgery on 4-14-15 to correct an aneurysm on my ascending aorta. The only correlation to my aneurysm and my weight issues is my blood pressure, which probably caused the aneurysm to grow faster than it normally would have.

One thing was disheartening was the "newbie advice thread" where there were a lot of posts from 2009 where people obviously didn't see it through based on the weights shown on their avatar line.

Looking forward to getting to know you all!

Karen

[CallmeAnn]

Well, if it was easy, we'd all be thin. ;) . What part of TX are you in? I'm always looking for Houstonians but I lived in Dallas when I was a child, so I relate to that region as well. I'm 55 and have restarted several times. But I am trying to stay the course since I've found intermittent fasting.
Nice to meet you.

[JEY100]

:wave: Welcome Karen,
Another CT Yankee here, also lived in Plano for 7 years. Don't worry about stats, people drop out of a forum for many reasons, may not be diet related.
Also look at Milestone stories like khrussva, Renee and many other positive success stories. Seek out the positive, read new research, check the huge recipe archive, find what you need here that will help you... Journal, buddy group, health info, whatever. All the best,

[MickiSue]

A midwestern Yankee all my life, but my son and DIL both graduated from UT.

People quit all sorts of endeavors, in fact, it's more common for that to happen than the opposite. But you know all that.

If you think ahead about what is realistic so far as the speed and consistency of weight loss, and you pay attention to the health benefits outside of weight loss, you will be WAY ahead of those who quit.

Add in some realistic expectation about what might happen if you decide to eat junky carbs because you have stressors in your life, and how to avoid doing that, and you'll leave so many of them in your dust.

Keep posting, asking questions, and searching for your best LC way of eating (WOE) and you'll be part of the 5% team: people who follow any weight loss program and get to their goals and stay there.

Janet, above is one of those people.

[OtherCher2]

Welcome! If I can do this, anybody can do it. I lost 105 lbs in 2006-2007. Kept it off for 7 years then slowly gained 50 lbs back. Started again in January and have lost 30 so far. Will stay in maintenance when I reach goal this time! Lots of great advice and encouragement here. Stay close!