Myself and my husband started low-carb about two years ago. We live in the UK, and are in a minority where most people do not eat this way. When I start I weighed 157 lbs, my target weight is 135 lbs. The lowest I ever gotten is the 141 mark. I lack commitment to stay on this longer than a few weeks. I do well, I exercise, drink loads of water, keep a food journal, eat low carb veggies. I’m on plan and I feel great, but I find it hard work…… The some thing happens… I have a bad day at work… there’s a social event / party… My husband looks at me in a knowing way and asks if I would like a glass of wine. My main cheats are pizza hut, crisps (I think you call them chips in the US), wine and too much low carb ‘junk’ food.

I have yo-yo’d between 148 and 143 for the last 6 months. I have a good week or so get down to 143, cheat, then the next day I weigh 148 and start again.

I am now starting to seriously doubt as to whether I need a change of plan. And whether to try low calorie as a break. I do not want to go back to chocolate or bread or pasta. I know things do no make me feel good when I eat them, and I have no cravings. What I’m not doing well is the total commitment need to make low carb work. I would like to have the odd taste, without throwing all the hard work away, I would like to think that this would help stop me binging knowing that I then have to lose it all again.

That’s my story. Feeling confused. Not sure what to try next, knowing I don’t want to carry on losing the same 5lbs for the rest of my life….

If anyone has any tips / advice I’ll gladly listen,

Thanks in advance,
Suzi

I also honestly wonder if the lowcarb lifestyle that you would likely have to follow for sustained long-term weight management success is a sustainable approach for someone who is only 22 pounds overweight (and that’s assuming that 135 is a realistic, reasonable weight for you body.)

For instance, I don’t know your particulars, but I suspect my own weight could be lower by 5-7 pounds if I’d work more diligently and carefully at this, heck I’d even like to weigh 135 myself, that was actually my original goal. I’ve kissed 136 a tiny few (extremely stressful) times since getting to goal. But today I am 8 pounds above that. Something about the much longer-term place in this journey that has me seeing a much bigger and calmer, saner picture: I’ve had to find a way to live with a weight (and honestly a life and lifestyle) that was reasonable and “good enough” for what I have to do to keep it. Most folks would call what I do now to manage my weight and my life “extreme”—even though I don’t. It’s merely a kind of balance (you might even call it a bargain!) between what I want and what I am willing to do, day in and year out.

If I could work my life and eating to where I was within 6 pounds of goal, that’s where I’d stay. Maybe, in fact, that’s what I’m telling you—that that is exactly what I’m doing. It’s just that to be as close to okay as you are, my diet needs to be a whole lot stricter than yours. (am I making any sense here, lol?)

I guess what I’m really wondering is if you’re really so broke that you need drastic fixing? Maybe watching your diet, keeping it lowcarb-ish and having, say, one glass of wine a week and settling for your weight remaining between 148-143 would be okay? Believe me, if I could live it that way, I would.

I just have this overall impression from 11 years of reading about lowcarb journeys that you need be more seriously overweight than you are for lowcarb to be a viable lifelong proposition, I sort of think that 30 pounds is the minimum. My highest sustained non-pregnant weight was 180, I just happened to start lowcarb at 168 on the yo-yo dieting merry-go-round.

Tell me what your thoughts on this Suzi.

Adele (144 this morning)
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168/140, Size 16/8
Lowcarbing 10+ years
Maintaining at goal 7+ years
Moderator/Owner
adele@leadwiththediet.com

Thanks for the reply, it's an interesting idea that I need to think over. It is relieving to hear I'm not the only one who has struggled with this.

I am concious that I am at the bottom end of what I need to lose and that it is supposed to come off slowly.

I know that I always set my standards very high, and push myself very hard. My reasoning for losing the extra pounds is actualy wanting to improve the appearance of my thighs / legs. The rest is looking ok, but my legs are not and it upsets me. Exercise is helping, and they look more toned than they have done for years, but I just need to lose a few pounds to make it down a dress size and look ok in the bikini this year.

I think 135 would be fine for my frame. But over the weekend I have sort of come to the idea of spliting the goal. Look at reaching 140, then see how the legs look, If I can be happy with them, maybe I need to just stay between 140 - 145 as you say with occasional glass of wine and less guilt. (easier said than done! lol)

This does worry me. My mother is very large, and I don't want that to happen to me. Physical appearance is important to me, not very politicaly correct, but I trying to be honest with myself. I don't like the feeling of being out of control and eating the junk.

I controlled the beast at the weekend quite well. We had a lowcarb chinese (easier over here, loads of veg, less sauce, no rice etc) and two low carb beers and left my husband to enjoy the wine. My weight went up by 1lb, not the end of the world and I haven't beaten myself up over it. It made me feel more positive.

I will give your ideas some more thought over the next few days.... see how they make me feel. Thank you for sharing with me, it has helped.

Suzi

PS - reading back through this post I realise I sound a little preoccupied... I know my concerns are trival in a world of war and famine, but they are the thoughts inside my head.

My meals for the day are planned and prepared, and I have not strayed from the path.

My husband has gone into hospital for a minor op today. I feel scared. He is so strong and I feel like the floor is moving. The pit of my stomach hurts. My brain knows he’ll be fine and back home tomorrow, but until I’ve spoken to him and the op’s complete, I’m scared.

My first reaction to cope with my emotions and the physical feeling in my tummy is to eat. And eat anything. I do not feel hungry. I do not want to eat. But I can’t stop thinking about it. Have decided not eating anything is a better strategy for a few hours… if I start I may not stop.

There. I’ve told someone.

I know this will pass. I’ll let you know how it goes.

Suzi
Today 146

I realise I sound a little preoccupied... I know my concerns are trival in a world of war and famine, but they are the thoughts inside my head.

My first reaction to cope with my emotions and the physical feeling in my tummy is to eat. And eat anything. I do not feel hungry. I do not want to eat. But I can’t stop thinking about it..

Notice your continual emphasis on what you are THINKING?...

Suzi, I thought I was done writing any more articles, and hopefully now I am. There is enough information on this site, probably too much now.

Information You Don’t Need

You seem like a good example of someone trapped in this pattern. It’s highly unlikely you’ll ever get to a point where you are "happy" with your body; I think this pattern is the fallout of the now-global media of marketing perpetuating itself by making sure you don’t get happy, by making it their job that you internalize the idea that there’s always something more out there you can, something more out there you SHOULD do (well not really do, they really mean BUY) about almost every facet of yourself and your life.

Suzi, I don’t know how old you are, clearly you’re not seriously overweight (yet?) But I’m seeing that you do need some structure into your eating (and drinking) behavior. I can see that it rattles you to even HAVE a plan, to HAVE structure, because it’s interrupting your long-established pattern.

Have you read the simple, profound statement Mary made recently? This addict thinks that she is hungry when she feels anything.” It took Mary YEARS to really see this, years after changing her pattern.

I know this will pass. I’ll let you know how it goes.

Suzi, DO let us know it goes, but not so much how your feelings go. Let us know how you behaved it.

Adele (143 this morning)

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168/140, Size 16/8
Lowcarbing 10+ years
Maintaining at goal 7+ years
Moderator/Owner
adele@leadwiththediet.com

How did I behave?

Ok...(ish)....Didn't eat the chocolate, crisps, fries, burgers, pizza that my brain was screaming out that I needed. Did have diet coke, fried chicken with skins and breading removed, gravy, and a glass of red wine.

Weight has remained at 146.

Did i learn anything? Surprise. surprise.
1)If you have 'good' options prepared its easier to say no.
2)If you have a full tummy, its easier to say no.
3) I need a proper food plan for the week, I need to shop for it and stick to it.

I have not had a click moment. I have had a slow realisation. I choose. I can't blame anyone else. Before I put it in my mouth,ask myself am I really hungry? Plan all the food for the day, and make it a routine, change the behaviour.

This is not going to be easy... but here I go.I'll let you know how I behave..

Reagrds,
Suzi (146)

see Adele, didn't talk about thinking for a whole post (lol) :-) and I'm 34.

Last Edited on 21-May-2007 1:35 AM

I have all the food I need for today in the fridge ready.

I have stuck to the meal plan over the weekend, except for a glass of wine over dinner. Have moved the wine out of the kitchen to take the temptation away. Today will be a completely clean day.

Have weighed 146 for the whole weekend.

Suzi

The food has been clean and on plan. But wine isn't and hasn't been.

My weight has not moved from the 146 mark.

Yesterday was my first real clean day, with no nothing off plan (insert red wine here) and some exercise too.

Shopping has been on plan, and the food is prepared for today (last night in fact) and all is good.

I feel battered and bruised. The only thing I haven't tried is being honest with myself and trying to lead with the diet. To abide. This is so hard.

Today is the only thing I can change. Today will be clean, and I'll deal with tomorrow when it comes. One day at a time.

Suzi

You are certainly not the first person I’ve run into who has this same cross-addiction, not the first person to come to this site with what seems like an alcohol problem. I suspect the pattern is quietly, insidiously rampant. I’ve also seen more than a few recovering alcoholics enter online lowcarb forums finding that they’d transferred their alcohol addiction to sugar and now they can’t shake their new addiction.

(You might want to read Believing vs. Doing)

And yet you don’t seem to be an obvious or flagrant alcoholic, and neither are you anything approaching obese. If you’re anything like I used to be, then you’re vaguely unhappy (at least at times) because your life isn’t anywhere near the perfect that’s been continually marketed to you, it’s not anything like those glossy magazine images dangled in front of us all, and you think you need to, deserve to, that you can and maybe even SHOULD somehow medicate some of that vague discomfort and discontent away.

These kinds of addictions are now often referred to as “soft addictions.” You don’t have BIG problems with food or alcohol (yet?) That may be both a blessing AND a curse, as the saying goes, but what may be at least partly at play here is that you are juggling two addictions (or more?—do you smoke, overspend, etc.?) essentially as a way you can say to yourself, “there’s nothing seriously wrong with anything I’m doing”, at least not until somebody (you?) does the math, adds it all up and says while nothing is seriously wrong, nothing is seriously right either, and there does seem to be a pretty distinct pattern that adds up to someone (diagnosable addict or not?) who is hiding, procrastinating, and wasting a lot of her life, engaged in this pattern that does nothing positive for her or anyone else in her life.

I’m not pointing a finger at you, or if am then it means 3 of my fingers are pointing straight back at me—I probably have the same problem, or certainly strong tendencies in the same direction; while I don’t have alcohol even monthly now, I just re-confirmed for myself/body that wine is especially problematic for me. Alcohol is what I keep “testing”... several times a year, not several times a week.

The summer of 1996 I spent “trying” to get myself on lowcarb was the summer I also spent slowly sinking into the truth that I wasn’t able to go more than 3 days without at least one (and usually 2-4) glasses of wine in the evening, it’s what led to me throwing in the lowcarb towel over and over that summer. I know I was beginning to be pulled in by the alcohol, felt myself sinking into that and although I never told anyone, it scared me. And yet I initially stopped drinking it not because I was scared, but because I wanted to lose the weight and the bloat. (I think I finally saw clearly what the wine was doing to me in what became my “before” picture which was taken in September 1996. The moment I saw that picture was the moment I got and stayed on lowcarb and gave up wine.)

I am also a former smoker (I quit April 5, 1980, at 5:00 p.m.) So I’ve had some experience with this addiction switching thing.

It wasn’t until I rid myself of all of the addictions for quite a while that I figured out that all those behavior tendencies and urges of mine were ways to shut off, to give myself at least temporary relief, from my vaguely discontented monkey-mind. When I discontinued all the addictive behaviors, eventually I let my monkey mind just GO where it wanted to go... it finally went “there” (the place I didn’t want it to go.) I discuss this just a bit in Dang That Dr. Phil

So Suzi, only you can evaluate and decide about how entrenched you are in this lifestyle/pattern, and whether you’re willing to stop it all. I’d only point out that you’re getting to a different stage in life, the one where bodies start showing their age and grow weary and eventually react differently, and "recover" more slowly and incompletely, to ongoing abuse than they did when we were younger. Bodies wear down and do things like turn diabetic,and more and more reactive on us.

It’s seeming pretty clear that you’re using alcohol to bargain yourself into lowcarbing. There’s a powerful sign, no? Seems, from this side of the screen anyway, that if you want positive changes in your body, you need to be leading with abstinence from alcohol as much or more than you need “abstinence” from carbs...said the pot to the kettle.

Adele
(143 this morning)
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168/140, Size 16/8
Lowcarbing 10+ years
Maintaining at goal 7+ years
Moderator/Owner
adele@leadwiththediet.com

Your comments do make uncomfortable reading.

My father is an alcholic, and I fear that shadow more than anything. I will never be that way. Never have such low respect for those around me or myself. Never. As you can see a touchy subject.

I was smoker, I gave up 10 years ago. I ate a little more but not overly so. I don't overspend. My mother gave up smoking and ballooned in weight. Again I an adamant I will not do that.

The more I'm looking at the bits that hurt, it's like my high standards are not from glossy mags etc. but more a case of not wanting to follow my parents.

Thank you for admitting you can see yourself here too. That actually gives me great courage that there is a peace out there for me to find.

Thank you,
Suzi.
145 this morning.

But isn’t it interesting that those aren’t really goals at all—they’re only what you DON’T want to do/be. Can you tell us (well, really more importantly, can you tell yourself?) what it is you DO want, what the rest of your adult life is going to look and live like? Is that, perhaps, where your vague (and mild) discomfort is coming from? You are escaping from a legacy of overdrinking and overeating, but where/what in the world have you escaped TO? Are you still “dancing the escape dance” that simply had to become part of your pattern to survive? Have you considered that you’re an adult now, that you HAVE indeed escaped, and that you can stop running? Is that perhaps the inner peace that seems to be eluding you?

For what it’s worth, both my mother and my cherished aunt who was always more like a mother to me, especially as an adult since my mother died (of lung cancer, from smoking) when I was 28, were alcoholics. My non-emotional, handsome but totally nerdy rocket-scientist father essentially ignored it all, he simply couldn’t DO emotions (at 90 he still can't, lol). He escaped into work and, I suspect, some extramarital dabbling...and who could blame him? I have found it all to be a legacy that is both physical AND emotional....one that I found I couldn’t begin to sort out until I got a few years away from (relatively gently, like you) using food and alcohol myself. So I can relate to the (hyper?) need to ESCAPE so much of that quietly toxic legacy.

I’ll go back to your original question and my original reply to you...it’s my opinion that you’re not seriously enough overweight with the loosey-goosey lowcarb approach (that’s not a judgment, honest, just an observation) you’re following to be likely to be sufficiently motivated to switch permanently to the seriously tighter eating plan I suspect you’d have to follow to get your weight/body closer to where you think it SHOULD be. What’s even more important, switching (most likely temporarily, given your admitted pattern thus far of not being able to consistently maintain no-cheat lowcarb) to simpler lowcarb until your desired weight came off would most likely over time lead to eventual increased weight and weight loss resistance. I’ve seen that happen way too many times, you can definitely Tweak Too Soon. Going into this with the idea that you’ll tweak to lose to goal then maintain with “regular” lowcarb is a recipe for boomerang weight gain, it only works in our imaginations. See Arlene’s journey here to see that even years after getting to goal, changing even slightly away from what works for our body, even if it’s by-the-book-legal, will often cause weight to come straight back on and not be so “simple” to lose as just going back to the diet that worked before.

So Suzi, where would NOT tweaking, not pursuing weight loss past the way you’re muddling through right now, leave you? It would leave you essentially at the weight you are right now, ~10 pounds higher than you would like. Hardly a crime, maybe even a healthy weight for your body at the age it is now. I wonder, how does the idea of living your food/alcohol life the way you are right now, sit with you?

I just suspect, although honestly I could totally be wrong, that what’s missing for you isn’t the perfect body, it’s a life with purpose and passion after your “escape.”

Do you think I could be onto something here or am I full of ... well you tell me (grin).

Adele (142 this morning)
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168/140, Size 16/8
Lowcarbing 10+ years
Maintaining at goal 7+ years
Moderator/Owner
adele@leadwiththediet.com

Hi Suzi, it's been awhile. I just mentioned you and your journey in Anna's thread.

How are things going for you more than a month later?

Adele
(142 this morning)
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168/140, Size 16/8
Lowcarbing 10+ years
Maintaining at goal 7+ years
Moderator/Owner
adele@leadwiththediet.com

Thanks for not forgetting me.

I've been drifting and thinking, and thinking and hiding, and thinking.

The real problem is there are loads of places and feelings I don't want because they hurt. When you go there, it hurts and the inside feels hollow. A glass of red wine stops it feeling hollow as does carbs.

I need to be brave enough to face stuff without the need to fill up the hollowness. sounds easy? but hey this is real life. this has been going on for too long to be easy. my successful times are when I put the real problems in a box and pretend they are not there. not really a huge success.

I am on day 3 of clean. I weigh 150, not great but could be worse after what I've been eating (was 153 on day 1). I feel full of energy. bad habits keep knocking on the door. i feel like i did when i gave up smoking... not really told anyone i was trying to change but did it for me, and it didn't feel real, thats how i feel. i am letting some of the feelings just wash over me and not to react. see what happens. haven't let all of the feelings go... i think i would drown.

strange how this is nothing to do with eating low carb, not for me, and not for the others that post here. we all seem to have other issues to run away from and end up here when all else fails.

Thank you listening. thank you for making me behave like a grown up. one day at a time, and who knows what is possible?

catch up soon,
Suzi

As a response I’m going to go back to something you said in an earlier post: “Your comments do make uncomfortable reading.”

Many times throughout the articles and essays I mention that, for me anyway, the crux of what this ongoing journey has turned out to be about has been learning to be comfortable with being uncomfortable. Like the emotional 14-year-old I describe in Growing Up Emotionally, I think I was clinging to an immature, idealistic notion that there was some attainable point at which virtually everything in life would all mesh, it would all make sense, everything in my life would be good, seamless, and worthy of approval from even the harshest critic (me!). And since, like you, I had a terrific and loving spouse, a good job I enjoyed, many friends, and because I was skilled and prudent with almost all of the other adult responsibilities I had—well, except for that dirty little secret about my eating/drinking and how I knew that was most likely responsible for my slowly deteriorating health and body—surely I SHOULD be able to make everything in my life better (I secretly meant perfect!) by getting that pesky problem under control.

You’ve returned here with a bit more time on this journey under your belt, sounding to me like you really are beginning to “feel what you feel”. I know this sounds a little new-ageish, but I’m betting you know what I mean. I’m hearing you say when you try to relax, when you get quiet inside, you feel uncomfortable, that you feel hurt and you don’t WANT to feel hurt, you are recognizing that you have a strong tendency to do something to stop that feeling. You know how to stop it, you distract yourself away by making “noise” in your mouth with food, and/or you can slow and dull down all your emotions with a little alcohol. You “change the subject” internally until the feelings pass.

Can you, by any chance, relate to what I said above?—that maybe you’ve brought similar vague unrealistic expectations into this journey—that all your feelings SHOULD be pleasant, COULD be pleasant, that there IS a way—and a need—to prevent/control yourself from feeling hurt or angry or sad or frustrated sometimes (or any other unpleasant, more difficult feeling), even feelings about things that should be long forgotten (there’s that disturbing word “should”.) That if there are things in life that you dislike, that aren’t or weren’t fair, that are or were WRONG, there may be situations where YOU may have been or done wrong ... well you just can’t bear even the thought of thinking about any of that?

Is this ringing true for you?

What I did finally do, long before eventually seeking some professional help, was decide one day, on a long walk—6 miles—on a very hot day that I still remember well (maybe because I am still a drama queen? I dunno, lol), with my body “busy” and distracted by the heat and the walk, to just go ahead and let my crazy brain/emotions/memories go wherever the HELL it was I could feel myself working so hard to not let them go. I was exhausted from the walk and the heat, and probably also the years-long fight to keep them in check. I couldn’t hold them in and down any longer, I was just too tired of all that finally... and ... maybe just a little curious too. Maybe I was finally brave enough to sense that nothing could come out of my own brain that would hurt me as much as I was feeling the urge to “hurt myself” to keep from hurting—by turning back to food. I had already decided, almost two years before that time, that food changes or breaks were no longer an option, period. So why NOT go where I had always been afraid to?

I got a lot of it out on that walk, and was sorta stunned at how simple and “unsecret” it was. And even though it was new (and thus a little hard in that way) to feel the flood that came out of me, I really was able to cope with it, nothing ate me alive, I came home and... well, I journaled and journaled and journaled, and talked to some very close friends and wrote some more, and I slowly went on with my regular life which, when I finally was able to examine and process it all, was mostly me holding a huge, melodramatic (and unnecessary) grudge against some relatively minor wrongs that had been done to me many years ago.

I probably would have been wise to seek some professional help right then, but I hesitated. I’m frugal (prudent, y’know), stubborn, opinionated, private, I could do this myself. But it took its toll, a couple of my real life relationships suffered for a while because I was so wrapped up in the inner drama of all the old pain I uncovered.

I’m not a therapist, or any other kind of mental health professional, and I feel certain that no message board or even personal interaction with a good friend can take the place of some good therapy, especially if you can find a skilled therapist who has worked with compulsive overeaters/drinkers or other kinds of addicts. I feel it helped me a lot and would have helped me a whole lot sooner if I would have been willing to admit that I could have used some experienced help with that. (But I guess I thought for a long time, still, that I was special, an exception, that I could and would just do it myself...)

So I guess where I’m going with all this rambling is I’m wondering overall what you think is the worst thing that could happen if you just decided to let YOUR feelings go wherever it is you don’t want them to and see where the heck they take you, instead of trying to stop them? Do you think there is something inside of you that could overtake and undo you?

If that’s too scary to consider, how would you feel about getting a little professional help with this? I think you might be amazed at how much work it is to hold back emotionally and how freeing it is to let go and find out that imperfect adult life is surprisingly easier when you just let out the secrets you’re trying to keep from yourself.

Or I am full of it again? Either way, I honestly hope you’ll let me know.

Adele (141 this morning)
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168/140, Size 16/8
Lowcarbing 10+ years
Maintaining at goal 7+ years
Moderator/Owner
adele@leadwiththediet.com

As always you are closer than you know.

I have thought about some professional help. I had a session as part of an injury case, to see what effect it would had had on my mental state. After 5 hours she agreed I would benefit from some help, and that I am lacking a sufficent particularly female support network. Wonder why i post here then?.... :-)

I too am frugal. Lets see what happens going there by myself. There are some places I go to now that were out of bounds before, like child hood in general, teenage years in general. Nothing too specific yet, but starting to unlock how I felt at these times. They were not unhappy, but there are bits, feelings I had, that hurt and have been locked away.

The disassociation between putting things in your mouth to distract from feeling is tough. I'm trying thats all I can say. It doesn't make you feel any better, but it is a hard habit to break. Alcohol is going better. The red wine stays in the wine rack more days a week than it comes out.

Thank you for not giving up on me yet. and thank you for allowing to me to say whatever I like without judging me. this site has helped me to be more honest with myself than I have been for years. I have been sat watching life go by, thinking I should be enjoying things more, feeling like its happening to someone else. slowly I'm starting to interact, take part, and enjoying myself (not food/drink orientated) little steps. bit by bit. I think I'll need my strength for the rest of the journey...

Take care,
Suzi

Weigh 149 this morning.

Still living and breathing. Huge stress at home. What I put in my mouth will not take that stress away, it will make it worse by adding weight increase to the problem list.

Interestingly my food is one of the few things in my life I can control, and keeping to the diet is keeping me sane. Have also started talking outloud to myself when tempted to go off track - could this be a worrying side effect of this board? Low carbers walking around talking to themselves....Have a set breakfast (eggs), mid morning snack (tuna & mayo) and lunch (home made veg soup) (all good net carbs) protein shake mid-afternoon and then meat / fish and veg for dinner.

Slow progress on the weight front, but the pattern and control is good. Had 1 glass of wine on Friday, my first for 6 days (There said it outloud lol, and really didn't enjoy it, and I mean really - won't be repeated in a hurry, wish I hadn't bothered.

Adele don't worry about us all too much - get through your work and we'll all still be here. These things have been going on long enough for us to cope for a few weeks more.

Take care,
Suzi

You’re not really making progress, your weight is actually up a pound from where you came in four months ago, and near as I can tell, despite talk about some days the wine staying in the rack, you are for all intents and purposes drinking pretty much the same amount and frequency? More importantly, your weight is not going down, that’s a pretty clear sign that you’re “using” something.

I believe you’re at what I call the “coming undone” place of the lowcarb journey—that is a place that addicted eaters (and drinkers?) eventually get to in our own individual ways, that place where we either face our stuff or stuff our face. Many (most?) addicted lowcarbers come undone much earlier in the process and bail out. Non-addicted eaters don’t go through this at all; it’s what separates us from them.

As I wrote to Arlene, who seems to be at her own coming undone place, I think that it could help you a whole lot to seek some professional counseling. If you are like I was (and as I’ve mentioned before, I think you and I have quite a bit in common), I’m thinking that trying to stay on the diet sorta drives you to drink, right? I think the reason you keep “needing” to drink alcohol right now is because, at least until lowcarb, food was your primary way of preventing yourself from going where you couldn’t let yourself go in your own head. Clean lowcarb eating eliminates the food-noise/self-distraction option, so you sort of “instinctively” reach for something else to get that job done. Wine has become that for you. It boils down to either drink some wine or cheat on the diet, right? No you didn’t enjoy your last glass, but you NEEDED it, right?

With some good help, in probably a lot less time than you expect, you could just go ahead and explore in a safe place whatever it is you don’t want to know or remember. Get it up and out and “on the table,” where you can examine it from your adult perspective, in a safe place, with someone who can help you process it all, help you see that it can’t hurt you now, help you understand that it’s what you’re (unnecessarily) doing about your FEAR of it—essentially your fear of what is almost surely in your PAST—what’s over and done—that is most likely hurting you today.

It’s kind of like cleaning out a dark, dank basement full of clutter, getting rid of a lot of childhood stuff you simply HAD to put down there at the time for survival with the dysfunction that comes from growing up with an alcoholic parent. A good counselor can help you sort through it, discard a whole lot of it, then examine and put it in a much smaller box on a lighted shelf (no more secrets) the bits that you can’t totally discard because it’s truth. It’s a little painful, it was what it was, there’s no going back and changing it, but I think you can learn that there’s also no earthly reason why it has to have ANY affect on who you are—and on who you love and trust—today.

And once you know what it all is, once you know what the secrets are you are trying to keep from yourself, you won’t have to work so hard, and keep using SOMETHING, to keep the secrets, from spilling out, because they’ll already BE out.

You also might want to go back about a year, on Mary’s thread, July-August 2006, to see a post of an IM session she and I had where she was at a coming undone place and how counseling was a piece of her pulling out from that low place, and read Eileen’s thread for a glimpse at how for many of us even occasional alcohol can cause us to go round and round instead of forward.

So Suzi, are you relating here, or do you think I am way off base? As always, it’s your call, your body, your science project. You can keep hiding from this, dancing around it and maybe stay about the same as you are now, that IS an option. Or you can move forward and away from this point. Of course I wish you well, I wish you resolve and courage to make a change in the way you are trying to manage yourself internally. And I hope you’ll let us know what you’re deciding to do or not do.

Adele (142 this morning)
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168/140, Size 16/8
Lowcarbing 10+ years
Maintaining at goal 7+ years
Moderator/Owner
adele@leadwiththediet.com

My life is overtaking me at the moment. My husband is talking of leaving me. Not sure how i feel yet.

May be therapy is what I need. what I put in my mouth is not going to make this one go away. So much for the perfect life.

Will post a longer post when i know whats going on.

Take care,
Suzi

When an addict attempts to make permanent changes, it has effects on everyone he/she is close to, our families especially. Or perhaps your marriage difficulties have nothing to do with the changes you’ve been trying to make recently.

I think you came here at or close to the beginning-to-come-undone place, the place where you are finding you need to make some tough (and surprising?) decisions about how you’re going to approach the rest of your life. I certainly found it that way anyway. My journey was somewhat hard on my marriage; we muddled through it and I’m glad about that. But each relationship is different, I know. Some spouses can abide more than others, I know I have a spouse who is unusually supportive and patient.

I have no wisdom to offer except that, given your history and your situation now, it sure seems like a skilled counselor couldn’t possibly hurt. I hope you’ll seek help, I think you might be amazed at how good (and ultimately productive) it can feel to let go of what you’ve been trying to (unnecessarily!) control/hold in.

I hope you’ll check back in when you are able.

Adele (143 this morning)
----------
168/140, Size 16/8
Lowcarbing 10+ years
Maintaining at goal 7+ years
Moderator/Owner
adele@leadwiththediet.com

Thank you for your kind words. I think having someone to talk to will help, and I have plans to make this happen.

My husband has agreed to stay and try and work things out. this takes off some of the pressure and lets me breathe.

But yesterday i faced some other home truths. I read your post here re alcohol, and agree I do need a dry spell to break any emotion ties, even through the troubles of the last few days I haven't had any alcohol. But as you commented I haven't been losing weight so I had obviously been replacing it with something.

So read your post and then i posted about my husband yesterday, and then went off and sat in a meeting. I had had to provide the cakes and they went around the table. i took a small chocolate cake and passed the to a female co-worker nest to me, she passed them on without taking one.

'not having one?' I commented. she looked me straight in the eye. 'no' she said 'i'm being good - anyway, i didn't think you ate that kind of thing??' by this point the small chocolate cake had been devoured.

I had a moment. a click. what was i doing? i took out the wine and replaced it with sugar crap to compensate. i could hear your words echoing around my head... what have you replaced it with. thats just it, i've replaced it with junk.

whatever i have had to eat or drnk doesn't change how i fell, just what i weigh.

from that moment on i have lead with the actions and gone back onto induction. a clean no products induction. with a food plan to get me 20 grms net of good carbs. food will not make me feelings feel better. i do feel calm.

the problems at home mean't i had to call and have a very honest heart to heart with my mum. the best therapy you can get. didn't talk about dad, but i have a re-assurance that shee is there and i only have to call. that has helped.

there has been a lot of thinking about painful stuff recentely. hence the junk i guess. but it didn't help the pain, and the pain wasn't as bad as i thought.

i feel hope. lets pray it lasts. i will post quite often over the next two weeks if thats ok, as the accountability is good for me.

Yesterday I was 150. Today I weigh 149. Net carbs (all good) = 20.5 for day.

Thank you,
Suzi.

I don’t think your mom is the best therapy you can get Suzi, not at all. I don’t mean to imply that talking to your mom is a negative thing

But...

IF your mom is truly supportive of you getting outside help, supportive to the point of being willing to join you in therapy if the (NON-INVOLVED!!) therapist who helps you sort out and face your stuff thinks it might be appropriate, then your mother might be of some small help to you with this. In my opinion and experience, as part of the alcoholic home you grew up in (as you mentioned earlier in your thread), what your mother did and did not do about your father’s addictive behaviors is most likely going to be just as much a part of what you will end up exploring and dealing with in therapy as was your father’s behavior, and exploring that is unlikely to be something that your mother would find easy or painless. Most likely she has her own emotional baggage from living that life.

So you didn’t talk about your dad with her, huh? (very weak grin) ...there’s a pretty strong sign you’re both still attempting to ignore an elephant in the room...she’s still avoiding the truth in her own way(s). She well may want to try to “help” you now, out of (understandable) guilt... but she’s not the right one for the job, not even close. I don’t suppose you could just trust me on that?

One more thing: As far as the diet, I believe you’d do a whole lot better with more than 20 net carbs, I’d recommend aiming for 30-35, and make sure you are eating at least 60% fat. “Re-inducting” generally encourages yo-yoing. You won’t gain weight eating more vegetables; generally you’ll feel better, stronger and begin to LOSE weight. You WILL gain weight drinking wine or eating sugar. That’s what you can’t do, not either one, not even a little bit. (Not even when you get the weight off, most likely...)

That’s where, that’s how you keep stumbling, that’s your addictive pattern. I think you’ve reached what I sometimes call “the tunnel” of this journey, or the using hump. The “I’ve got to do something strong to distract myself from what I think I’m feeling or I might actually FEEL it, and that feeling just might kill me” point. (No matter what it is, it won’t kill you if you don’t do anything, but you’ve never NOT done anything so you can’t believe that yet.)

Please please please get a good therapist and get some help exploring emotions that are painful for you. There is tremendous relief waiting at the end of the tunnel, when you can let this out and go ahead and feel and process it. It won’t kill you. What you’re doing to NOT feel it? THAT’s what’s hurting you honey (and quite possibly the people you are living with now).

Adele (142 this morning)
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168/140, Size 16/8
Lowcarbing 11+ years
Maintaining at goal 7+ years
Moderator/Owner
adele@leadwiththediet.com

Last Edited on 19-Sep-2007 1:30 PM

Thank you for the support. Finally spoke to my husband about therapy, and the fact that living with my dad as an alcholic may have have some impacts on me as a grown up. I said I didn't want any thing like that to impact on how we were. I kissed me and said thank you, with tears in his eyes. Why does it take some one else to point out there is an elephant in the room at all? (Thank you so much for that expression by the way - perfect! grin)

Today I weigh 145. I hear what you saying about the increased vegetables, and I'm trying... but it is about control and its tough. Have had a few strawberries without incident, so will continue trying. Around 25 net carbs at the moment.

I have not had alchol now for 8 days. Even though we went to sunday lunch with friends yesterday and half a glass was poured for me. I felt obliged to lift the glass from time to time, so pretended to sip and put it back down. How pathetic! Tried to explain I just didn't want any, but got press ganged into it. Well I thought you can put it in my glass, but you can't tip it down my throat. With hindsight I should have just left the glass alone. By pretending they probably thought they won. See there I go trying to keep people happy, and get them to like me by being something I'm not any more. I guess these habits will take a while to shake off.

I'm making enquires as how to get some professional help as to whether I need a Dr refferal or whether I can book direct.

I feel like I'm in a calm place in the middle of the eye of the storm. At the moment I'm not brave enough to step back out there, I'm in control in here and it feels good and safe. Out there is dangerous, but if I want to get anywhere and have a future with my family out there I'm going to have to go. I do not want my daughter to grow up - screwed up. I feel like a sprinter taking a few gulps of air to last the mad dash! grin...

Maybe there is hope for me after all.

And thank you so much for your insight. Elephants and all.

Suzi

Todays weight 144.8. I did weigh this a few days ago but after a body pump class I went up by two pounds (go figure?) and now I'm back.

Still no alcohol. Over two weeks. Still no want to, no 'need' to reward myself. I'm starting to see it as being the 'thing' responsible for a lot of crap in my life, and I want no more to do with it. The same approach seems to be creeping into my attitude towards food. I have to eat to live, but thats it. no more. Same food pattern every day and enjoying it.

Eating more veggies. Made a low carb cheesecake yesterday, so we shall see if has any effect. The flaxseed muffins slowed me down, so have put them to one side until later in the jouney. Have resisted offers of pizza, yoghurt, doughnuts from work collegues.. you name it, I've said no.

Have had the answer I need to book my sessions direct. So next step is to search out a therapist and book and go. Have tried to be more honest about why I do things to myself. Actually thinking through why I do that, why do I want that, rather than researching it to death...its much quicker (grin) usually come up with the same answer - don't do it, you don't really want it and you'll feel pants afterwards.

Now I'm starting to waffle. Will catch up with you when I have some news.

Suzi
This re-start weight July 07 = 154 lbs
Now = 144.8
Goal = 133

I am very glad to hear you’re going without alcohol, that’s THE most important thing. Whether you “need” or want it or not isn’t even slightly important. Wouldn’t you agree that it’s unlikely, almost impossible given your pattern, that you aren’t going to want it—probably want it desperately sometimes in the coming months or years?

All that is important is that you don’t ACT on those feelings by choosing to break your abstinence from alcohol. If you must act, and you refuse to substitute, say, a long walk or a good cry, and you decide it must be either alcohol or food, then choose food. If you have to take this one addiction at a time, then you really need to address the alcohol first Suzi.

And don’t procrastinate about the counselor honey.

P.S. Most addicted eaters seem to react to flax seeds much like they react to grains—poorly, that is. So I’m not surprised your body didn’t respond well to them.

Adele (143 this morning)
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168/140, Size 16/8
Lowcarbing 11+ years
Maintaining at goal 7+ years
Moderator/Owner
adele@leadwiththediet.com

Quick update.

Coming up to 4 weeks of no acohol, and I'm not missing it. I'm not looking forward to social gatherings ie balls or free bars in hotel exec lounges when we stay away, there will be pressure applied for sure from my husband. I am explaining each time its mentioned how good I'm feeling without it, and that it doesn't make me feel better. If that doesn't work, I follow up with look at all the problems it has caused in my life so far - and I don't want anything to do with it, thank you. That tends to put the issue to bed.

Slipped on the food last friday, ate some fries and half of the roll with my burger. I then ate a little fresh pinapple and yoghurt on Saturday. Got very cross with myself for being weak and its taken a whole week to get extra weight and water off. Not going to do that again in a hurry. I like my clothes feeling big, my new suit I bought to reward myself for doing well is nearly fitting....antoher 2lb should do it.

Thanks for listening,
Suzi
CW = 143.2
SW = 154
TW = 133

It’s worrisome to me that your husband, who talked of leaving you before, is pressuring you to drink when you’ve explained that you’re abstaining in part to make the marriage better. Why in the world would he want/need YOU to drink? (No need to answer that here Suzi, it’s mostly a rhetorical question or better yet, one for you to be exploring in the counseling that it seems you might be procrastinating about.)

Adele (143 this morning)
----------
168/140, Size 16/8
Lowcarbing 11+ years
Maintaining at goal 7+ years
Moderator/Owner
adele@leadwiththediet.com

Five weeks with no alcohol, current weight 140.8. I haven't been this low since I first lost my 'baby' weight five years ago.

I now have a conselor, first appt booked will let you know how it goes. There are things I need to talk through. Not just the pain of being young and not the same as every one else.... but anger that my Dad could do that and not be stronger, and to my Mom that she let us grow up in that. i love them both, but this needs some profesional to get in there (my head) lol and sort it into something I can live with.

Interesting.... I have, it appears... had my click moment. I'm looking at alcohol for what it is something that hurt me as a child, has held me back from my body goals, and very nearly wrecked my marriage... now try and ask me if I'd like a glass of wine! My fear now is that I find another replacement before I get the core issues resolved.

My life is too short and too precious to waste on wine. Food doesn't make me feel better, food is what your body needs to survive. If I cheat (eat rubbish) I'm cheating on me, no one else, and I will have to live with that on my hips. I am worth more than that. My body needs good food, on a regular basis. I have given it what it needs and it has responded, I would be letting it down again to go back to my cheating ways!

My husband has also stopped drinking. I have spoken to him how I now feel about alcohol, I don't think he's going to be pushing me into anything... I believe I was doing him a diservice in my last post.

I'm currently managing about 30 - 35 net carbs a day. I've added berries, melon and small quantites of nuts back in and I'm still loosing. The extra veg and berries are making me feel much better. I have more energy, no headaches in the morning.... what was that drinking doing to me?

I'll keep you posted on the progress,
Thanks for your support,
Suzi

Suzi, I read your whole post nodding and whispering to myself “yes...yes...yes”. You are taking solid, healthy steps now, ones that are likely to bring you to some resolution and improved inner harmony.

Please do keep us posted, not necessarily about the nitty-gritty of the counseling—that’s private and is likely to take some time and will be at times challenging as some deeply buried pain comes up and out and the counselor helps you examine it all today (which is different than the past) and then helps you sort, discard and keep what you need to keep in a not-so-hidden place. Boy does THAT ever sound new-agey, but it certainly is the process I went through when I was finally ready to face it.

I do hope you’ll let us know that you’re continuing on the path to working this all through in a way that’s better for you and your body and therefore, better for everyone else in your life, your husband and your mother included.

Adele (143 this morning)
----------
168/140, Size 16/8
Lowcarbing 11+ years
Maintaining at goal 7+ years
Moderator/Owner
adele@leadwiththediet.com

It feels good to hear you say yes. This process is tough, and a little reassurance that it is the right thing to do is always welcome. Deep down I know this is right. It hurts at times, but it is right. The more I'm brave enough to face up to, the more i remember. When I started this undoing I was in denial - what problem? The more i unravel the more I understand why I hid all of this away and tried to pretend it happened to someone else. It has felt good to say there is a problem, lighter some what.

We are going to visit my parents at the weekend (they live 300 miles away) and I feel strong. Strong enough to ignore a complimentary bar & snacks in the hotel.... and strong enough to be back in that situation without being damaged further.

Still no alcohol. Still eating well. Have managed the odd plum and even a clementine, and still loosing steadily. Down to 139.0 this morning. Am going to continue with my small steps until I get to 133, slowly adding more good carbs the right way until I can hold where I want to be. I feel better physically.

I have also learned the importance of not eating if your not hungry, and eating only until your satisfied rather than full. Full doesn't make you feel better. You don't have to eat everything you have on your plate. Sounds simple huh?. Not quite in a position where I feel I can let go completely yet. My self will is still holding things together at times, but I'm sure I'm on the path so that one day i can let go and breath deeply, its just going to take time. Being on the path and moving ever forward is whats important.

Now who's sounding new agey? (lol)

Thank you for holding my hand throughout this, it is helping. Oh, and you are right about needing the therapy (grin!)

Will post soon,
Suzi

I've been trying to create a standard menu based on your CRL guidlines to make sure I get the balance right without thinking.

It is a lot of vegetables, even with the life saving homemade veg soup...but I can get between 25 and 35 without any berries / fruit. my protein tends to be over by about 20g and my fat down, and hence my overall calories for the day is down. My answer would be some berries with a little extra thick double cream (unsweetened) is this ok?

Thanks, Suzi
(Still no alochol - past 7 week mark)

Most likely you’ll need to gently test, over the coming months, without any alcohol, how your body does—physically AND emotionally—with various levels and kinds of whole foods. Generally speaking, for lowcarbing to be satisfying and successful (and thereby more sustainable!) the most important thing is to keep your fat levels up to at least 60%. 65% seems (generally) to be the closest to ideal, some bodies do better with 70% of calories coming from fat. And again, generally speaking, getting and keeping fiber intake at 20-25 grams per day is ideal—for ALL bodies.

Generally speaking (with the caveat that we are ALL snowflakes, and the caveat that CRLs are, I think, a certain subspecies of snowflake that have some slight differences from “normal” snowflakes), cream or any product made from it (sour cream, cheeses, butter, etc.) are not the ideal fats to use daily in large quantities for either kind of snowflake, but especially not for CRLs. (But as I mentioned, you don’t seem a glaring CRL to me so much as you had or were beginning to develop a more dangerous cross-addiction.)

I think I’d recommend boosting your calories/fats/carbs/fiber with raw, unprocessed true “tree nuts” things like almonds, walnuts or possibly macadamia nuts before I looked as fruit and cream as a daily thing. The nuts add fiber and fat—probably more than the fruits. (P.S., I knew another wine-cross-addict who found it was easy to rationalize wine as “fruit” once she determined—in her head, not her body, lol—that she should be okay with, you know, just a little fruit...fermented...in a glass—or bottle.) I suggest nuts because, again, I don’t sense strong CRL tendencies in you. Fruits, on the other hand, for you, might morph into wine-bait, especially more likely to do that than raw nuts.

I am a little curious, though, as to why you’re beginning to worry right NOW about fashioning a better (perfect?) diet for yourself? You reported your weight has been drifting down nicely since you quit the alcohol and quit fighting the notion that it’s time to begin formally addressing the emotional stuff, the secrets you’ve been keeping from yourself for a long time now. I’m wondering if you don’t need to just relax and keep eating the mindful way you’ve been eating, just open up with the counselor and continue not drinking. I’m wondering if you might be, subconsciously, groping around for a new obsession.

Isn’t it possible (likely?) that the counseling along with your ongoing alcohol abstinence together are rattling your carefully protected cage (alcohol is off-limits, food is boring, feelings are new and uncomfortable!), and that you have developed a subconcious pattern of looking for something else to focus on to keep yourself from thinking/feeling like that?

In other words, I’m wondering if your diet is really broke enough that it needs fixin’—right now? Make sense?

Adele (144 this morning)
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168/140, Size 16/8
Lowcarbing 11+ years
Maintaining at goal 8+ years
Moderator/Owner
adele@leadwiththediet.com

Last Edited on 6-Nov-2007 3:42 AM

Thanks for responding so quickly.

<>>

Thats exactly it. And in order to ensure I didn't find my comfort or replacment in tinkering and research of tinkering I thought to establish a set menu to prevent it being my comfort. To keep the food 'boring' so to speak and not run away from my new uncomfortable feelings.

I do understand that just because I can eat small qty's of certain fruits without issue, wine has a whole different issue for me. Its about how I feel about it thats the issue, not whether I can have a little or not. Its about the why? why do i want? how it makes me feel. not about whether I can get away with it. The wine drought has caused my weight loss, but my reason for quitting wine wasn't for weight loss in the end, it was for my sanity. Even when I get to my goal weight - I'll still feel the same way about wine. We have parted company so to speak.

I feel very exposed. vunerable. I guess that will pass with the therapy. I am frightened that I will tinker too much on my diet or not focus enough. Control.... It's all new and scarey. I guess I'm panicking.

Time for a deep breath. This will get better. First baby steps of a long process and still one day at a time.

Thanks for your insight, Suzi
(140.1 lb today - will cut back on fruit to get this going down again)

Just updating my progress.

138.8 this morning, with no tinkering. 9 weeks without any drink apart from a testing moment. For reasons I have already analysed too much I accepted and drank a glass of champagne I didn't really want. It made me feel ill and sick and throughly cross with myself. It won't be happening again. Learn from it and move on.

I have come so far already. 10 weeks ago I could not imagine how I could last a week without a glass of wine, as time goes on and my new habits form I wonder how I ever got anything done feeling like that.

Have also started to discover (with help) that as will as unhappy memories, I also locked away some good ones from growing up. They were all mixed up together, I couldn't cope, so they all went in the box with a lid and a lock. Some of them have been comforting.

The journey continues.

As far as food goes, it seems without the wine, my ACE is much higher than I had previously. The freedom to eat a wider diet makes it easier to stick to, and I'm still losing albeit slowly.

Thanks for your guideance and your insight,
Suzi

Happy New Year to you all.
Have a busy time right now with a uni project to complete, should be finished by Friday and will update properly next week.

Have had great success with the alcohol, or lack of it I should say. On two occasions over the holidays I had two glasses of wine / champagne. I wanted no more, enjoyed what I had. But definitely feel more centred and controlled without it. That will be my indulgence until my vacation marghertia in July. Definitely a success, but appreciate that if it takes you 8 years to break a habit… my 4 months is nothing!

I have substituted the wine with sugar and carbs / rubbish over the holidays and gained around 7 lbs as a result. I understand why (some hiding from the real feelings again – some stress – some boredom). I also understand what to do now, to put things right. And it won’t involve spending hours surfing the net to find out the magic answer. Last night through out the last of the chocolate and cake, and put some smaller pieces into the freezer for my daughter. All I have in the house is meat, fish and veg. Small steps. One day at a time.

Back to the books,

Keep in touch,
Suzi

146.8 this morning

Down to 143.4 this morning. As time goes by I believe I am slowly moving away from my falling apart place (It really has felt like falling apart rather than coming undone) The bits appear to be forming anew, and I have a small glimmer of peace.

There are some times of panic, agitation, a desire to visit the old web sites to understand too much. There are times when I indulge this want (not need). But only briefly and I find it now bores me.

I still have not had any alcohol. And I still have no intention to change this from the norm. This is who I am. I don’t drink and that’s how the world must accept me from now on.

I’m still practicing what my menu should consist of. I keep a food diary (UK version) and try to exercise when I can. I weigh every morning. I have kept my goal of 133 lbs, to see what I look like, especially after getting down to 138 something last year. Then I’ll look at what I get to eat to maintain there, and see if its worth it. I remember you asking in one of my first posts, was I really that broken to need fixing? I guess my answer to that now would be I don’t think my weight is all that broken, I have too much life going on around me to spend all my life worrying about how much I weigh.

I did have one moment of panic earlier today for a completely separate reason. Your comment on another post here, of losing your fight and wondering why your still doing this. If I had not found the honesty here, I would still be lost, and possibly my falling apart would have been more devastating, without the mirror to view things objectively. I can never thank you enough for the insight you have provided. You have made a real difference to my life. I thank you for being you, what you do here does make a difference.

Please don’t give upon us.

Suzi
CW = 143.4
GW = 133

Adele (144 this morning)
----------
168/140, Size 16/8
Lowcarbing 11+ years
Maintaining at goal 8+ years
Moderator/Owner
adele@leadwiththediet.com

There has been a reason for my absence and not a good one.

Three weeks ago my Father was taken very ill and passed away. This it seems had a number of effects, and great for therapy topics, that caused lots of nasties to come out of dark hiding places. There were a number of things I was able to do.... like say goodbye before he passed etc. but it has been tough. Nothing can prepare you for the loss of a parent. Its tough.

My response to this process was predictable really, and I now feel ashamed at my response. Wine and food to try and push the sadness down again. and behold, its been no more successful this time than all the times I have tried this response before.

I am now at place where I can sit and look at my response more deeply and correct few of my basics. Stop drinking (done) try to plan and stick to my food (ongoing challenge) and I'm sure it will be. The interesting thing was that my ghosts were not that bad once I had to face them.

I have a long path to re-build to where I want to be, and I have to go through every step on the way. I feel like I've survived an important one, and whats important for me now is how I move on. Back to doing rather than thinking.

I have gained 7lbs in three weeks. But I know i can get rid of this in the same time scale and I know what to do. The important thing is to be on the path, and happy with the direction i travel.

Will keep you updated.
Suzi.

I think I speak for everyone here when I say how sorry we are for the pain you are and will be going through in the weeks and months to come after losing your father. Yes, losing a parent, even a “problem” one, brings on all kinds of big and ambivalent feelings. It certainly did for me anyway.

You mention that what you’re going through is great for therapy topics—I agree, and I do hope that you are still involved in ongoing therapy.

How about you check in and let us know how you’re doing in a month or so? I have some thoughts and comments for you, but let’s wait a bit, things are raw enough for you right now.

Take care of yourself Suzi.

Adele
(144 this morning)
----------
168/140, Size 16/8
Lowcarbing 11+ years
Maintaining at goal 8+ years
Moderator/Owner
adele@leadwiththediet.com

Things are not going well. In some respects they are, the pain is not so raw, its still there and will be for a long time, but at least I can talk about it without collapsing into a heap. Yes I am still attending therapy and finding it a help to address this.

Some things are just bad. Like my weight and my eating, and my lack of exercise. Up to 156.4 at the weekend, down to 154 today. This is the heaviest i have been for so long. I feel uncomfortable and heavy, and am running out of clothes that fit.

I do feel a peace inside, and in a sense this is from listening at long last to all of the voices and memories and allowing them to wash over me. Some hurt, but that passes. In a way this has been re-assuring, I was even worrying about not remembering childhood / youth, talk about neurosis, I was blocking so many things it was becoming obvious even to me that it was wrong.

Having Dad's funeral made me have to remember things, they were uncontrollable. Slowly I can view this as a grown up and as you have said before in a safe place with help and accept them. This will all take time, and taking a breath can be so hard.

Today I have spent doing my 'research', spot the old behaviour pattern and bash myself on the head. I've got spreadsheets, graphs and food diary all set up and ready to go. All i have to do now is do it. Sound familar?

Once I released what I'd been doing I had to smile to myself as I thought of your words about my analysis, and what would Adele think of me, I had visions of a wagging finger and gently shaking head!

To make this work, and do it once, I have to tread slowly. I have started my exercise (running) and tried to up my general activity level. I have stopped the wine / alchol completely. Food has been better, but not perfect, but recorded and honest. Small steps on picking myself up, and wanting not to dot the usual and only stick at this for a while. Clean food comes next.

Thanks for being gentle with me. I will keep in touch. I not giving up, and will get there.

Take care,
Suzi

Adele (143 this morning)
----------
168/140, Size 16/8
Lowcarbing 11+ years
Maintaining at goal 8+ years
Moderator/Owner
adele@leadwiththediet.com

Today is day 40 sober. And feel proud of my achievement so far, the first steps on this path. I’ve been in touch with Adele off the boards for a while. Trying to focus on doing rather than feeling / analysing.

Adele has been pointing out for a while that I struggle with cross addiction… switching between alcohol and food as my drugs of choice. The ‘wise one’ has finally made me understand that I need to tackle the alcohol first as it has the greatest consequence and tackle this. And to tackle this via abstinence and doing, not talking / feeling / not doing. Boy is this tough. But its Day 40 and I’m still here and alive, and thriving. Still busy getting through today, the thought of forever is still uncomfortable, but if I add all the today’s up they go very quickly.

Adele has also made me promise not to worry about my weight…. “I don’t care what you weigh!” are not words you hear from her very often. That is also tough…. People can’t tell about the alcohol by looking at you, but they can see what you weigh, and I am in my ‘fat’ wardrobe right now. Whilst this makes me uncomfortable, the logic of doing it this way makes sense, but its hard work. I’ve also agreed not to post my weight here yet, just my days sober.

I’m still having counselling. Understanding why I’ve been drinking, and other ways to deal with feelings etc. My strategies have been flawed, and I’m working through straightening things out. Leading with sobriety (rather than diet!)

I ‘m calm. I finally see the freedom of doing. The space it gives you to breathe. If I can do this with Shiraz… I can do this with pizza….(eventually ‘grin’) For those of you that are struggling to see how doing rather than thinking / deciding to act would make a difference… why not try it and see… you just never know!?!

Thank you Adele for the support……

Take care,
Suzi

Over 9 weeks without any alcohol and so far I'm doing well. Still leading with sobriety. 1 day at a time. Starting to lay foundations of how to deal with and live life, without the need for food or wine to justify the behaviours.

Awkard rather than regret.

Lather, rinse. repeat.

Starting to understand.

More of the same please...

Thanks for the guidence Adele,

Suzi

I’m still here, lurking regularly and emailing Adele at least weekly. I thought I’d let the rest of you know that my Journey here continues.

I’m still abstaining from the alcohol. I did drink 1 glass of wine a few weeks back. Poured the second away and moved on. Feeling more grown up as the weeks pass, but this is a long journey and I have a lot of catching up to do.

Learning to feel isn’t easy. I still eat c&*p from time to time to medicate and try to make myself better, it never works. But I am abstaining from alcohol, and Adele is assuring me that by tackling this one addiction at a time I will conquer them, just slowly.

Still surprised how we all come here looking for ways to clean up our eating, the magic ticket to get this to work once and for all. Turns out it’s not about food / alcohol at all. It’s about us, and how we react to the life around us. And learning to grow up.

I am still having professional help and talking things thro’ regularly, and I’m still finding this helpful. I am understanding the feeling of being tethered that has been referred to here so often. It helps at times of difficult situations etc. to make the right choice.

I have agreed with Adele that I won’t worry or report my weight here yet, to focus on one addiction at a time. Tough love. And I’m very grateful for it.

Take care,
Suzi

I have been giving weekly updates to Adele on my progress, and we both agreed that this latest email was an appropriate post for here as an update....

I'm still here. Still abstaining. Feel centred and calm, although I'm in complete chaos around me. Husband talking to his employer re a redundancy package, MBA final disertation due a week saturday, daughter back to school this week, I've got a new boss at work, and a collegue who's winding me up and playing the politic's. And guess what. thats fine. I feel angry at times, stressed, elated and enthusatic. a whole roller coaster from the time I wake up until I go to sleep. But that doesn't mean I need anything to help me get thro' it. Its alot easier with a clear head and concentration. The clarity is overwhelming at times.

Believe it or not this is with less counselling rather than more. As the support is slowly helping me to do this for my self, and pulling away gently, I feel more confident about doing this for myself. And guess what, its a help button I can press whenever I need it.

The last few months have been a revalation. Alot of people would find that a confusing comment, when I started this journey looking at my weight, and I've ended up heavier than ever. But how I feel about that, and myself, and the world has fundamentlly changed for the better.

For the last few days I've tried to eat a little more cleanly, and move a little more. Not the crash induction of my past, no whistle's and bells and loud announcements. Just a quiet acknowledgement to roll the changes out to all changes of my life. When I started not drinking, my brain couldn't cope with the concept of never and had to have some get out clauses for the future. Now I can happily accept never drinking and it doesn't make me feel un-nerved. Interesting I've been playing the same game with food instead. Low carb isn't what I need....... bread tastes so good (insert any food you like here though! lol) and thought of giving these up, possibly forever is quite scary. So doing today is important, and then I'll worry about tomorrow. Wash, lather, rinse, repeat. Until its not quite so scary.

I know you've asked me not to worry about my weight, please rest assured this is not the previous, all or nothing way I have gone about this and my reasoning is far more calm and collected and thought through. This is the next step for me, I want to do it, I feel ready. I'm aiming for a minimum of 1,400 cals a day(BMR = 1,850), 35g carbs min and exercise. If I go over it's not the end of the world. Started Saturday at 154 lbs, today 153.4. Next week I can show you what I've been eating etc, and what my results are (if any).

I was thinking of posting the body of this message onto the site for the others to see my progress, as I feel proud as to what I've achieved and coming so far, but wanted to see your reaction to my wanting to get my food pulled in line. I know that you're really busy right now, so not expected a huge response right now. Just enjoying having the chat i guess! Mindful of walking into a potential trap, with food that is!

Take care,

Love Suzi

(Just to add, Adele has advised me to increase my cals to match my BMR for now)

A few weeks back I was diagnosed as having Asthma, and put onto steroid and reliever inhalers to improve it. As a background (not sure if I have shared a full picture of my health here, but it is more and more relevant) I have allergic rhinitis, sinus pain, eczema, migraine, have had skin allergy test and I am allergic to dust mites, hay, tree and flower pollen, horses, cat, dogs, walnuts, mould. My mother and brother have the exact same symptoms and allergies. I have to take an antihistamine tablet and steroid nose spray every day to control my allergies. Now I also have to take my inhalers.

I’ve been emailing Adele every week for months on my progress with stopping drinking and attending therapy as a first step to feeling happier.

Here is a copy of this week’s email and her response…..

Still sober. Still here.

Today I feel like giving up fighting. Don't get me wrong.... this may be a good thing.

Many months ago I gave up trying to justify why I thought I could drink wine etc. because I liked it, and it wasn't fair that my body different and didn't like it. I spent so long for it not to be the case, but had to admit defeat and stop drinking (with your help of course). I’m still not happy about this at times, but that’s not important is it?

I've been trying to convince myself that I don't have asthma for about 6 months. Even to the point of not wanting to go to the doctors and hear the truth because that would make it real. I've made myself ill. Even going to see the nurse, it took the print out from a Spiro meter exam to show me it was real, I really didn't want it to be true. I didn't want to believe it, even whilst my body was shouting at me it was true.

Fast forward two weeks. I've gone running every day for the last week, and tried to eat a traditional 'healthy' diet. Fruit, pasta, pulses and beans. I lost 1.5lb and still feel like a bloated whale. How much more before I just accept what my body is telling me about carbs? Just stop fighting and accept it and do it? Stop having new launches every Monday. Just do it. Every meal, every time. For today I've done it. And I feel better. Not going to claim a victory yet, I am extremely stubborn and really don't want this to be true. Its really not FAIR!!

Why is this starting to sound like one of your essays? (grin)

Suzi,

I’m on my way to work, just a QUICK un-thought out response (maybe that’s best?)

You are HIGHLY allergic to grains.

Period.

Eat them, they give you asthma.

Why don’t you post this on your thread and let’s have at it.

So its official. I no longer have a choice in this if I want a healthy body / mind. My body has well and truly decided what it needs to be healthy. I have researched Adele’s comments on grains and asthma (did you really expect anything else? (grin)) Looks like all those other symptoms are important, and yes reading what’s out there in internet land I do not have a choice. Its how my body is.
So what have I done?

I’ve been running almost every morning (5KM) for 10 days. I started at 159.6 (being honest and that hurts) and by this Monday after all that hard work, but eating traditional healthy weighed at 158.2. I was gutted.

Have been eating well since Monday (13th) very early days but feel better already. Weight down to 155.8 this morning. I’m eating between 1,300 and 1,600 cals per day, around 35g net carbs including brazil nuts and almonds. My fibre is around 14g a day but can’t eat any more veg!

I give in. This is what my body needs and I’m tired of fighting. I’ve eat all those dream ‘high carb’ foods for the last few months, and they didn’t make me happy. One of the things I’ve come to understand after talking things through at therapy is the power of doing things rather than thinking them. Life is short. Too short for regrets. I want to move forward. I deserve to be happy, and I can make myself happy by being and feeling well.

If I can give up my red wine (I still miss it at times, I get frustrated I can’t have it, but that passes, those feelings are transient, you come out the other side without acting and move on) I can do this. One day at a time.

Click. Click. Click.

I’ll let you all know how it goes (did warn you it would be a little long)

Love,
Suzi

People go off lowcarb (as they almost always do eventually) then they come back to lowcarb lists proclaiming their chronic disease “mysteriously,” (they always say), came ROARING back “worse than ever”. Chronic problems like these often turn acute upon a dive off the lowcarb wagon.

The victims, in their remorse, usually connect this (vaguely) with “carbs”. But there is much medical literature—some of it alternative some of it mainstream—that connects these maladies with food intolerances and allergens, and wheat is often one of the prime culprits (as are often dairy and/or legumes—especially soy—if the health issues do not abate when folks are back to lowcarbing). This is by far the most common lather-rinse-repeat dance-cycle; what differs from person to person most often is the length of time it takes each individual to complete a whole cycle—anywhere from a few weeks to a few years.

There’s something about those of us with reactive bodies (anywhere on the spectrum from mildly to wildly) being given a respite from these allergens when we’re on lowcarb, most especially from the gluten-containing grains, that seems to become more intensely riled up if/when we try to put those allergens back into our bodies when they previously given the opportunity to begin recovering and healing. (This is one of the reasons why it seems so especially unhealthy to yo-yo with lowcarb.)

I read about this for years (chronic research y’know-wink), my big bugaboos were skin problems and IBS. But I think the bottom line is that your body, like most of ours, including mine, is reactive to substances that are part of many people’s everyday lives. That we don’t LIKE or WANT this to be the bottom-line truth (like a 12-year-old adolescent) doesn’t change this. We can only behave (eat) according to what our individual bodies need or not. Our bodies, which don’t understand bargains and never will, will respond back to us according to what we put in them. May as well try to plead with a brick wall, eh?

This all puts me in mind once again of an old post of mine that I included in its entirety as part of a response on Christina’s thread on 7/10/08. Here it is what I think the salient point here from that old post:

One of the many little miracles I've received from slowly making friends with my body (by stopping abusing it) is the ability to view my body as separate from me. At the risk of people falling down and laughing their heads off I'll tell you just exactly how this new relationship with my body feels.... my body has come to be this little child that lives with me, a child I love and take really good care of. A child that annoys me once in a while, sure. That child sometimes wants things that aren't good for her, things that will HURT her. And me, the person who loves and guides her, the one who is solely responsible for her well-being, firmly tells her no. She grouses a little sometimes, but y’know what? We used to HATE each other so much we couldn't even acknowledge each other's existence. And now we love each other, understand each other, and are the best of friends.

Suzi, much like I posted to Orvette on Sunday, the fact is that you are working on priorities and layers here. Although your situations are hardly identical (to me Orvette is clearly a more deeply entangled, fighting-denying addict, you’re a more subtle, “milder” addict—and while it may sound like I think you have the better/easier situation, I’m not sure that’s true at all...but that’s a whole ‘nother post, and I digress.) Nevertheless, the big picture is the same: you each have more than one addiction, you both juggle and switch addictions. Right now you are presently a little further along on the untangle path, the divide-and-SLOWLY, GENTLY-conquer solution.

You’ve force-removed the alcohol component and so now your body (petulant inner child) keeps pushing you (who is solely responsible for its well-being) for some other kind of “relief”, please anything but a quiet boring diet where you BOTH know you will probably begin to FEEL/think about things you don’t want to feel/think about—aaaaack!

Isn’t that really why you decided to eat “normal” pasta and legumes and stuff???—for some new noise-excitement in your life???

I give in. This is what my body needs and I’m tired of fighting. I’ve eaten all those dream ‘high carb’ foods for the last few months, and they didn’t make me happy. One of the things I’ve come to understand after talking things through at therapy is the power of doing things rather than thinking them. Life is short. Too short for regrets. I want to move forward. I deserve to be happy, and I can make myself happy by being and feeling well.

I do so hope you’ll keep on giving in this way—that you’ll keep on click-click-clicking. (That’s the thing about this “giving in”...it only lasts as long as we keep consistently deciding it.) I hope that you now have the strength to begin building “it” back, that is building a different, simpler, healthier, stronger pattern-response-LIFE, one uncomplicated, clean day at a time. The alcohol abstinence still has to come first, but if you’re strong enough, then the next step (yep, even if you wish it weren’t so) is to stabilize and strengthen your food-life foundation. If it’s too soon for this, if you find yourself battling alcohol again, and find you simply must bargain with the food—well then you STILL wouldn’t have to go back to eating grains. (make sense?)

And finally, of course I have to wonder out loud for your consideration in your hourly decisions: is everything you’re trying to avoid feeling really as terrible as the pounding, beating you keep piling in and on to your weakening body? Wouldn’t it be easier, simpler to just go ahead and FEEL it all? (Please don’t forget therapy if it gets to be too much.)

Keep us posted honey.

Adele (143 this morning)
----------
168/140, Size 16/8
Lowcarbing 12+ years
Maintaining at goal 8+ years
Moderator/Owner
adele@leadwiththediet.com

Last Edited on 15-Oct-2008 11:48 AM