The two biggest diet problems I think most people have are:

(1) a refusal (it’s not an “inability”) to eat evenly and consistently. The most typical pattern—once someone is actually staying on plan—is staying on lowcarb, but going constantly back-and-forth between eating too much and too little.

2) including too much dairy, processed, and special category foods (often this includes alcohol) and not eating nearly enough vegetables and fiber. Honestly, those are the only (simple but challenging) diet changes most people need to incorporate.

I have outlined what I have found is a better diet program for people in your situation in A Better Diet for Chronically Restarting Lowcarbers, and I will gladly examine your diet and recommend any changes I think would be helpful if you will carefully log at least one, preferably two, straight weeks of solid lowcarb eating on Fitday, then post or e-mail me a link to your journal.

There are numerous examples of people here who, so far, are slowly and thoughtfully committing themselves to consistent change. That one-day-at-a-time commitment (including a few baby-steps back here and there) is SLOWLY leading them, toward the goals they want for themselves.

I have read so much low carb crap that I have really confused myself.

That’s actually a common behavior element of the whole CRL pattern Leanna, constantly trying to research ourselves out of this problem. If you don’t know all the answers, surely you can’t be expected to succeed, right? We will never read or research our way to change. Knowledge isn’t what we need, at least beyond that diet-change article. It’s “do-ledge.” See Information You Don’t Need

I need them in my face

No one can be in your face—it’s that you need to get and stay in your own face, stay on your own case, no hiding the truths from yourself, with a simple, daily plan that you continually muster the wherewithal to actually stick to, no matter how momentarily uncomfortable it makes you or anyone else. You won’t WANT to follow that plan 24/7/365, even when it’s working beautifully—perhaps especially not when it’s working beautifully. My old pattern, and I’m guessing yours too, was to believe (and behave!) that it’s appropriate—and let’s not forget fair!—to take a break once things are going well. Once we’ve got things under control we keep deciding that it SHOULD be okay to lose it. That’s our addict’s sadly twisted (but conveniently self-sustaining), “logic” that rules our behavior.

The fact that we tend to hide in times of inconsistency cannot be remedied by getting someone else to keep us from doing that. Failure to post here, failure to disclose your truths, once you’ve made yourself a place, is what will “out” you on that front, and sadly there are examples here of that too. There’s nothing special or magic here, just a lack of distracting cajoling and other various B.S. you’ll find elsewhere, along with the sometimes glaringly uncomfortable opportunity to make good in on this one single promise to yourself.

Welcome aboard, Leanna. Now’s your chance to take over the reigns of your journey and begin walking yourself to where you’ve probably been trying, hoping to run for a long time. I hope you’ll decide to do what your body requires from you. I hope you’ll get and stay accountable primarily to yourself, and that you will find your participation here, overall, a strengthening part of that journey.

What information do I need to give you?

Well, I am always curious about how old each participant is. (I’m 57)

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

I’m assuming you’re eating a lot more food than 892 calories per day, right? You want to aim for 2036-2086 per day right now, and recalculate and adjust that amount after each 10 pounds of weight you lose. The closer you stay within the parameters of A Better Diet for Chronically Restarting Lowcarbers the better this will ALL work.

Weigh yourself ONE time each day, first thing in the morning, right after urinating. Expect slight fluctuations. The closer you stick to real unprocessed foods, the less fluctuation you will see.

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

I'm thinking that you're a little too new on your low carb journey to be eating oatmeal. Just my opinion, though.

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Atkins since 12/29/03
maintenance since 9/23/05

The nice thing about Atkins is ... if you're hungry, eat.

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Atkins since 12/29/03
maintenance since 9/23/05

I think you would be much better served for the time being on a generalist lowcarb list with much more frequent interaction, where you can get established and rolling on a strong lowcarb diet. I feel certain Sue Ellen can steer you to several good places for that.

When you get yourself to around 165 come back and we’ll begin the next phase, deal?

Adele (143 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 4-Jan-2008 10:27 AM

However, if for no other reason than to help keep this from happening again with someone else, I’m going to leave this now-incomplete thread up and rename it, and ask at the top that others read this thread before deciding they want to join in. I have also decided to rework the introduction to the message board a bit, trying to clarify what I want to focus on here.

I was trying to help Leanna, but clearly I over-reacted somewhat to the mistakes she was making with her diet, especially in comparison to how I’ve treated others who didn’t even try to use Fitday. She and I have corresponded privately, she has forgiven me, but I felt it important to apologize here as well.

In fairness to her, she stated in her original post that she wanted someone in her face to tell her what she was doing wrong—I addressed the “in her face” part in my first post to her, declining to provide that service. Perhaps I should have realized and stated then that this wasn’t a place to expect basic beginning diet advice either. But in fairness to me, I expected her to have a grasp of the basics from her previous experience on lowcarb, plus all the reading she said she’d done on this site. But from the initial menus she posted that seemed not to be the case.

The heart of the matter is that I don’t want to provide space here for providing basic lowcarb information (other than what’s already in the Essays) because I believe it distracts from what I want to focus on here. Besides, there are numerous fantastic places all over the net for getting that kind of beginning help and encouragement.

I’m burning out. I want to stay with this, I had some strong personal convictions for beginning this website, and after some hard thought and reflection, it’s something I still feel committed to carrying on with.

I am relentlessly straightforward about lowcarbing; I had to become that way to get it to work in my life. I think not being straightforward with ourselves and our inconsistencies is the biggest reason why so few people, addicted eaters particularly, manage to get to and more importantly STAY at goal. Many find my attitude or approach arrogant or condescending, and of course anyone is free to feel that way and not participate. But as you make that determination, I hope you’ll also consider that trying to help people who won’t help themselves can sometimes be its own kinds of painful and frustrating.

Nevertheless, in this instance I did overreact to Leanna’s eating, and she deserves this apology.

Adele (143 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 12-Jan-2008 2:30 PM

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Leanna
my.sparkpeople.com/LEANNA64
267/239/140

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Atkins since 12/29/03
maintenance since 9/23/05