HELP!!!!

[cher27]

I want so badly to lose weight, and I know that the low carb lifestyle is for me. I was doing great with not one cheat for a month, stalled after losing @ 7 pounds, became discouraged and quit! I want to be successful but seem to keep falling off track. And once off I become readdicted to the sugar and carbs and can not stop. I binge and feel worse. How can I not let the food rule my life, and be successful once and for all? :sadblinky

[not2late]

Hi and welcome.

First off, you have to decide that you're going to do this and you're going to stick to it.

Second, you have to re-read the book. Dr. Atkins said that weight loss plateaus are common and you have to just wait them out.

Third, you have to remember scales are evil. I went through a 6 month period of time where I didn't lose a single pound, but lost 3 dress sizes. Scales don't tell you how much fat you lost or how much muscle you gained. The scale won't tell you that you're retaining water from the salty foods you have been eating or from your TOM (if you're a woman). Feeling better and looking better are the ways to gage the progress of your weight loss. Remember, you're losing weight to be healthy and health is the ultimate goal.

[lowcarbing4ever]

:wave Welcome!

not2late is right. Let me tell you, I have been on and off Atkins a lot and this time around it got real for me because last week I came home from work in pain from swelling feet and ankles; recently diagnosed with hypertension and said to myself, "I can't take this anymore. enough is enough." But I had to make the choice that it was enough and realize I didn't like how I looked or felt and was sick of my poor body carrying all this weight. Like an alcoholic, I had to hit my rock bottom before I got off my butt and did something for me and health and maybe for you, you have to too. You have to decide to want to change your life forever and give up a way that is making you sick and fatter to a life that is healthy and better. Re-read the book, fix your kitchen and start your first day determined than ever in your life. Come here and ask for help and encouragement and you will certainly get it. But know that YOU have to decide to change for the better and if you don't, you won't stay on. Don't go off and give up because you haven't lost as much as you think or what somebody else has lost and not you. The scale measures solid weight, nothing else. You could drink a glass of water and gain a pound! Inches and dress size are what count. It may have been food you ate or something; anything. Next time post your menus and ask us to see if we can find why you are stalling.Go back on Atkins, I know you can do it! Just make a resolve that you will change.

[Peterlock]

Hi Cher27,

Welcome on board!

Based on the advice you've already gotten, and if you've been reading some of the posts on this site, than you already should know everyone here has a united goal and that is simply to help, support, encourage and advise everyone else.

I can tell your in pain, you have been on diets and off of diets, eating the wrong and dangerous foods and then, perhaps out of frustration or lack of will power or lack of a real understanding of how Atkns works you've failed.

But that's history, it's over, kapoot!

Today you have the opportunity to reinvent yourself, to look like and feel like the person you want to be, to make that vision of yourself that exists inside your mind but is so very different from what you see in the mirror to finally have a chance to be.

But know one can force you into this, like any addict many of us are food addicts especially to carbs and refined sugar. We let them rule our lives, destroy our health, bodies and self worth...and for what?

Well, some people don't really want to change, now they say they do for short periods of time but the bottom line is? layzness

Some people Try and do Atkins without the clear understand of the principles that make this WOL (way of Life) work that's perhaps the saddest of all because it's just self sabotage you will, mark my words on it - fail.

And some people like myself as an example, had a hard time understanding that this isn't a "diet", this is a way of eating and living that you commit to for a life time.

It's a lifestyle that keeps you slim and healthy inside and out. All you have to do is look around and see the weight that has been lost by so many people, 50 pounds, 100 pounds, 150 pounds and more! They are living breathing examples that Atkins takes the weight off and keeps it off. And if you consider the added health benefits of stable insulin levels, lower cholesterol and an overall dramatic improvement in both your physical and emotional well being, the weightloss is like an added bonus.

My advice to you is get with the program ~ literally.

If you don't have the book, you're bound to fail so if that's the case buy yourself a copy of the 2002 edition of Dr Atkins New Diet Reveloution, aslo known around here as DANDR if you have the book - read it, read it twice..understand why you have to do certain steps, what they mean to your body and to your life.

My hope for you is that you feel excited this time and determined not to fail. You're going to read the book, print out the list of acceptable foods, write down or memorize or print out the list of acceptable foods for Induction - and when you feel down and weak and blue, you'll tough it out, you'll log right back on this board and get the support you need.

Cer27, This isn't an overnight fix this is a major life change that you just can't measure in pounds and inches, the weight comes off but that's secondary.

I was on Atkins a few years ago, lost 40 pounds, drifted away slowly but surely back into my old eating habits and guess what? here I am not with 40 pounds to lose again, but 112 - and if it 412 I would still be here typing this to you right now.

That said, I hope we'll be seeing you on here, I hope you'll throw out or give away every carb and sugar based food in your home, I hope you make that copy of DANDR your personal Bible for the next few weeks.

Most of all, I hope this time you want it badly enough and you are finally so sick of being fat and unhealthy that you're really, finally to embrace the better life - that has been waiting for you all along.

Peter

[2big4mysize]

Welcome back.

You sound like a carboholic :wave me too and as you know there is no cure. We have to take the tiger out of the cage every day and walk it at least 3 times and then try like heck to get it back in the cage. That is a lot of hard work. Yes Atkins gives us a lot of help like suppressing the appetite and avoiding the big tigers in our food plan but none the less we can't just avoid them like alcoholics and drug abusers can.

We can practice controlling the carbabuse harm every time we break down. Acept that you messed up and make the next bite that goes inyour mouth low carb Atkins not tomorrow not on Monday but the very next bite. Soon binges will lose their power over you as you become less and less addicted and discover you can walk the medium sized tigers too.

Hapy low carbing.

[cher27]

thanks

Thank you for the support and great advice!!! I'll be talking to you all!!!!