Why do people give Atkins up after experiencing success?

[Betty]

Wow, I am so impressed with the responses on this thread. People really put some thought into this and that is great.
I can never go back to my old habits either, and the things that keep me on the straight and narrow or simple. My before and after pics. The first to remind me how I felt 41 pounds heavier, and the second to remind how much healthier I am now. The next thing is this board, I mean after making goal, being cheat free the whole time, I don't think I could face this board , if I blew it, and I know I couldn't face me. so I stick to the plan.

[Luna Rossa]

I also don't belong here, but came to see how the longtimers were doing and wanted to see what people said in answer to this question!

I have not reached goal, but know that this has to be a lifelong woe. I am looking for any little tidbit that will keep me on the straight and narrow from those of you who have been there and done that. For me I think the biggest struggle will be fighting the 'this one little taste won't hurt' type of thought pattern. It will be alot more tempting to indulge every now and then when I'm at goal and not getting 'pity' looks like before being a fat person stuffing her face. It seems to derail alot of people in earlier stages of Atkins - one cheat leads to another which leads to an all out binge or bailing on it altogether. I don't want to slide back into the DAILY treats and snacks type pattern that got me here in the first place.

[Mel`]

He could do it for the girl but not for himself. I'm trying to get him going again.

I believe that you can never ever do something truly for somebody else, you have to want to do it, and you have to want to do it for you! nobody else.

IF you are doing it to please another person, the commitment is never there 100%, doing something because somebody else expects you to do it, or because you feel that you 'should' do it will never work in the longrun.

Perhaps this is another reason why some fall off the wagon?

Sorry, my 2pennys worth.

[JoanOH]

I was on Atkins back in the 70s, and lost 90 lbs in 6 months. I was young -- too young, I think, to understand that it wasn't just a quick fix or that the weight wouldn't just stay off because I wanted it to. Then I met DH, got married, had kids - fed husband, fed kids, fed in-laws, fed neighbors, had dinner parties, showed off my cooking and baking skills, etc etc etc

Our society revolves around food! Every get together, every seminar, every community activity, seems to have some kind of food involved -- and seldom low carb food. Our televisions, magazines, and yes, even the Internet now, blasts us with high calorie, sugary food messages. I don't normally experience cravings for sugar or carbs anymore, but when I sit and watch television, I can hear my brain saying "Ooooooo, that pizza looks so good..." or "Ooooooo, I'd like a McDonald's burger..." The impulse is incredibly strong, though I've managed to resist.

The other issue -- how people use food for comfort. We all have our comfort foods -- mashed potatoes, chocolate, donuts, whatever. I've never heard of anyone say their comfort food was a salad or a nice serving of brocolli!

I think it all boils down to your psychological reaction to food -- if you were brought up to praise food (You're such a good cook, Grandma) or use food as a comfort (How many of us parents offered their screaming children a cookie to quiet them down?!?) or if it's the blatant food advertising that swirls around us -- it's psychologically implanted that food (particularly high carb food!) is good. It's like no other addiction -- if I stop smoking cigarettes, I don't have one once in awhile, I stop completely. If I stop drinking alcohol, I don't have a drink now and then, I stop completely. However, if I'm addicted to food -- I can't stop completely or I'll die of starvation.

I believe it takes strength and determination to "manage" this addiction once you reach goal weight. You have to want to stay thin MORE than you want to cook the big dinner for your in-laws, show off your baking skills at the next company picnic, or order up a pizza after seeing the commercial. It takes incredible strength!!!

I am pleased to say I have the strength this time I believe as you get older, food becomes less important. I'd love to see a study of who has met goal and kept it off -- and what ages they were. I'm betting "older" folks are more successful at keeping the weight off. (Absolutely no offense meant to the younger folks!)

That's my two cents!
Joan J

[Esther]

My mum lost a lot of weight on Atkins, but without reading the 'New Diet Revolution', just using a pack she bought. She didn't really understand about OWL and the rungs, much less about maintenence. She decided that the diet wasn't healthy for long term as it didn't include enough fruit, so she switched back to a low-fat diet instead, and the pounds crept back on.

Since then I've discovered Atkins for myself, read everything I could get my hands on, and she's bought and read NDR and I've lent her my copy of Atkins for Life. Now she understands the rungs better and knows that she *can* eat fruit, so long as she's careful and watches the number of carbs, she's losing the weight again and enjoying the fruit.

I'm still in OWL and happily eating cherries and cream every day

[reighngold]

2 cenets

I am new to the program but have done low carb and diets all my life and this is in responce to the thought that you cant cook for others and stay on the program. I have tons of dinne parties and people think I am a fabulous cook, and I am. I LOVE to cook for others. I however do not love ot eat the same things. I make tortillas for a friend of mine who always comes and I make him rice and all that stuff and I eat the chicken dish and the salad and I never have any trouble. Its great to cook for others. I have realized that I am not blessed with the sugar metabolism most of my friends have but thats fine as long as I have found a way of eating that I am okay with. We are all musicians and none of us practice the same or for as long so why should we all eat the same. That idea just makes no sence. I am so happy to have found this board of others who eat like I do, I am no longer the cute girl on a diet. I am one of many atkiners who like meat and eat bacon!!! Go sour cream on your omlet instead of ketchup!!! but honestly I think that cooking the food for others makes it easier to do the diet. To realize that my life has no bearing on others and that I can do this even if no one else is doing it. That I am worthy of cooking it and not eating it. I have a choice as an individual to eat what I want, even if I cook something else. I have also discovered that I like ot cook these foods far more than I like to eat them, actualy that goes for just about all things. I love cooking shellfish but I hate the stuff. I like making paella but I dont realy like it. I am wierd I guess. Okay thats my 2 cents.

[scully7602]

I did Atkins 4 years ago and did really well and kept the weight off for 2 years. Then I started working 12 hour shifts overnight at a busy vet emergency hospital. I was too exhausted to cook meals at home and often wouldn't get a break at work and so the only "food" I would have would be something I could run back and get from the vending machine quickly or something that we would all order out. After 2 years of eating this way I gained all my weight back plus 20 pounds. I have now given up that job for my own health. The stress and not sleeping regularly had its toll. I now have a regular schedule and the restaurant I work at offers low carb choices so now it is very easy for me to stick with it.

[dpvan]

Good Thread

This is an excellent thread with a lot of food for thought.

I lost 50 lbs. in 4 months and have kept it off for 18 months now.

I've tried a couple of different things. First, I set a 5 lb "alarm" for myself. I promised myself that if I got 5 lbs above my target weight, I'd immediately go on induction and lose it. That happened a couple of times and I had no problem losing the 5 lbs.

Last winter when I began treating that 5 lbs as no big deal. I went a total of 9 lbs up in three weeks when I wasn't weighing myself and it wasn't as easy losing that weight as it had been before. It ended up taking me about 3-4 weeks to get it off and keep it off.

I decided then that I would weigh myself every day. I didn't weigh myself every day while I was losing my weight and wouldn't advise anyone else to weigh more than once a week during that phase. However, since I'm on maintenance now, I want to know right away if I begin to creep up in weight. I can get rid of 2 lbs easier than 5 lbs. So I weigh myself as soon as I wake up each morning.

There are day-to-day variations (I'm male and know that women would have greater variations), but if I'm up a couple of pounds during my morning weigh-in, I'm a little more careful about what I eat during the day. If it's a day-to-day variation, it will go away after a couple of days. If not, I'll cut back on carbs for 2-3 days and it will go away.

The other thing that helps is that everyone knows that I'm on Atkins. I don't think I'm obnoxious about it, but family, close friends and the people at work always make a comment about anything high-carb that's floating around. That helps me remember to either skip it altogether or take a very small portion with no seconds.

One final thing - evening is the most dangerous carb time for me. And it's never just one cookie in the evening. I make sure that I have a small high-protein meal scheduled for each evening at about 8:30 to cut night-time cravings off at the pass.

[Perry]

Excellent post, dpvan. Perfect timing for me as I'm searching for the right maintenance routine.

[Esdios]

quitting after experiencing success

It is all about understanding. Most people even those that read the book multiple times fail to understand most of the concepts. For many they go on a diet with an end result in mind and when they get that result they don't think about the next goal or the next step. These are people who fail to understand the process of weight change and bodily health, this is true of most dieters no matter what they are doing. For most people on a diet they say my goal is to lose x pounds, say 50. When someone says I am going to lose 50 pounds they make a plan which goes something like this: I want to lose 50 pounds and in order to do it I am going to eat a certain way that I don't want to do and I am going to do exercise I don't want to do.

Once these people lose 50 pounds they are joyous and go back to doing the things they want to do and end up undoing all they worked for. What these people did do was set another goal, and no one ever really talks about this. People like to talk about being staying healthy but no one ever puts it in terms of goal setting. If you would encourage someone to lose 50 have them set the goal make a plan and when they get there do it again people wouldn't quit and undo their good work.

A second plan would look something like this: I have been good and lost 50 pound I want to keep that off over the next year. To do this I will eat right and exercise regularly, If I eat something that is not on my list of approved foods I will have to do more exercise and watch my calories for 7 days to make sure I don't gain. If I miss more than a day of exercise I have to give up one of the special foods (such as ice cream) for x number of days. If I gain more than 10 pounds I will go back to the diet I had last year until they are gone plus 1 month.

This type of plan doesn't have to be yearly, it could be seasonal or 2x a year or how ever long. Each time you make a plan it has to have definate goals and rewards with a specific methodology. In order to achieve long term success, one of those goals each time has to be make a new plan once the goal is reached.

[karen1963]

sticking with it

When I first started Atkins, I was just fascinated with the concept of being able to eat the things I liked and lose weight. The more I learned about it, the more I realized that I wasn't going to be able to play around with this wol and have it still be healthy. Although the craving for sweets was taken away after a few days of following the diet, the desire to have them never really was. I have been working this program for about 6 months now, with fantastic results. Have gone from 9-10 jeans to 3's. I still cook for my family, love to bake, so the temptation is always there. I guess the question really is, was I happier at 140 lbs? or am I happy now at 110?. Is going back to the way I ate really worth it? I take it one day at a time. Several people in this post made comments about allowing a cheat once in a while, and I have done the same. This weekend I made a carrot cake with cream cheese frosting for my bf's birthday, well, I allowed myself a fingerfull of frosting. BUT I have to be real careful because it would be so easy to fall off of the wagon completely- I could have eaten that whole bowl of frosting, for what? a few seconds of gratification? Every morning I wake up and slip into my size 3's, it keeps me going for another day. If I slip up one day, I'm extra careful the next, and drink more water. I guess it all boils down to how bad you want it. The day I wake up and don't care is the day I'll go back to eating crap.

[timthenavyguy]

i would have to agree with the second post , that it has to do with lack of family support because i did drop off of adkins before after losing 20 lbs. but i quit for 2 reasons. 1 because my wife wasnt on the diet with me and that made it hard for me to be on when she ate garbage. also because at that time i hadnt reached this support group.

[AngelicaA]

Hello,

I am still on induction, but was just browsing and found this post intriging. I totally agree with Esdios. :yes

I did Atkins 9 years ago after the birth of my last child. I weighed 185 and got down to 135 within 6 months. But after I was thin, I started slipping back to my old ways...I had no goal to keep it off and watch what I ate after OWL. I don't even think I read the end of the book that had to do with Maintenance!!

Now, 9 years later and 50 lbs heavier....I was wondering why the weight didn't stay off? :confused

Well duh!! I did all the things that caused me to gain weight back. It was not the diet, the diet worked great!!! It was me, and still is. This time, I have a goal in mind and I have a goal to stick with this WOE for the rest of my life.....I cannot eat carbs and I DO have an addiction to them, I find it hard to stop at one cookie if it is a GOOD cookie!!

The family support is not there this time either, my kids are older, I'm married to someone else and I always get "just have one bite mom". Now I tell them to compare me to an alcholic or a drug addict and I explain that if I have just one bite, I may not be able to stop and that is the honest truth!! :sadblinky

At 36, I know now that I will not be able to control myself if I have that one bite and I have done pretty well with that mindset. I will still cook some high carb things for the kids and hubby, I just know what my weaknesses are and I have come to accept it. Sorry to ramble....wonderful thread....Thank you!!

Angie

[attek]

Just browsing for inspiration and ideas.

Esdios, this is getting off the subject, but what you said just hit me with a flash of understanding why I haven't been able to keep my house clean. It's because my goal was to get it clean, and then when I did, I'd just let it slide again until I couldn't stand it any more. I've now reset my goal to keep my house clean (great time for me to read your post, since I just got done cleaning really good last week). Success habits in losing weight really aren't any different than success habits in any other area, are they?

I hope I can apply your wisdom to maintaining my goal weight once I get there. I also liked that 5 pound limit. That's precisely what I used to do in high school or college, and I never had a weight problem then.

Attek

[cnwade]

Why do people give up Atkins after success?

I read this post with interest yesterday, especially since folks are predicting the Atkins diet is on the "way out."

A lot of interesting point of views.

I lost about 20-25 pounds doing Atkins a year ago. I'm 5'8..went from a size 12 to a 6. I'm a woman and for whatever reason I did not drop weight as quickly as most people report.
I was real discouraged when I didn't drop the 5-10 pounds I thought I would after Induction. But I was/am on anti depressants so that could have played a factor so I stuck with it for several months. I exercised about 3-5 times a week, especially in the latter stages of the diet.

Yes, I cheated here and there (after a clean Induction), so sue me, but I still lost weight. There are several reasons I and other people I know who have tried the diet seem to have trouble sticking with it-despite success. Some that have not been mentioned yet.

I'll list and try to be brief.

1. Didn't turn out to be the "cravings cure" so many of you experience. I did a clean, strict induction. 14 days later I still craved sweets, my biggest weakness. Two months later still craved sweets. Three months later...the same. Four months...well, you get the picture.

For me it was so bad I DREAMED EVERY NIGHT the entire time I was on the diet about pancakes, cookies, muffins, garlic bread, spaghetti... pizza , burgers, hot dogs, donuts--- everything basically off limits.

I never found that I suddenly acquired a taste for veggies I didn't like before or lost the taste for junk due to the diet...which brings me to my second point.

2. Disgusting tasting "carb alternatives" or "low carb foods". I ate as much whole foods as I could, but I am in the news business and my schedule is BEYOND ERRATIC. Depending on what I am covering I am either stuck somewhere far away from food, period or surrounded by nothing but junk.
I often tried to pack a cooler with food, but sometimes there just wasn't time or I packed enough say for lunch, dinner and a snack and ended up staying somewhere for 12+ hours on a story. So it would obviously be more convenient for me to pack a bar (s) or a shake sometimes...something easily portable, that can be eaten quickly and that won't spoil.

However, I found all of the Atkins brand low carb products with the exception of the baked muffin quick bread mixes, and frozen pizza to be the most horrendous tasting over priced concotions I ever put in my mouth. Ditto for the majority of most of the other stuff on the market by other companies. The few things I did like had other drawbacks...like an outrageous amount of calories for a small serving or trans fats. Which leads me to the next and most common complaint I hear...

3.IT's Expensive as **** to maintain this diet if you are person on the go or with limited income. Any of the decent low carb alternatives are so overpriced that anyone with any money sense or lack of money just can't justify buying the stuff. To keep the diet interesting you have to buy exotic or unusual produce sometimes which is very expensive. I didn't have a very well paying job when I started and I thought I was going to gag if I ever saw another can of tuna or an egg, or salad or can of green beans. I had to have flavored water because I despise the taste of regular water unless I am thirsty from activity.
Anyway, that was all I could really afford at the time. Not to mention the price of supplements and the book....which brings me to my next point.

4. I was raised a Southern Baptist, but never have I seen so much irrational and unnecessary "bible thumping" as I have since I've been on this diet. In this case, the "bible' being Dr. Atkins book. I got extremely nauseous at work one day so I had a sip of giner ale and some crackers. Another Atkiner practically condemned me to ****. Several other Atkiners often talked and behaved like they were in some sort of cult, beginning every sentence with "Dr. Atkins says...blag blah" Likewise the health nuts I work with who traditionally tended to be folks with natually slender builds and high metabolisms could not stop themselves from snickering or berating people for bad carbs.. No amount of logical explaining to either side seemed to make any difference. Being a lurker on this site for such a long time I was shocked at the level of vitriol over people's personal eating habits!

5. When I did occassionally have bad carbs....surprise...no headaches...no sluggish tired feelings....no sick feeling....and no weight gain. Every Atkiner doomed me to a life of overweightness if I ever looked at another cinnamon roll. Well, it just didn't happen. While my cravings did not go away I did learn how to better monitor my food intake on this diet...when I started to feel a little fat or perhaps fluctuated a few pounds or so...I'd cut back on carbs and up the exercise, but I have to date not found it necessary to totally abide by the rules of the book to maintain my weight.

6. . I can wholeheartedly relate to those of you with families constantly shoving bad food at you. Luckily I am single and live alone so I could completely stock my apartment "low carb'" without anyone else caring...but family functions, office parties, or any group outing became ****. Friends invited me over for Christmas dinner..they TRULY did not have one item on the table acceptable for Atkins. I kid you not. And since I was raised with Southern sensibilities and I have no real health issues to shun the meal (like diabetes or heart disease, high blood pressure, et). I ate just small portions of everything in order not to offend.

7. I travel alot. I like to experience regional food and cultures. There's no way I'm not going to eat and experience new things in new places. I think life is too short to spend it always exercising total restriction. Italy, Mexico, New York City...all places I went this past summer. I ate what I wanted. I drank what I wanted. I THOROUGHLY ENJOYED myself and luckily I didn't gain weight because I stayed physically active throughout.

I am not against the Atkins diet, but I thoroughly believe it is not the cure all for everyone who is overweight and in the battle of the bulge there are several ways to "skin a cat" and one size does not fit all.

I actually had a doctor prescribe a modified form of it when I first started to pick up pounds suddenly at 30. It was closer but not identical to South Beach. For example, you could have a burger with half the bun instead of no bun at all. You could have sugar free candy and desserts from the get go . Aspartame was discouraged but Splenda was thoroughly endorsed. I actually lost weight quicker initially on this diet, but a friend talked me into Atkins so I quit and started over on Atkins about a month later.

Congrats to all of you who've had success no matter how you achieved it.