Hi gwynne2! Thanks. It turns out my dreams WERE too big! At least as far as goal pants go...

As you can see from my sig, I had years of successful low carbing which kept me around my goal weight for years. Then a health crisis derailed me, and created more challenges for me to solve. But solving that also gave me the best health, weight, and mood of my life. Which is astonishing at my age (she said coyly) so it's good to know it can be done. And I was sick! This happened with ZERO exercise.

A couple of tips on how I did it: just to confuse you more

Something I don't see enough discussion of is how individual our bodies are when it comes to what we eat. It took reading the book Death by Food Pyramid to learn that we inherit food digestion enzymes. KEY POINT: It doesn't matter how "healthy" a food is when we don't have the enzymes to break it down.

This clarified why I had such a problem going vegetarian, which made me fat and sick. (And this wasn't even vegan!) I don't have the enzymes to get enough protein from plant sources. Full stop.

I began having some distressing autoimmune symptoms. Side effects of conventional therapy was one of the reasons I had gained weight. It had also stopped working to control symptoms. So I wound up reading the book The Wahls Protocol, about this doctor's successful treatment of her Multiple Sclerosis. KEY POINT: Science errs in considering autoimmune diseases as different. It's all the same disease, expressed differently.

She discussed three different steps to her plan as a patient moved towards keto. Since I'm a cut-to-the-chase kind of person, I went backwards. I started with meat only. Since some people have trouble with certain kinds of meat, I stuck to grass-fed hamburger with pepper and salt. My body's reaction was YEAH! And my symptoms immediately improved.

I did that for almost a month, getting better all the time. So this test confirmed that -- at least in my case -- I was putting my autoimmune in remission by avoiding my trigger foods. Now I had to figure out what those were.

After doing this for two years now, I can confidently say I'm sensitive to gluten, lectins, fiber, most artificial sweeteners, and carbs in general. I need to stay under 20, like Atkins Induction Level. What can I eat? That turned out to be: meat, fish and seafood, eggs, dairy, and low-sugar botanical fruits.

As if that didn't make me enough of a mutant: I need much more protein than general recommendations. I do fine with fermented dairy like cheese, yogurt, and sour cream. My body loves fat and I can eat from animal sources, plus coconut oil and heavy cream, as much I as like.

See? I had to "break all the rules" to find out what my body was happy with. Sure, some people stall if they eat too much protein, any dairy, and have to watch their fat. But for me, that was key to my success.

Dr. Atkins himself praised vegetables, and so does Dr. Wahls. But I can't touch them. Maybe some salad greens but I'm now wary about those. Dr. Georgia Ede (her blog is diagnosisdiet.com) finds her health, particularly mental, improves with no plant matter at all. Those vaunted vitamins? KEY POINT: You gotta have the right enzymes to make them bio-available. And they are all found, often in greater abundance, in animal foods.

I totally understand your confusion. I kept looking for plans, but when it comes to ME, there is no plan. Conventional wisdom would restrict my red meat and fat and load me up with whole grains, soy, and vegetables. There's a doctor out there who warns about lectins, but he loves vegetarian. And even carb experts tend to share what worked for them and what "research supports."

I don't know of any low-carb leaders who write much about lectins. And for me, that was the missing piece that made the entire puzzle come together.

Which is why none of them agree. There is no one answer.

There's only YOU. And what works for YOU.

I would search for guidelines that match what you already know works for you. By starting with my health issue, I had an idea of what my problem was, and immediate feedback on what would work. If weight loss is your main concern, I would look into the foods that worked for you before, with close attention to something that might not be good for YOU, no matter how much it might be pushed, by anyone.

Another guideline is appetite. I discovered that one or two meals a day is a breeze when I'm not eating things that turn out to make me hungry. That's why I'm no longer eating salad greens. Dropping them for a week resulted in decreased appetite. Inflammation from plant elements that disagree with me, or tripping my leaky gut with too much fiber, makes me hungry. That's now the subtle signal I've learned to pay attention to.

I would never have known that if I hadn't reset my system by eating nothing that upset it. Much like my reaction to gluten sharpened greatly once I eliminated it, and accidentally got "glutened," which is now serious stomach inflammation. It turns out, now that I avoid soy like a vampire avoids garlic, it has an effect on me straight out of a Game of Thrones poisoning

Best of luck!