New here

[Flowox]

Hello there. not sure what to say. I started on a low carb diet just a little over a week ago. I finally decided to see a dietician and she suggested that I go on a 175g carb diet a day. To be honest I cried when I got to the office and stepped on the scale and saw that it had hit 201. I suffer from recurrent major depressive disorder and being that heavy is not doing good things for me physically or mentally. I have always been around 120 pounds until I had my 3 child and then my weight fluctuated between 140 and 165 all the time but once they put me on meds for the depression, the weight just kept going up. I have 2 bad discs in the mid section of my back and my lower back is not doing good at all either. I just started water therapy this past Thursday to help with my back and hopefully help loose weight. Since I started a little over a week ago I have lost about 5 pounds already. I don't eat 175 carbs a day though. I try to eat things that have 0 or only 2 or 3 carbs so I've kept my carbs down to an average of maybe 30 or 45 a day. I figured the lower I can keep it maybe the quicker I will loose weight (am I wrong?)
The dietician lady told me that it may take me a year to loose 50 pounds on 175. I don't have a year. I need to loose it faster than that because it's physically hurting me. Ok, enough chit chat for now. I started out not knowing what to write......LOL :p

[Rosebud]

Hi there Flowox, welcome!

Actually 175g carbs is moderate rather than low carb. Most low carb plans start with between 20 and 60g a day.

How about looking at "Which low carb plan is right for me?" at the right side of the screen and choosing a plan from the summaries there?

You'll find it so much easier if you have some knowledge about the process of low carbing. And so I would strongly suggest you buy the book of whichever specific plan you choose. The more you read, the better prepared you'll be, and the more likely it will be that you will stick this out until you lose your excess weight.

Have a good look around here, Flo. Don't miss the orange bar at the top of the screen, especially "Low Carb Tips."

Cheers.

:rose:Rosebud:rose:

[liz175]

Hi Flowox,

Welcome. I agree with Rosebud -- look over the plans and pick something you can live with. I also started out on my own, just cutting back carbs, but after a month or two I bought the Atkins book and I have found having the structure of the plan to be very helpful. If you want a higher carb approach than Atkins, one of the other plans might interest you, but I think that the folks on Atkins generally lose the fastest. I think that 175 grams of carbs a day is high if you want to lose weight.

Whatever plan you choose, you don't have to lose all 50 pounds to start realizing the health benefits. The 50 pounds is not going to disappear overnight, but you should start feeling better after you lose 10 or 20, and will continue to feel better as you lose each additional pound. I think you are better off mentally preparing yourself for it to take a while, rather than deciding that you have to lose the weight immediately. I've noticed that the people who set stringent goals for themselves -- who decide that they have to lose this a certain amount of weight immediately -- are the ones who are least likely to hang in there and actually get to their goal.

[Flowox]

I have to agree with you guys that 175 is high as that is what my dietician suggested and when she said that it might take a year to loose 50 pounds, I said "What!!!??" Talk about being discouraged. Although I have not been able to do 20 or 30, I have been averaging around 40-45 and have some days where it's only 30. I will try harder to make the carbs lower but I'm having these cravings, which I'm still fighting but it's hard to do :o( :rolleyes:

[downscale]

Give yourself a week and get the carbs as close to 20 as you can. You can do anything for a week. The advantage of this Induction period is that you detox from your cravings. Once the cravings are gone, it is relatively easy to stay on this diet. I think many of the people who have problems on this plan are the ones who haven't gotten their carbs low enough long enough to break the cravings.

My husband had a bad back -- a few simple back exercises every morning helped him a lot. So did those heat wraps.