Hi! I am a newbie here but thought I'd post my story and see if any of you had "been there, done that" or had any advice.

I started Atkins on July 9, 2001 and was totally amazed at how good I felt and how fast it came off!!! By Thanksgving I was down to 148.

I took a week off at Christmas and wound up gaining to 159! YIKES!!! I hit it again and got back down to 150 but then I got married and went on a cruise for my honeymoon. BOOM! 162! YOUCH!!!!

I can't seem to find the motivation to hit it back hard. I have to admit I have been cheating. A tator tot or 2 here, a pice of candy there.

Part of it is because I keep getting stuck for so long at a time! have any of you been through this? Did you hit goal?! I only have 25 to go......why is it soooo hard now???? You'd have thought it would have been the 1st part that was hard!

hi

My two cents are worth just that - 2 cents, because I'm only a recent low-carber. But I TOTALLY understand in terms of an on-going journey and battle to keep the weight down, and about struggles with motivation.

You've come a long way so pat yourself on the back and keep going, this is not the time to quit.

I know how cruises, holidays etc etc can set you off. Typically in my weight loss history those were the pitfalls. It was soooo hard to get back to eating healthy after enjoying all that good food for a while. I would keep telling myself that I would allow myself to be "bad" today and start tomorrow and the day after and the day after. Well, beware, tomorrow never comes - its got to be today. All I know is that days stretch into weeks and into months and before you know it in the time frame you should have lost ten pounds you gained ten! Now you have 20 to lose just to be back on track!

For motivation imagine a visit from your future self 6 months from now. What will that person tell you? "thank you so much for persevering, just look at what I look like now!" or "thank you so much for not getting back on track - just look at what I look like now!"

Weight loss will be slower now, since you have already lost so much - it gets harder as you have less left to lose. But stick with it - even if its a pound a month, would you not rather weigh a pound less a month from now than 8 pounds more cause you gave up?

Also take your measurements - they are really the best indicator. Can you wear a size 10? 8? 6?? If you look good who cares how much you weigh!

And on a final note start exercising if you haven't already - you will feel 100% better and you will SEE improvements. You will benefit from even 20 minutes a day.

Best of luck!
There's lots of us here in that same boat! You're not alone!

Nike

every time you treat LC as a diet--go off and back on--it will work less well. Very young people and men will notice little effect; women and those over 40 will notice this a lot!

One little bit twice a week can keep you out of ketosis in the OWL phase.

The most efficient thing to do is to re-read the book, return to following the plan (but nix the bars/shakes/artificial sweeteners). Then take whatever loss rate you get with gratitude and relief that you can still lose at all. This is what I've done.

Also, you may want to re-think your goal weight. If your body keeps balancing out to 150, that might be your natural, healthy weight.

HTH!

Its totally not fair. I know exactly what you mean and indeed have a "christmas holiday tee shirt.

The problem is not that we are necessarily eating unhealthy foods. The potato is not an unhealthy food. It is just that we are living proof that for some people relativley small amounts of carbohydrate make us fat. We prove it all the time.

Ok, sometimes we say just one will do no harm. That is true, one will do no harm. An odd chocolate dessert will do no harm either, of itself. But therein lies the problem and the real unfairness.

"Just one-ness" is very difficult to maintain because of the sugar cycle.(see below)

There is a saboteur at large in our bodies in the form of the hormone insulin. We know it is there and we think that our heads have it under control but it has nothing to do with what we are thinking it is a chemical hormonal reaction which is autonomic.
It is much the same as saying I know I can drink and drive or cocaine is just a recreational activity.

We are the unfortunate ones whose sensitivity to insulin, partly as a result of our genetic make-up and partly lifestyle, means that our fat metabolism is very efficient at laying down fat.

Bear in mind that you cannot put on pounds of fat overnight. The majority of the the difference in a sudden jump after a high carb meal is water retention. It takes months to put on fat and unfortunately months/years to take it off. The closer to goal the harder it gets and the slower it should be anyway.

The idea is to keep a maintenance or goal weight in a 4 to 5 pound range. If it is edging above the upper range, cut back on the carbs for a week or two and it will drift down again.

The fact that you may have reached goal once does not mean that you can go back to a very much higher carb lifestyle. Our bodies have permanent memories and have not forgotton how to make you fat.

Damned annoying but there it is.

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Yup...I've got one too and I'm still wearing it, unfortunately. Thought I could "take a break" over the winter holidays (Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year) and be okay. After all, it was only a few days, right? Wrong, wrong, wrong! It has taken me months to re-lose the 10 lbs that I put back on during that short break. My body said, "See, if we hold out long enough, she'll give us the carbs again!" The scale is finally moving again and I won't be doing that any more. I made a mistake and fortunately, learned my lesson from it. This is not a race and the weight will come off eventually, so I'm just settling in and enjoying how I feel instead of focusing on the scale right now. Even if the weight isn't coming off as fast as I'd like it to (how many of us wouldn't love to wake up tomorrow and find ourselves at goal?), I'm healthier than I have been in years and grateful for that.