time for me to chime in (even though i swore i'd go to bed half an hour ago...)

i agree with a lot of people on this thread. you know, i don't remember this, but apparently i didn't really eat very much when i was a child. my mum had to try creative ways to get me to eat. but i remember from the age of 9 or 10 getting ferociously addicted to chocolate and crisps. i ate them all the time. once i started going to secondary school, and had no adult supervision, i ate them even more - and bought them on the way home and ate them in my bedroom and hid the wrappers from my parents. what was that? emotional eating? binge eating? or an extreme insulin response?

i definitely ate my way to being 190 pounds by the age of 16. but i dieted my way to being 250 pounds by the age of 23. my weight stabilised at around 190 for years, but trying to diet, and starving my body, and fighting those cravings - well i lost weight twice, once at 16/17, and once at 22/23, and each time, after an extended period on weightwatchers, i snapped and went into binge mode, and the weight piled back on - plus more.

i don't believe it's a cop out to say that we are addicted and that it's NOT OUR FAULT. i have now been low carbing for over 2 years, and i have lost weight painlessly. most of that weight went when i was doing CAD and still eating plenty of treats during that reward meal. i am totally and utterly convinced of the insulin connection. i can FEEL how different my body reacts to food now. i have NEVER been able to stay on a diet so successfully before and not be at the end of my tether, feeling myself about to snap and binge and put it all back on. i feel fine. i feel in control. in 2+ years i think i have eaten 'emotionally' on maybe a couple of occasions. that's it. my life is not so different from when i was younger. i no longer believe that i was weak, or greedy, or eating from pain, or all those reasons people give us. if that was true, then LC wouldn't have worked for me either. but it has.

as for taking control of ourselves, well...sure. but how many of us were ever told about LCing as a way to do that? no, no, that's unhealthy, dangerous, it's a fad. i was destroying my body on my 'healthy' weightwatchers diet, by feeding it 'healthy' complex carbs 3 times a day, with lots of healthy veg, small amounts of protein and tiny amounts of fat. that's what was *supposed* to work and be good for me. it was nightmarish.

i am more impressed now by the sheer willpower it took me to stick with weightwatchers for over a year when i was at university than i am disappointed with myself for all the times i swore 'this time i'll diet' only to give up after 2 days and reach for the chocolate. i am amazed i managed to fight the cravings for that long that one time (when i was 16 i didn't diet for that long - i lost weight really quickly...aah to be young).

yes, i binged like crazy at times. hid food from others. ate secretly, when i wasn't even really hungry. just something made me keep buying the chocolate and crisps, keep eating them. other times even when i wasn't binging i ate too much food. but it wasn't greed. it was my body telling me to do it. it was a biochemical mechanism gone wrong. i am not to blame for that. i spent years of my life feeling like i was to blame, like i had some horrible moral flaw at the centre of my being for eating this way, looking this way. i'm reclaiming myself from that. i don't accept that shame anymore.

conversely, i really don't often accept the 'praise' heaped on me for having lost weight this time. sure, it's not always easy, and i am tempted to eat food i like. that i'm not 'allowed' - but i've been given the answer, and when the carb monster isn't in control, then i can say to myself, quite normally, what do you prefer? that chocolate, or to be thinner and healthier? and i know the answer, it's easy. carb monster is banished, insulin is down, i'm in control. so yes, it's wonderful i've lost weight, but part of me feels like telling people who praise me (particularly my parents, but then food/parents/issues...ugh) that it's like praising a diabetic who remembers to take their insulin shot. i'm just taking the medicine. that's all i'm doing. sometimes it's difficult, but compared to how it was before it's a walk in the park. i'm working with my body instead of against it.

in 28 months of low carbing, i've had many plateaus. i tend to lose rapidly for a few weeks and then stay the same weight for months. that can get disheartening - but i've stuck with it. because i KNOW that this is the answer my body so desperately needed. i've gone off plan occasionally, for a couple days, usually when it was too hard to stay on because of social/travel reasons, but always with the knowledge that i can get back on. that in itself is practically a miracle; the idea that i know i can get back in control without a problem. i am used to that 'snap' of losing the willpower and having the weight pile back on. i know that will never happen to me again. i can't say how grateful i am for that. i wasn't at a weight that was phsyically dangerous for me, but it was ruining my life nonetheless.

Deborah