I have low carbed a few times in the past. Once when I was in my 20's
and needed to lose 20 lbs.  I was very active then.  I gained once in my
thirties when my daughter was born--i couldn't move after the
c-section-it literally took years to heal, but eventually I low carbed
and exercised and got way down, and stayed there.  Then a few years ago,
i used to swim for hours a day, and got an ear infection.  I quit
swimming and gained horribly.  Now I'm too lazy to move. I'm like a
beached whale. The spector of exercise is hanging over my head. I know
i'm going to have to do it, but...I hate it. I hate dragging around the
paraphernalia. I hate squeezing it into my busy life.  I hate sweating.
I like being a lazy lump of flab. I have the lifestyle of a pillow.
Mostly I sit in a chair in the den, and occasionally I fluff myself.

So...I had gotten seriously fat. (When I mean serious, I mean serious.)
In March or so, I weighed around 290.  I had taken my mother to the
hospital, and used their scale while I was waiting or her.

Then the next day or so, I was bitten by a brown recluse spider, and
pretty much ate nothing, and was in a state of delirium for much of
April and May.

I got a new scale to weigh on at home (a cheapo, that if you weigh 10
times in a row, you get 10 different numbers--but it is good for telling
in general if you've gone up or down.) And when I was able to start
eating, I just naturally veered to low carbing. I haven't had sugar
since March.

So I have gone down from 290 to around 240 and need to get to around
100.  At least 100 is my goal, but when i get to 120, I will reassess
the situation.  At the rate I'm going, it will be in 2008 or 9. (sigh)
The thing is, I could work harder at it, but if I do, I'll get
resentful, and cheat. The biggest cheat I've had this month has been a
1/2 cup prepackaged apple sauce--and even that  fit into my day's totals.

Not exactly good, but much better than when I high carb. I'm really
getting lethargic enough that maybe I should have my thyroad checked.

No--but I am going to do this until I am a normal weight, and then I'll
see if I can manage to see if i can tolerate more than 20 grams of carb
a day.  The truth is, I probably won't ever be able to eat like a
"normal" person, but I don't want to face it.

Higher fat now. If I stall, changing the fat content is right up there
with exercising. But I generally keep track of what I eat anyway, and I
rarely eat more than 1000 calories worth of food a day.

I eat pretty much all the veggies I can. (Always have.) I just cut out
starches.  NO rice, potatoes, carrots, bread, etc.

I eat tomatoes, artichokes, squash, and pretty much everything you'd
normally put in a salad. Spinach. Cucumbers. Bok Choy.

Absolutely.  The way I eat, the only thing I truly avoid are foods with
sugar added and high starch content.

Sure. We're omnivores. The body needs carbs, it just doesn't need dolly
madison, hostess or little debbies cupcakes.  Just think of how you're
car might get  fat if it could store gasoline it doesn't use and won't
fit in the tank..

I usually keep it around 20 grams per day. Yesterday I had a whole
spagetti squash with butter for dinner. If I go over, it's usually with
a veggie responsible.

Because for some reason when I carb count, I can control what i eat.  I
don't think serving sizes of potatoes rice and bread are something I can
control.  In fact, even if I control them, I want more.

But I fill up on protein every easily.  For some reason, if I focus on
meat-chicken-fish and low glycemic veggies, my calories just NATURALLY
stay around 1000 cal per day.

But this is the thing. I am barely 5 feet tall.  I know I will be
exercising soon--I will HAVE to, if I want to keep losing.  I keep
certain things in mind for stalls.  Like exercising. Or cutting out
another food item, etc. Or temporarily cutting out nuts, fats, or going
on a fat fast.

  04/27/05

  Pretty good, although not significantly better than when I was not
low-carbing. I seem to get joint problems less (probably from less
weight). I also worry about being hungry far less often - simply
because I seem to attain sateity much more easily and for much longer
periods.

  I'm sure I *can." Whether I will or not is another question... I'll
say this much: I see no reason to change my habits, given how things
have gone for me.

  Than before I started LC? Probably I'm eating much higher fat. I
start every day with an animal fat infusion, typically (in the forms of
bacon or sausage and eggs), I tend to eat high-fat LC snacks like nuts,
Atkins bars, and cheese, and my dinners usually feature high-fat salad
dressing, cheese crumbles, and bacon bits.

  Every night I eat a large salad with dinner. Mostly I go through
lots of "salad veggies" every week (e.g., lettuce, mushrooms, onions,
tomatoes, etc).

  I'm not entirely sure. I certainly look (and more or less feel)
healthier than I have in my life. However, I have a lot of traditional
medical folks in my immediate family and know some doctors in my work,
and most either seem uncomfortable, medically, with what I'm doing, or
are downright critical.

  Well, sure. Your brain runs on glucose, from what I understand.

  I have no clue.

  Well, I guess my approach to dieting has worked out so well simply
because I *don't* eat for the purposes of satisfying some numerical
threshold - I simply eat until I'm satisfied. Low-fat and low-calorie
don't work for me b/c they tended to get me away from that.

  Wow, and we didn't even go on a date.   :-)

  260/203/200 (weekend carb fluctuation again - grrr)
  lc since 4/27/05

In news:1153917356.878611.97160@m73g2000cwd.googlegroups.com,
catskills@monmouth.com <catskills@monmouth.com> stated

Three years.

Pretty good, it varies but has nothing to do with what I eat, weather
affects me a lot more than food.  I'm 70 years old and have some aches and
pains.

Yes, it's very easy to eat this way.  I never was a pasta lover and potatoes
are no big deal.  I do miss bread a bit, was never a sandwich eater but
loved my homemade multigrain breads.  I do get a "bread" fix with my morning
muffin which is made with CarbQuik, almonds, poppy seeds, flax, oat fiber,
Splenda, Hood's Carb Countdown milk, cottage cheese, butter and
eggs--occasional variations with coconut or sunflower seeds.  I make a dozen
of these and have one each morning (22 g fat, 5 net carbs, 9 g protein).  My
SO is thin, has never been fat so I cook the same things for both of us but
will give him rice--with stir fries or as a side dish--or potatoes.  He's
not a bread eater and only has buns with the kielbasa sausages that I grill
while I eat mine plain.  There are plenty of options for a sweet tooth, SF
Jello with cream, LC ice cream, etc.

High fat.

At least two a day, usually a salad of some type plus another veggie.  All
kinds of non-starchy veggies, spinach, tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, onions,
green beans, broccoli, cauliflower, zucchini, occasional acorn squash--it's
a bit higher in carbs but a definite treat, eggplant, a few carrots in
soups, artichoke hearts, cabbage, celery, I'm sure I've forgotten some.

Yes, I can't believe it is harmful not to eat potatoes, pasta, grains and
sugar.

Not carbs, but the trace elements and vitamins that accompany the carbs in
LC vegetables.  Your body converts protein to glucose if it's needed.

I average a bit under 40.  I do keep track of everything in FitDay.

Three years ago my brother and SIL gave me DANDR and Protein Power.  I had
sworn I would never diet again, weighed a bit over 290 and would like to
weigh less but was unwilling to put any work into it.  However, reading
these books I decided I would embark on an experiment, eating low carb not
exactly following either program to the letter but following the general
principles and see what happened.  As a result I lost 60 pounds but that is
where I stopped.  I never liked to exercise and with the addition of the
pain it now causes me it just isn't going to happen.  Per FitDay I average
about 1800 calories a day, cutting back would be work.  I do feel quite a
bit better at 230 than I did at 290.   From reading this group I have
concluded that I am probably pre-diabetic so eating low carb is wise.

I don't consider myself to be "on a diet", I simply don't eat certain foods.
I never had a goal, just entered into an experiment which turned out to be a
desirable WOE.

since 1999.

better and healthier than I've ever felt

absolutely

high fat

all kinds of fresh veggies, at least one serving per meal

absolutely

it can get what it wants from meats and whole fresh produce

no more than 100 grams per day

because low carb works! and calorie counting fails in more than 95% of
cases, and when I tried low-calorie I ended up gaining more weight and
my health deteriorated

Eat real foods. stay away form processed fake crap foods. If it has a
label it is too processed. eat real fresh whole food right from the
producer. or grow it yourself.

TC

A little over 3 years.

GREAT!  Eating low-carb has cleared up seveal digestive problems for me,
practically overnight, and that's my number 1 reason to CONTINUE low-
carbing.  

Yes.

Higher or lower than what?  I like to think of it as just enough fat :-)

I eat veggies almost every day.  It's hard to say how much.  I often
make a big (2-3 servings) salad of cucumbers, tomatoes, jicama, celery,
green onion, cheese, olives, avocados and whatever else I feel like
adding.  I eat a lot of zucchini.  Sometimes I make a jicama version of
fruit salad.  I also like to stir fry with jicama, celery, zucchini and
whatever else might be on hand.  

Yes.

I don't think it's necessarily a REQUIREMENT, but I think it's a good
idea to have some basic carbs on a regular basis, as long as they are
kept relatively low.  

I try to keep them around 50.

Because it works.  That said, since I decided I had reached an ideal
weight (and as I got closer to it), I also have had to count calories,
particuarly since I am very sedentary.  Keeping low-carb is easy --
keeping low-cal is much harder and I find it to be a daily struggle.  

I mostly lurk, but I'll butt in here to answer the survey. :-)

2 1/2 years

Better than I have at any time in the last 20 years.

HOWEVER. I quit smoking about 3 months before starting low-carbing,
and I had my gallbladder out approximately 3 months after starting.
Both of those events probably had a lot of influence on my general
health.

Yup. Pretty much.

Higher.

Lets see...lots of salad veggies, including lettuce, spinach,
radishes, peppers, avocado, onions, celery, tomatoesetc. Then there's
the broccoli, cauliflower, raw carrots, green beans, brussels sprouts,
etc. I eat fruit as well. You can now buy low-cal low-carb cranberry
or grapefruit juice, and I also eat 1/2 a banana every once in a
while, an apple occasionally, and lots of berries, peaches, mangos,
etc in smoothies. Even the odd bit of pineapple, which is a really
high-carb fruit, but I like it.

Yes. As someone already said. What's so "unsafe" about not eating
potatoes, bread, and rice.

Don't know. But I get enough through the veggies and fruits.

I'm not too sure, because I stopped tracking. Probably between 50 and
100.

It seems to work better for me. And, like I said - I feel like a
million bucks. Not going to mess with success.

I should mention that I do eat a small amount of bread as well, at
times. (I like Weight Watchers whole wheat or multigrain, because the
slices are small.) But I still consider my overall diet to be
low-carb, because I keep the grains at a minimum and try to avoid
refined sugar as much as possible.

Jo Anne

Our bodies manufactur glucose for fuel and ribose and dioxyribose
for RNA and DNA.  As such they may be necessary for life but
there is no need whatsoever for them in our diet.  Humans can and
do live long health lives living hunting lifestyles on the polar ice
cap.  On the other hand consider that they eat raw fish guts and
consider it a delicacy - Most folks in most cultures will not *want*
to eat what it takes to get to truely zero carbs.

On the other hand read a bunch of the popular books on low
carbing.  There isn't a single one of them that considers heading
for zero to be a normal thing and even the lowest of the plans
(Atkins) only suggests going to near-zero levels for short periods
of time as a tool solve solve specific problems that rarely apply
to most folks.

While it's tempting to think that since low carbs is good, lower
carbs must be better and zero carbs must be best, it simply is
not true.  It is obvious but never confuse obvious with true.  The
Earth is obviously flat and the Sun obviously goes around the
Earth.  The flat Earth idea is the exact same logic, too.  Since
the Earth looks flat from someone standing on the ground (low
carbs is good) therefore it must stay flat farther away like standing
at the top of a very high tower (lower carbs must be better) and
it must stay flat even when you've in space looking back (zero
carbs must be best).  But none of it actually works that way.

If lower carbs actually gave better loss, wouldn't every single low
carb plan out there tell you to head for zero?  Yet not one plan
says that ever and the fat fast of Atkins has a list of severe
restrictions that are widely ignored by people who want lower to
be better.

Authors who write these books spend a decade or more working
on them.  Lower-is-better is *so* obvious.  What's the chance that
all of these doctors ignored the obvious and never tried near
zero carbs?  Yet there isn't a plan out there that drives you lower
and lower.  Clearly lower doesn't give better results when you
track enough people over enough time like the book authors have.

Dietary carbs may not be needed at all for life, but going to that
extreme definitely doesn't work for loss as well as the milder
carb levels suggested by every low carb book out there.