There's a ton of sugar in BBQ sauce and, if you're like most people
here, it will give you cravings you wouldn't otherwise have--causing
you to eat much more chicken than you otherwise would. Not to mention
biscuits and gravy, coleslaw (yes, there is a TON of sugar in most
coleslaw), potato salad, etc.

Get hold of a carb counting chart and study it carefully.  Or ask
yourself how much you really want to lose that weight.

Don't be afraid of a little homework. Food manufacturers are using all
their brainpower to get us to buy sugar-filled crap. We need to use
our brains to fight back.

Dave

I agree that it is a pain to enter stuff into fitday. I do not do it,
myself, in fact I lost 47 lbs without even knowing how many calories I
was eating. But I knew I ate less than my maintenance amount since I
was losing weight.

Well, it's your life.

No, it won;t. The point of low carbing is that you can eat unlimited
fat and protein because you are limiting carbs. Limiting carbs reduces
your appetite and how much your body can use. If you overdo carbs,
then this no longer holds. You would need, then, to count calories, if
you want to not get fat.

Just buy the cheap vitamins...

i

Hey Mike,

I'm glad you weren't offended by what I said, but I felt I needed to say it.
I wish I would have had someone say something like that to me a few years
ago.  I'll give you a quick rundown of my story:

Back in '98 I was really fat.  316, 6' tall.  I had half-assed tried to lose
the weight dozens of different ways and times and I lost a few pounds here
and there, but never anything great... and I always put more back on.  Well,
in the early summer, one day I woke up and decided that I had enough.  I
read 'the book'(Atkins' New Diet Revolution) and went at it with every ounce
of my being.  I ended up losing 108 (one hundred and eight) pounds over the
course of several months.  Early in 1999, I had increased my workouts.  I
was leg pressing every 45pound plate in my gym for 12 reps on my final set,
I was working out with the 100 pound dumbbells for incline and flat bench,
doing hundreds of pushups and situps everyday, running/biking and playing
racquetball.  I had people coming up to me that I hadn't seen since
HighSchool telling me how awesome I looked.  Then I hit rock bottom.
Personal issues happened.  I got really depressed and went on a
few-year-long bender of eating everything that could fit into my mouth.

Now here I am sitting in front of a computer, 360 pounds, 12 days into my
induction, and feeling great with it.  I'm 24 years old and I can't run up a
flight of steps without feeling like I'm going to die.  I like to go out,
drink, and eat with my friends.  Its tough to watch my carbs, but I've
decided that I want to lose the weight.  I'm a professional in my field and
I know the difficulties of leading a 'real life' and trying to work in a
low-carb diet into a 9-5 with the stresses of finding a house, getting my
job done, getting my side projects done, and having a social life.

From my past exposure to this way of eating, I know what foods I can eat and
how the plan works.  It has become second nature to me again.  If I go out
to eat, I'll eat ribs... dry (BBQ on the side for a little smear here and
there for taste).  I don't drink.  I don't eat carbs.  Next Monday, I'm
starting back at the gym.  Sitting on the bike for a half hour.

Why did I tell you this?  Inspiration.  I hate to consider myself weak of
mind, but for the last 5 years my mind was weak.  I made excuses about this
and that and had carbs here and there.  That became, "I've already eaten
100g of carbs... a few beers won't hurt me any more. I'll start tomorrow."
That became, I'll start on Monday.  That became, "I'll start on the 1st of
the Month".  They add up.

My advice to you is to hunker down.  Look at yourself in the mirror and ask
yourself how bad you really want it.  If that means giving up rum and cokes,
BBQ ribs, etc. then so be it.  You'll thank yourself for it later.

Get yourself a few copies of the books.  Keep them in your car, work, and at
home.  Get yourself a couple copies of the Nutritional guides.  Keep one at
home and one in your car.  If you have questions on what you can eat... use
the guides.  Get yourself through those tough 2 weeks of induction and stick
with it.  Throwing yourself out of LC and back into carb-cravings is a
nightmare.

I like to consider myself a rationalist.  I think about life in terms of
opportunity cost.  Last night, when my mother was going out for pizza and
sundaes(which is tough, because my father owns the pizzeria), I wanted
it...but I thought about the cost of eating one versus the cost of NOT
eating it.  Throwing my 12 hard days getting into induction down the toilet.
I had some steak and 2 liters of zero-carb flavored water instead.

Once you get into the stage of continued weight loss, you can bring your
carbs up to a point where you can live 'realistically' and eat certain
things.  It isn't hard to do if you know how to do it.  I don't use
spreadsheets, websites, etc. to track my progress.  Its nice for people to
see and to be able to show people, but I *KNOW* that if I do the right
things, it will happen.

I see a lot of the same feelings that I have/had in your post, and I
Empathize with you.  I know how ya feel.  I've been there, I AM there, and I
make those decisions every day. You have to make the decision for yourself.

I hope you(and anyone else reading) can take a little bit away from the
problems that I've had and apply it.  I know it sounds pompous, but that's
the way I feel.  Stay strong and make good decisions.  You can do it.

Be good.

-Dough

You want to change the way you eat to be more healthy, lose weight and hopefully
not gain any MORE weight.  You might want to consider being a little more strict
in the short term in order to establish new habits AND lose weight.  Once you
reach your goal, you can go on maintenance and not be as strict, but still have
new, healthy habits.  

By going low-carb, you will deplete the emergency glycogen stores in your liver.  
Once those emergency stores are used up, your body will turn to burning FAT for
fuel instead of glycogen.  Generally, cravings for carbs will subside
DRAMATICALLY once those glycogen stores are used up.  The body becomes used to
using fat (dietary and body) for fuel.  By eating higher carb, the glycogen
stores start filling up again and not only do you have to start over in order to
deplete them again, but your body starts getting used to burning glycogen again
and urges you to continue to provide this sugary fuel by making you crave more.  
Once the glycogen store in the liver is filled, most excess carbs (and fat) that
isn't excreted will be stored as FAT.  Understanding the process things makes it
easier to make wise decisions.  

This WOE works well for most people, compared to other diets, because you can eat
more food and more SATISFYING food (i.e., fat).  The cravings subside
substantially and you feel full longer, so you end up taking in fewer calories
and NOT feeling particularly deprived.  Most people also find that many of their
health problems also subside and/or completely go away, which is great incentive
to stay on-plan.  

People DO have days where they go off-plan occasionally and even plan on it.  
However, by being vigilent MOST of the time, they still lose weight.  If they
fall HARD off the wagon, they can go back to induction only long enough to
deplete the glycogen stores again, then move back to ongoing weight loss levels.  

By NOT keeping track of your carb intake and allowing yourself to keep eating
whatever is around because it's easier, you are, at best, not going to lose much,
if any, weight and, at worst, gain.  If you want to do low-carb, you need to
commit to it because by increasing the fat intake but NOT keeping the carbs down,
you WILL gain weight.  

You can change your habits and be healthier, but if you want to actually LOSE
weight along with being healthier, you need to either do low-carb according to a
plan or try another way of eating.  

Lemme stop you right there for a sec.  Just do fitday for a couple of
weeks.  Sometimes you'll be surprised at how high your carbs were,
sometimes you'll be surprised at how low they were.  If you do it for a few
weeks, I think that's long enough to see what your typical eating is like,
and you'll get the gist of how many carbs are in stuff, and then you'll be
able to wing it a lot better.  I'm winging it myself, I just cut out
obviously carby things without counting specific numbers of carbs or
following the Atkins regimen of induction and upping carbs afterwards, and
I'm losing.

If you enjoy the workouts, one possibility is to simply alternate days
for which sets of muscles you work out.  For example, work on the legs
and stomach MWF and work on the arms and chest/back TThSa, that sort
of thing.  The muscles get their rebuilding day while you are in the
gym every day.