More power to ya kiddo, sigh. I address a lot of why I say this in the article Why You Won’t Find the Rules of “Gold Standard Lowcarb” Here. You’re essentially eating inadequate-calorie gold standard.

In your excitement, you’re unlikely to like, let alone believe, what I say, I know you’re positive you’re different, everything is different this time, you’re an exception to the pattern, in less than 3 weeks you’ve really, totally turned your eating—and soon your whole life—around. But to me this reads like a recipe for almost certain eventual crash and burn, freight-train regain lurking. Please read Debby’s and LaVergne’s threads to see where drastic, too-much-too-soon tweaking in Debby’s case and not enough calories for LaVergne over time seems to have led each of them. Sigh. BOTH were as enthusiastic as you in the first months, no?

Sure, I could be wrong. But I am not wrong that you would have a much higher probability of longer term success if you’d consider upping your calories AND especially your carbs to the levels I recommend in A Better Diet for Chronically Restarting Lowcarbers and begin trading slower, boring, but steady results for the heady rush you’re experiencing now. We addicts love wild, it’s mild that we detest. But gentle, mild, boring, is what is a zillion times more likely to last.

I’m sure I've made you furious, I’m sorry to throw cold water on 3 weeks of your hard work and sacrifice, I even feel a little bad about writing this on a Saturday—at the beginning of a weekend, where it’s even more likely to irritate you into eating crap... But this is a place for no BS truth and that is the truth as I see it (including the truth that I could be wrong...)

Stephie, I'm glad you're here but I'd be even gladder if you'd gentle down with this. I hope you'll stay in touch here.

P.S. The reason you felt so drugged after your meal at IHOP on June 14 is because they are well-known for adding pancake batter (wheat!) to their scrambled egg mix. (Google IHOP + lowcarb + eggs you’ll get more than 5,000 hits.) Eating clean and totally away from problem foods for even a very short time, you REALLY felt the difference. To be totally sure you’re getting nothing but eggs in a restaurant, I would urge you to order them poached, basted, over easy or sunny side up.

Adele (140 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 28-Jun-2008 7:23 AM

Lunch most days is a nice size salad, I have an antique mixing bowl that would be like the second to the smallest on a pyrex set so it it a good size but not too huge. I have a quarter of a small home grown tomato, a slice on onion, one to two cloves fresh garlic minced, a couple inches of cucumber and usually a half of a small avocado, and then either a boneless skinless chcken breast or some organic tuna, and then I am working my way up to a full serving of flax seeds and I am at a half a serving, 1 tablespoon of flax seed meal and then I add two tablespoons of organic mayo, and a tablespoon of olive oil and a tablespoon of unprocessed apple cider vinegar, and mix it all together and then add some romain and red and green leaf lettuces i rip up into pieces as I put in the bowl.
We both look forward to this salad and it tastes so good.
Dinner most nights is my chicken thighs, but sometimes i mix it up and have a steak or pork but usually the chicken with either steamed green beans or broc with some butter and salt and pepper. We use the organic sea salt that is unbleached and it has such a nice mild salty taste.
I do not have many snacks, I do not want them, but some nights if I eat dinner very early, since I am up very late, I will have a chicken thigh or hard boiled egg or two later in the evening.
That is is a normal day. I rarely vary much from this.
Well, the odd thing is, I had fried eggs at IHOP because I know about the batter, I had to wonder about contaminiation form the cooking surface or utensils, can you be that sensitive ??
I did put away my kitchen aid mixer as I will not be using it and I put away our blender as no shakes in our future either .
I do not feel like we have made a huge change because it has been so easy for me , but I know you are right and we have, and we must be careful to not crash and burn. It is weird how easy it was to do this and I have to believe it was giving up the sweetners AND caffien that have made the differance and I know that dairy has been a craving issue in the past. Induction was horrid, but I feel good now. and still cannot believe the two liter a day diet dr pepper was replaced with just water and I am enjoying it !!
I have been reading the other posts here and will take your advice and read the others. I do not want to ever go back to where I was again.
I feel good and feel clean. It is a wonderful feeling and for the first time EVER on low carb, I have not had any bathromm issues, I am more regular than normal, that has been wonderful !!
My hubby and I are talking about gettng to goal and how we feel and we are both so excited. I think we both feel this time we are on the right track. No talks of planned cheats, which always happened in the past, we will not be dong that this time. we both acknowledge this is how we have to eat for life if we want a healthy life ahead of us.
We are slowing getting the excercise going, a bit at a time, we are both ready to push it a bit. He has a very physically active job so he is in much better shape than I am, but he needs the sustained walking and arobics that he does not get at work.
I do promise to read and think and be very careful as I know my past so well. I do know that I was at a place in my life that I could not stand another minute feeling the way I did and something had to give. My husband is just as committed to the plan as I am but I also know what he does or does not do cannot have an impact on what I do. I do get that.
I do want your advice and did not mean to be so rah rah when I came back, I am just truely estatic with how we are doing and how we feel !! my mild depression is gone and my energy is coming back and I feel great and it is showing in all aspects of my life.
I do appreciate all the advice and will reread your answer and all the posts you recommmend.
Thanks and I will update every week or two. Today is day 21 and I am very excited and proud to say that !!
Stephie
I wanted to add that I hope you could tell that some days I just never finished adding the foods for that day. I will make the effort to do the fitday every day, and did tonight, so I have it as a reference. Nothing is more important than doing this right, so I will stop being lazy. Thanks !!!

Last Edited on 28-Jun-2008 8:43 PM

Last Edited on 30-Jun-2008 12:11 PM

You don’t have to change a thing and I can imagine that it would be tough for you to loosen your grip on something that seems to be working miracles for you. Clearly your body absolutely LOVES clean food, your dramatic loss is partly indicative of that. And of course I would never advise you or anyone else to eat dirtier! (grin). What’s more, dairy, which you say you’ve eliminated, does seem to become an almost universal problem food for CRLs, most of us do a lot better with little or none of it. If you’re doing noticeably better without it, well dairy is certainly not a necessary part of any lowcarb food plan.

But yes, I do think that you should begin eating eat more high quality food, assuming you’re not eating enough. As I mentioned, your Fitday records do seem incomplete. Since you say you’re eating virtually the same thing each day, it shouldn’t be difficult for you to get a handle on about how many calories you’re truly getting and adjust accordingly. Perhaps you are eating more calories than you are charting. If that’s the case, then your spectacular losses to me would indicate that your body is highly reactive and needs clean foods to move forward, and I would advise you to keep on keeping on.

If indeed you are not eating enough calories, well sure you could be different, but everyone else I’ve ever observed who does it this way may not feel hungry at first—especially with the euphoria of almost daily losses to spur you on. You’re not feeling hungry now, but you are slowly building a hunger deficit, and at some future point the bill is going to come due. You’re going to be HUNGRY, and then eventually find yourself in some kind of difficult situation where it will be easy to begin rationalizing and bargaining about how you’ve been so good and lost so well that you can afford to overeat, or eat a little (even lowcarb) crap. Your highly reactive body will most likely rail in response and it’s possible you’ll go a little crazy with how mysterious and unfair it all is. And surely you know how prone we are to binge when we “go a little crazy”?

I believe you could prevent/mitigate a lot of that now by gently increasing your calories to the levels I suggest. We don’t go nearly as nuts when we’re not starving.

I do think you could learn Fitday...the cleaner and simpler you eat, the simpler it is to keep track, and when you eat basically the same thing every day, it’s especially easy. After you’re sure you’ve included adequate fiber and moderate protein, adding fat (at ~110 calories per tablespoon) is the best fastest and easiest way to add calories. I don’t think I’d worry about the mayo right now, esp. if it’s small amounts, but if/when losses stop, I’d look at mayo more like one of Atkins’ special category foods. Vinegar (along with a few other yeast-promoting foods) would only be a problem if your weight loss stops cold before you reach a healthy weight for your body and you aren’t otherwise cheating. Only then you might need to look at making anti-yeast changes.

Of course this is all your call, I’m just here reporting and discussing what I’ve observed in myself and others from the time I finally untangled my own long life of food bargaining, working on staying on the path myself. I don’t know how many calories you’re eating from what you describe—but I do think it would be worth your effort to chart it out carefully to see for yourself.

But most importantly, given your goodbye post, I would strongly urge you not to throw out the baby with the bathwater here. Your body is clearly, strongly responding to clean. It’s clearly trying to tell you something—you do have a big puzzle piece in your solution here.

Take care Stephie.

Adele (141 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 1-Jul-2008 4:54 AM