I was on induction for 8 days...and had lost 8 pounds...and I ate chips and hot sauce and drank way too many Miller lights on Superbowl sunday. Monday morning I woke up and said ... I will just start over again and not let my screw-up get me down. Well last night on my way home from work, and I stop and get a Chicken Sandwich...Large Fries and a diet soda. I ate every single bite of it. I want to loose weight so desperately, Why cant I just do this? I am feeling really discouraged and down on myself. Any advise would be greatly appreciated.

you are completely normal! I bet 85% of us go through these struggles at some point in our LC lives.

The thing is, carbs are addictive. Once you start, the cravings are there. They can be unconscious and insidious, too, apparently driving us to Burger King and supersizing it on their own!

It helped me to self-educate on this topic. The brain chemistry of carb addiction is very much like the brain chemistry of cocaine addiction or nicotine addiction. It takes some time off the drug--in our case, sugar and grains and fries--for the brain to heal itself. We are probably always going to be at risk for re-entering the full-blown bingeing stage of addiction, because we have that physical makeup. When stress, tiredness, grief, or many other emotions occur, we automatically reach for carbs, which we've drugged ourselves with for years effectively. It takes focus to NOT reach for them. With understanding, intent, support, and a healthy respect for the power carbs have, we can prevail.

It gets easier, I promise you. I seldom think of carbs any more. In fact, my life no longer revolves around food at all, and at a Superbowl party, all I notice is that everyone else is fixated on that topic. A friend brought over a microwave popcorn bag six weeks ago--I had forgotten about it until I ran across it in the cupboard yesterday! Even a year ago, that thing would have been haunting my every waking thought until I ate it. The longer we're abstenant, the easier it gets.

So please, forgive yourself! You're battling some powerful forces here.

Consider taking l-glutamine between meals and chromium with meals for a few weeks to help manage the cravings.

HTH

Thanks razzle for the feed back and it does feel good to hear that others struggle with this LC as well. But will this diet still be affective for me with these slip ups?

Diets really don't work. They are finite things we go on and go off. So if you do have a carb addiction, and you appear to, then when you stop this 'diet' you will regain. So yes if you follow the diet part and don't cheat it will work, however when you go off the diet you will regain all you lost and sometimes more.

However if you change your life and make this an eating style for the very rest of your life then a couple days out of an entire lifetime mean little. If you adhere to low carb through a month without a cheat you'll find those carb cravings to be totally gone. Like razzle I don't think of food anymore. My husband eats high carb and my house is FILLED with blueberry muffins, oatmeal raisin cookies, oat and honey granola bars, maple cinnamon oatmeal, you get the drift. I even handle the muffins as I put them into his lunch and now they just look like nothing to me. There is no more longing. In the beginning I would sit there and smell his muffins or go in and inhale the scent of the cookies. These things were like drugs to me. Now it's been 6 weeks and frankly I wonder what I saw in them, because food tastes so much better now. I'm so happy I don't obsess about food anymore. In a few short weeks my entire relationship with it changed!

Good luck to you I hope you find the way that works best for you,
Jo

I wasnt looking at it like a way of life...I was looking at it as a diet, and I now believe that was the problem. Thanks jo.