I'm one of those start-and-stoppers. Start, go great guns for three days, a week, two weeks, two days, then I can't stand it any more and go off-LC. Once, long ago, I lost very quickly and very painlessly on Low Carb and would love to recapture that, at least the latter part (I'm not after quick weight loss. I'm older now and would shoot for "healthy" and something under the size of a small mountain).

I usually am felled by one of three things: I don't plan well enough, I get sick of the grease (I'm not a soy substitute person), or, as has happened this time, I am so exhausted by the second day that I do nothing but sleep.

Yesterday, I was perfect. I've got Day One down pat. Felt fine, no side effects, got a good night's sleep. Today, I woke up tired and it got worse. No headache, just a hideous need to sleep that sleep itself does not assuage. Exhausted, I had a shake (with aspartame) for breakfast, which was Very Dumb. The aftertaste stayed with me all day, and by 8:30, between the sleepliness and the whatever-from-the-aspartame, I would have killed for a Coke (my most serious addiction). Not wanting to kill anyone, I merely got one from the vending machine.

Obviously, commitment and willpower are part of the problem, but do any of you have ideas for getting through the first week of tiredness? Eating small meals at two hour intervals? The sleepiness does not seem to be tied to eating -- i.e., I don't get a surge of energy from eating or drinking anything, whether sugar or protein. I vaguely remember the last time I stuck with this for two weeks the tiredness went away at the end of a week.

Sorry for the rambles, but I wonder if any of you have had a similar situation?

Thanks!

Xan

'Cause I'm such a die-hard, I think total abstinence works the best. Just live through it, cold-turkey. Prepare for withdrawal by making day one or two, one or two days before your before your weekend. Turn off the phone, close the blinds, have anything carby cleared out of the house, rent a bunch of movies and lie down on the bed and moan!


Why you eatin' so much grease? You don't have to live off bacon or pounds of butter. Protein Power is lean compared to Atkins. What do you eat?

Now, you could do it slowly by eliminating carbs from your life, one by one. Stop drinking Coke and don't replace it with anything else. 2 weeks later, stop something else. This may work for the most stubborn among us, of which I was one.

You have to BELIEVE that being healthier is worth the discomfort and pain of carb withdrawal. You have to want it more than eanything else you can have in your life.

Karen

Thanks, Karen. I believe in cold turkey too -- I quit smoking cold turkey nearly 20 years ago and never looked back. I never would have been able to do it cutting back one or two cigarettes a day.

If the exhaustion/sleepiness thing is a part of carb withdrawal and only lasts for a few days, I can live with it, although I had hoped that some supplement or feeding pattern could lessen it. I'm in the final throes of a ten-year project and don't want to have to take a few days off to sleep

if i were in ur shoes i would plan a little, it helps to ease worries, and make it simple . Simplify Simplify Simplify! and just set your mind to it .

Wait till the project is over. Changing eating habits is stressful enough without a whole lotta other stuff happening in your life. Then, low-carbing can be your 10 year project.

Were you taking any vitamin supplementsl? Potassium works for late afternoon drowsiness and muscle cramping, but I don't think there is anything that lessens the symptoms of withdrawal. Boo-hoo!

Karen

Thanks again. bluugrl, you're absolutely right about planning. I do that -- I'm dead in the water if I don't. I"m a believer in "habit is overcome by habit" (Thomas a Kempis), an early version of behavior modification! Once one has LC habits, then maybe it's possible to go free form, but I have a long way to go.

Karen, I have been putting it off until the end of the project (a biography), but it won't ever really end. My final deadline for revisions is September 1, but then I have to get out an issue of a newsletter, two quickie freelance projects, then start work on a quarterly journal that I edit and have to do a piece for -- and then I'm into dealing with the copy edited manuscript. I won't really be finished for another six or seven months, and I can't stand feeling, and looking, like this. (Sorry for the whine; I know we're all busy and don't mean to pretend I think I'm busier than anyone else )

I'm taking a regular multivitamin once a day, plus potassium, plus a calcium/magnesium duo three times a day. Money is an issue (none of my projects are lucrative; I'm a dance writer) so I don't have the budget for $100 a month in supplements.

Well if that's the case, there's no time like the present Xan!

You don't need a lot of fancy-shmancy supplements. I was just wondering if you knew about the potassium thing.

I'm a firm believer in creating new habits to replace the old too. Sometimes though, it seems to take f...o...r...e...v...e...r!

Dance writer? Cool occupation!

Karen

Thanks again, Karen. Yes, I do know about potassium and it does help. I would feel light-headed while walking -- the point of having to stop and hang on to things (I have low blood pressure,) and potassium helped that. During my Periods of Lapse I read the message boards avidly -- they keep me connected in an odd way; I think I'm lowcarbing -- and the amount of supplements that some people take is extraordinary. It seems like more pills than food -- and all say they are very helpful.

I like your Progress Not Perfection line. It's a good mantra -- I'll try to adapt it. I'm one of the All or Nothing people, and I've seen a lot of other low carbers out there. There's an attraction, perhaps. Cut out something completely, be "perfect," follow this program and it will work. But that attitude makes it difficult to be flexible and, I think, sets one up for failure.

I don't know about you, but I take calcium at bedtime because *it makes me sleepy*!

Try adjusting the times you take it so that you can schedule a snooze.

How about an afternoon nap of no more than an hour if you're working at home? I find those the most refreshing.

North America is such an anti-nap culture - My 80 year old Irish Mom swears by her 4:00 snooze, and she's bright as a button.

I take one anytime I can get it on the weekends. (No luck convincing the boss to install a napping zone here though lol )

Just a thought

Thanks for the ideas. I've always been intrigued by the siesta culture -- up early, nap during the heat of the day, and long long dinners after 9:00 p.m.

I usually do take a brief nap around 4:00. This time, though, it was as though the day were one long nap with brief periods of consciousness.

Thanks for the tip on calcium -- I didn't know that. I thought you had to take it with meals.

Xan, one of the things that helps me is kind of along the same lines as Progress Not Perfection. Whenever I'm confronted with something high-carb and I start wanting it, I remind myself what it will do to my blood sugar levels and ask myself if I REALLY want that spike, crash and craving more carbs that happens afterwards! Then I tell myself that if I really want it, I can have it. But is it worth it? By the time I'm finished analyzing it to death (LOL), and being honest with myself about what it will do to me, the goody doesn't look nearly as appealing as it did initially. I think acknowledging to ourselves that we always have a choice is a big help! We can eat all the carbs we want to, no one is forcing us to stop. But all actions carry consequences and we have to decide whether we're willing to accept those consequences or not. Thinking that way, we don't feel deprived, we feel empowered. At least that helps me, hope it helps you too!

Wendy

... I thought that too, but apparently if you take it with food it gets bound up in the fibre and whooshed away.

I take mine about 3 hours after breakfast and again at bedtime.

Since I'm eating lots of brocolli and cheese, I don't feel I need any more than that.

Good luck with the snoozes!

Hi Mrs. Y: This post may be years old but I'm responding anyway. Broccolli and cheese sounds devine righ about now. It's a great thing to once in m life (during induction) crave broccolli. I have to remember to snack on that when when I'm closer to goal!!

That is intersting about the Calcium supllements. I recently read the hoopla about Calcium helping with weight loss. For years Ive been taking them with my other supplements with meal. tahnks for the tip I will take in pm and after bfast! All the best

M in NY