It's not that people gain back all the weight and more when they eat carbs again (actually, we never stop eating carbs...we just change how many and where they come from), it's that they go back to the way that they were eating before that got them overweight in the first place and that will happen no matter HOW you lost the weight.
I think the only people that have a hard time eating like this forever are those that go into it with a "diet" mentality, ie "this is something that I'm going to do until I lose the pounds and then it's back to business as usual". This has to be a permanent change in eating habits or the weight won't stay off.
As for how hard it is? Well...there's lots of people here who have been living low carb for 5 years or more and Dr. Atkins did it for a lot longer than that. Yes, it's quite do-able with the right mentality.

Something identical has happened to me!

It was a month ago when I heared about the "Bell Vita lo carb pasta". I bought a box and ate one dish and enjoyed it but never enjoyed what happened later!

24 hours after my historical meal, my weight climbed 5 lbs. By the end of the week, my weight gain reached 12 lbs and until now I have never been able to reverse the trend! My appetite has climbed to the roof, however just as you did, I have been eating large quantities of legal food. I have managed to keep myself in ketosis most of the time.

If I take it by the scale, I have already gained half of all the weight I lost on Atkins diet without violating any of Dr. Atkins rules! This is not a Hallaween night story! This is real!

But wait! I'm not scared! Here I tell you why:

(1) When I lost 24 lbs, I went down 3 sizes, from size 40 to size 34. When I gained 12 lbs, my size stayed the same at 34.

(2) People are still looking at me as I have already lost all the weight I needed to lose, although this is not what I personally agree with.

(3) There is no way, my weight could have climbed up so fast unless it was mostly water weight gain. I think the current weather causes our bodies to retain and keep more water.

(4) I feel that some parts of my body are getting more dense, so I believe that I'm gaining some muscles. I'm always doing daily exercises.

In general, we lose more water weight on Atkins diet than we lose on other diets. All the water we lose will be gained back quickly when we stop the diet. So I like to tell hcomeau that maybe 15 of the 25 lbs she has gained have been just water.

Sam

Just wanted to say that this is my second time on Atkins...the first time was in the mid 1970's...I went on it a month...never cheated...and never lost an ounce....so I quit...gave up completely. Why am I back now...coming full circle? I gained so much more weight since then, and nothing else I did worked...then I heard the studies that exonerated Dr Atkins and the low carb lifestyle, and I thought HMMMMM......maybe the problem was ME and not the low carb WOE.....and Atkins had more experience and knowledge about nutrition and many of the problems that impede weight loss on the program. I thought it was worth a try again....and learned a lot about myself. Again, I didn't lose weight the first three weeks....then three lbs....then no more until after the second month, when I went on anti-candida regimen...THEN I started losing steadily!

YOU CAN DO IT....You just have to take it one day at a time....get through 24 hours...and then say...YAY! I did it!! Wake up the next morning....a new day...and because you've already been successful for one day, you can do it again...for one MORE day....and the fact that it's your second time around makes no difference. If I can do it...YOU CAN DO IT!! YES! Believe it!!



(those are your cheer leaders...I thought you could use them!! )

I find it quite frightening that some people have gained back by eating legal food. I know it was alot of food eaten to have this happen but I am curious to the amount that was eaten?? I am scared that maybe I am eating too much!?

It takes 3500 surplus calories to gain 1 pound of fat. So to gain 10 pounds of fat in 1 day would be physically impossible. Your gain had to be mainly water. I hope it's gone by now? Don't get discouraged and give up! Just put the past behind you and start fresh.

Im not sure I buy into the whole "3500 calories is a pound" idea. Because on atkins, its not about calorie reduction. How would you explain people losing 15 lbs in a month? Granted part of it is water, but with the whole 3500 calories= lbs theory, people would lose maybe 4 lbs a month. So knowing this, isnt it safe to say that gaining weight works the same way? Im sure most of it was water, but im sure some of it was also fat. I almost didnt start atkins for this very reason. I believe that you gain weight alot faster by stopping atkins, then by stopping one of the low fat diets. This is my own personal opinion, I really dont have any facts to back up my statement. Maybe it has something to do with ketosis.

Hi Skibunnie, I'm not a scientist (in other words, I don't speak with any real authority ), but my opinion is that low carb provides a metabolic advantage so we lose weight faster. I don't believe it's possible for any eating plan to change the laws of physics, such as the principle that 3500 calories of energy are converted to 1 pound of fat.

I have no idea how fast weight is regained when going off low carb, because I've never tried it (and don't intend to ). I have noticed a tendency in myself to gain a couple of pounds the day after an indulgence, but it goes away immediately and I'm sure that's the same water weight that I lost so quickly in the first few days of induction.

After any diet, of course your metabolism slows down. Im just wondering if our bodies think they are starving from being in ketosis.

Your body is actually just as "happy" running on ketones as carbs... and when you follow Atkins through the proper stages, you increase carbs/decrease fat, and are still losing even without being in deep ketosis. IMO, this amounts to teaching your body to run the way it was designed to...on a healthy combination of protein, fat, and healthy carbs. We weren't made to subsist on refined sugar and starches, and I think that's where all the trouble lies.

My opinion is it's still a matter of fact that 3,500 extra calories = 1 lb of weight gain, but it's EASIER to gain that pound on refined carbs.

hcomeau, you're rapid weight gain is downright scary.

I, too, seem to gain rapidly (I used to say I could gain just be smelling food), but common sense says that you can lose more than once in a lifetime.

Just don't put too much emphasis on time allotments. Patience is the key. A slow steady loss is more apt to become permanent than a rapid loss.

Now, if only I would take my own advice!!!

I was the same way. I used to say that I could gain weight just being downwind of a pizza.
Seriously...I find that I don't gain weight any faster going off low carb (and those instances have been few) than I did going off WW or any of the other diets that I had been on. Perhaps it was even a bit faster with some of the other diets that I've tried since they were largely very low calorie and my metabolism shifted downward. Once I started eating "normally" again, the pounds came back faster than ever.
This is one of the reasons why you'll often see recommendations all over the board to not let your caloric intake get too low.

When i went off Atkins 7 months ago, i immediately started counting calories. That was my saving grace, i was actually maintaining but my cravings were off the roof. Now i'm back and i plan to do things differently as i got discouraged the 1st time around after only losing 10lbs in 6 months. I lasted 5 weeks the 2nd time as i wasn't focused, but i'm better prepared this time around.

A couple of things:
1) The increasing popularity of low-carb dieting is making it easier to follow this WOE/WOL all the time. When I first did the low-carb thing, Splenda was an unknown quantity for this WOE, candy makers were saying "Low-carb? Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha...," and the healthiest tortilla you could buy was low-fat whole wheat. Now, new products are coming out all the time, and existing products are showing up in more places (I've heard radio ads for an "Atkins Diet-Friendly Happy Hour Buffet" for Jazz, an Austin Sixth Street bar/grille). I'm looking forward to seeing what tagatose will do for ice cream choices for maintenance phase (no offense Le Carb, but that ice milk $&*! just doesn't do it for me).

2) Who says you have to do Atkins for the rest of your life? Myself, I believe I'm always going to have to be conscious of my carb eating patterns, but there are a number of carb-conscious WOLs -- I plan to lose the weight on Atkins, but I'm going to look at other WOLs such as CAD or The Zone when I get down to my ideal fighting (well, dancing actually) weight.