I hesitated about writing here but then decided to go ahead because even though I haven't yet reached my weight-loss goal, I have acheived success!
A little over two years ago, at about 229 pounds, I started following the Atkins Nutritional Approach. Before I did, I read a lot about it and considering the blood sugar problems in my family it made more sense than anything else I had read. Not only did I start this, but so did my husband and our two teenage daughters.
At first, my weight came off relatively quickly. I lost about 20 pounds within the first three to four months. Before long my weight loss fairly stopped but I wasn't overly concerned about it. I knew that as long as I was eating LC I wouldn't gain back what I had lost and figured the weight would eventually start dropping again. I lightened up about stepping on the scales frequently and basically took on a 'what, me worry?' attitude. Then by last fall I had gotten down to an all-time low of 193.5 pounds! I was so happy about that! The weight wasn't coming off fast, but it was indeed still coming off.
As time passed, a lot of things in my life started getting weird. My normally uninterrupted life became hectic. Our family lost four members in about a year's time. During that time we decided to have our old house demolished and set up a reasonably nice manufactured home. We lived in a camper during this process for weeks. Shortly after that we brought my terminally ill dad home so we could care for him until his death. Once he was gone, a hair-raising 10-month period of cleaning out his estate ensued. I probably shouldn't need to say I wasn't really concerned about losing weight during all of this but I'll say it anyway.
I decided somewhere along the way to see if I could just slip into maintenance until life had a chance to settle down, and this is where the success comes in.
Most of the time I would forget to weigh and once in a while I'd have a niggling thought that I'd best step on those scales because if I was gaining weight I wanted to know. The first time I did step on the scales I nearly panicked. My weight was up over 7 pounds! Then it dawned on me: that wasn't a weight gain! Every time in my life before when I would lose weight the very same thing would happen when first going on maintenance--I'd simply gain back the initial water weight I had lost to begin with. Phew! At any rate, I wasn't taking any chances so made sure to step on the scales a bit more frequently and low and behold, I was holding right around that last weight.
At any rate and more to the point: over the course of the past little over a year, my weight has maintained itself! And one of the most wonderful things about that has been that it didn't take any effort on my part. I just ate good, healthy food most of the time. In fact, straying from this way of eating hasn't even been tempting.
Now, do I feel I can take any credit for that? Nope, not one bit. Never on any other way of eating had I been able to maintain any weight loss and always because I was starving, starving, starving. Simply put, eating LC style means my body doesn't want a bunch of junk put into it because it's always full on the good stuff.
Oh, and as an aside, my rear-end is currently one size smaller than it was a year ago at this time, even with absolutely not one pound lost!