I had a rough first week or so on Induction -- terrible mood, fatigue, headaches, the usual symptoms. But with the support of everyone here, I made it through, and I am pleased to report that just as everyone said, I feel fabulous. I've lost loads of weight, I feel energetic, I'm in a great mood, my skin is glowing, and ... this is a miracle ... I am just NOT THINKING ABOUT FOOD ALL DAY.

This is an amazing liberation for me, a miracle. It is the FIRST TIME IN MY LIFE this has happened to me. I'm not bingeing, I'm not starving, I'm not taking diet pills, and I just ain't that interested in food.

I wonder if other people have had this thought. I have been struggling with my weight, and I have been yo-yo dieting, since the age of eleven. I have been convinced, all my life, that there was something PROFOUNDLY WRONG WITH ME because I thought about eating all the time, couldn't "just have a little less," couldn't "just exercise a little willpower." I've been obsessed with food, obsessed with my weight. I've hated myself. I've been miserable. I have BEEN IN THERAPY to explore my "eating disorder," to talk about the "emotional" reasons I overate. I have been asked -- and have seriously tried to answer -- the question, "What emotions are you so scared to face that you have to hide them with food? Why are you afraid to be thin?"

Suddenly, I am beginning to wonder -- all these years, all that pain, all that struggling, all that self-hatred -- was it all just because I'm *oversensitive to carbohydrates*? Could it really be that simple? Could the solution really be that ridiculously uncomplicated? Could this really be it -- freedom from a lifetime obsession, a cure?

And you know what, everyone? On the one hand, I'm thrilled, ecstatic, full of hope -- but on the other hand, I'm so sad for myself, for that pudgy teenager who felt so inadequate because she couldn't stick to that low-fat diet, for the woman who kept starving and binging and studying all those books about how it was a "feminist issue," and trying to "write out the cravings" in a journal, and who would be unable to concentrate because she wanted chocolate and cinnamon rolls and fresh bread so badly -- foods that right now just seem, miraculously, like neutral THINGS in the world, not like some kind of Satanic temptation -- and I feel so bad about the waste of energy, and the misdirected effort, and, frankly, angry at all the people who told me it was MY FAULT (and stay away from those fatty steaks and that awful mayonnaise, young lady)! It makes me want to charge into junior high schools and rescue all those poor fledgling girl-women and say, "You don't have to go through this! There's a simple solution! Don't listen to what they're telling you about the food pyramid, it's going to make you nuts!"

Does anyone else find themselves feeling this way? As if they simply can't believe that it's all that simple, and that the problem wasn't that they were lacking willpower, or emotionally cripples, or spiritually unwell? Does anyone regret all the years they spent obsessed, feeling fat, dieting in misery, tormented by cravings?

I do.

We need to get the word out ... no one should go through that, now that we know better. What a waste.

Thank you, everyone, for the support you gave me to get through that first week. I shudder to think that I might have quit if I hadn't found this forum.

~SK