This message board is not typical. It is an advanced, challenging, tough love kind of forum. It is not for everyone, it is especially not for people in their early months of lowcarbing, nor is it for Chronically Restarting Lowcarbers (CRLs) who merely hope to, or think they should, get “back on the wagon.” If that’s your situation, I hope you’ll be able to use some of the essays and message board threads on this site to help spur you to a more fundamental, permanent change.
Before considering participation on the message board, please read the thread Ready or Not? as well as the essay Why No Cheerleading Here? It would also be a good idea to read some of the Essays as well as at least a couple of the message board threads all the way through to get a feel for the intensely straightforward atmosphere and to gauge whether this is an appropriate forum for you in your journey for beginning to address these later-stage issues.
I expect participants to enter understanding and following a clean, cheat-free lowcarb diet (outlined in The 8 Secrets of Lowcarb Success and several other Essays) for at least 8-12 weeks, with a brain and emotions that are not off-kilter and under the influence of recent off-plan eating. I also want participants to focus only on themselves and what they are doing (and not doing) in the addictive eating behavior part of their lives and to separate that as much as possible from any other distractions in their lives—including attempting to help or “support” others here—preferably until they have reached and been able to maintain a healthy body weight for a few years.
This self-focus is an approach that makes a lot of people uncomfortable. If it’s not something you feel ready to face, please don’t risk putting yourself in the spotlight to receive it. But if you get to a place in this journey where you feel yourself beginning to come a little unraveled with the double-edged sword that lowcarb seems to be becoming for you, and you feel ready to examine and possibly make some simple changes in the way you manage yourself, your feelings, and the inconsistencies in your food decisions, if you feel you would benefit from some straightforward coaching and input from someone who has found ways to stop, for many years now, her own similar self-destructive patterns, and you are willing to let other people glean what they will from those exchanges and the journal-history you slowly build here, this is a forum for that.
If you’re not sure, feel free to e-mail me. Adele Stratton, list owner, adele@leadwiththediet.com
