The Fat Panic
 

Has this ever happened to you?

You've been succesfully lowcarbing. Maybe for a week, maybe for months, or even years. You KNOW in your mind and heart that this works, you understand the details of it, all the WHYs of how it works and how to eat low carb like a pro.

Then Fat Panic strikes. Out of the blue.

It's night after dinner (a normal low carb meal) and you just want to snack. You're fine, and in control and continue to be right through your lucious totally legal low carb snack whatever it is.
You finish. You feel full (because it had fat in it, maybe some, maybe tons) and then it hits:

Fat Panic!

Now you KNOW that the fat you eat won't make you fat, but your emotional memory takes over and suddenly you think,

"Oh God, how can this possibly work (keep working)...it's just too good to be true, I can't believe I just ATE that! God it had SO much fat in it too - oh I can just feel myself getting bigger - but WAIT - I've been lowcarbing for months/years and I've done nothing but LOSE eating this way (outside of a few stalls...) so I shouldn't STILL feel BAD for eating that! I won't! I just won't! But gosh, what if I'm not really thinner, I'm just fooling myself (for people who don't weigh) or you think - gosh I just ate that fat and now I'm going to WHAT - go to BED in a few hours?? That just can't be good for my weightloss! Then the dreaded...

...I wonder how many calories were in it?

Once you get HERE, you're doomed for the night. UGh. You relive and rethink old highcarb/lowfat eating thoughts and dread the morning...

Strange and frustrating, you keep wondering WHY your brain is punishing you like this?

The Fat Panic : When you eat low carb and then your brain strikes back and acts like it doesn't know the TRUTH anymore about carbs! It pours guilt on you! It scares you!

...and it never fails. The next day - I still slip into my "goal" jeans...and feel confident about low carbing all over again.
------------
Maybe it does't happen to you quite this way.
Maybe you just get a split second of WWHOOSH back into the "This is too good to be true/low carb is a lie" thoughts of long ago. And then it's gone...and you finish that legal cheesecake piece and all is well with the world.

It's hard to describe, but kind of happens when you eat fat and think (for some reason), "I'm gonna pay for that"...and then - you think - no, I'm low carbing it's okay...and then you think, no - no way - do you KNOW how many FAT GRAMS you just ate??? Impossible. And then you think again, no, it's okay I'm lowcarbing NOW, NOW is not then - and besides I've lost weight on lowcarb/alot of weight ---- but then the Fat Panic tries to scare you again.

--------Look, I know I'm not nuts, everyone has a history of dieting and no matter how well you low carb a part of that follows you and confronts you inspite of all your new eating habits...almost like there's a pull to abandon for fear it's really too good to be true!

I'm sure someone besides me has eaten IT and had a FAT PANIC...only to wake the next day weighing even LESS.

Anyone willing to confess to the feelings of Fat Panic? I welcome anyone's comment (just don't call me NUTS- I don' t eat nuts!)
:) Nsmith4366

I hear yah!

I can't really say I feel panicked, but I do feel guilty sometimes.
Especially when I eat Pork rinds and cream cheese......or Avocados! Those two foods really scare me sometimes.....I don't know why......The next day just proves there’s nothing to be worried about! I guess in away I’m still brainwashed that low-fat is better! NOT!

Happy LCing! :thup:

I do this. I believe it is because I almost had to starve myself to lose any weight before. I was brought up eating low fat. At Halloween my mother used to take our candy that we got trick or treating and trade it for sugar free/no fat foods she got at health stores. So I don't think all of my brain has caught up with my body. I have been thinking low fat all my life and it can be so hard to change. :D
I have lost over 25 pounds on this WOE and still there are days I think I am nuts eating so much fat or I will find myself thinking that I am not any smaller. I KNOW that is not possible, but there is like this peice of me that whispers it in my ear. A cloud of doubt that hovers over me. I find myself asking my husband, "Do you think I look any smaller? I don't feel any smaller."
I know that is all nuts. I have done so WONDERFUL on this WOL. I have lost 27 pounds in a little over 2 months. I feel so much better about myself(on most days.) I know that I am smaller and that I am losing weight. My mind is slowly catching up with my body. Slowly. :D

Jess

I'm impressed, Jess and high fat,etc.
 

Wow, LOVE that you lost so much in so little time. I know it's really NOT about numbers, but still ... it's motivating.

I completely understand though about the original poster's angst with eating high fat foods. I have been on a runner's "diet" forever and it's all low fat, but extremely high carb. For the last few months, I was just on a high fat, high carb diet. LOL

Anyhow, it is hard to think that high caloric, high fat foods can make me thin sometimes. I don't panic and won't unless the scale goes way up and the seams bust. :)

THANKS for posting your thots!!!!!!

I took a cheesecake to Easter Dinner today, and of course had the table conversation about high fat/ low fat and low carbing in general with a few family members. I said the cheesecake was SUGAR FREE not LOW FAT!!!! OMG, they about died when i told them the ingredients and that my other new favorite product is heavy whipping cream and that i purchase it in the QUART size!!!!

i said.....well , you follow your plan and i will follow mine and we will compare in a few weeks. i said i have NEVER felt better!!!! YIPPPPEEEEE!!!!!! i am going to go back to a stricter level, ( ie atkins) for a few weeks, vs. SS or TSP.

Keep on keeping on! :wave:

I never get "fat panic", but I was never in the custom of counting fat grams or even calories really. I did the "exchange" thing while following the ADA diet. Still...the one thing that still plagues me is the idea that you can't eat after 6 PM (something that my mother insisted on) because it will make you fat no matter what type of diet you are following. Maybe that holds true if you are following a high carb diet because you're not expending much energy to burn those carbs while you are sleeping, but I haven't found that it matters too much on this WOL...I can eat a high fat snack at midnight and still wake up 2 lbs less in the morning, but I still fee guilty about it sometimes. Ain't this WOL great?

We have been progammed all our lives to eat low fat & count calories. Have done this so many times, I have lost count.

Thank you.
 

:thup: Thanks everyone. I knew I wasn't ALONE in the occaisional fat panic! :rolleyes: I HAD to give it a name. It's real and really justified considering how Jane Fonda, Richard Simmons and Susan Powter all worked so hard to brainwash us! Yikes! :eek: :mad:

I continue to eat fats, but healthy monounsaturated/nonhydrog/nontrans fats :D ...KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK EVERYONE Eat that fat and if you DO find yourself in a Fat Panic, post it! I will! Sounds like many people can relate. :wave:

I do this all the time. I am continuously saying "I don't think I've lost any weight" like an idiot. I remember the first time I ate an avocado on this woe (haven't had one in YEARS because of the fat content) and my heart was actually racing. *LOL* I saved a pair of my biggest jeans for when this happens and put them on when I start to panic.

I've found that its just easier to not tell people too much. They know I don't eat bread or starchy vegetables, and that I don't have sugar or most fruits with high sugar content. I just leave it at that. Everyone I know just about does low-fat, low-calorie and I think they would be on their knees praying for me if they went grocery shopping with me and saw all the meat, cheese, nuts, whipping cream, butter, pork rinds, etc... They can't even grasp the fact that I can have "real" dressing on my salads. :rolleyes:

I too have experienced guilt when eating things like avocados and whipped cream. Mind you....it's easy to slough off because I can see what a success I've had by eating all of this fat...and I even have the numbers from blood tests to prove that I'm doing GREAT!

I think the best way to handle "Fat Panic Attacks" is with knowledge. Research, read and study all of the information you can find to become well informed and perhaps you can eventually put the FPA's to rest!

I'm currently reading a book called "Good Fat, Bad Fat" and getting a lot of satisfaction from having a much clearer understanding of fat in the diet.

HTH
Marlaine

The books
 

Yes, there are several books out there on good vs bad fats.
I believe it all except that I don't think saturated fats are bad.
I avoid trans and hydrog that's it. Get my EFAs everyday!

The Fat Panic for me isn't as much guilt as it is FEAR...it's like there's 2 brains in my head. My old low-nonfat living brain and my new (4 years new now) low carb brain!

You'd think I'd be over it! I usually end my Fat Panic with the thought,

"Well if eating low carb really WOULD make me fat, I'd be FAT RIGHT NOW, and I'm NOT. So there!"

Then I just spin on my heals and put that extra butter on my plate! I don't even flinch about it.