[buriedbeds]

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Nicely written and an enjoyable read.

I'm gonna be a little cruel and pull you up on your first paragraph though. You say you have great willpower yet how were you continually putting on weight until last year? Were you really throwing yourself into your past diets or was it half-hearted?

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I tried literally everything you can name. I ate the pre-packaged foods, etc. etc. etc. NOTHING worked.

I DO have great willpower - anyone who knows me will attest to this. I seriously am a pretty tenacious son of a bitch. But the problem - for me - is and always was carbohydrates. I honestly believe that over time it will be bourne out that a certain segment of society has a genetic predisposition to carbohydrate addiction - just like there's a genetic predisposition to alcohol addiction. Because I literally can not describe to you the despair I've been through in my life trying to lose weight and then hitting a wall and just breaking down because - even if I did lose a little weight on another program - I was just so hungry literally all the time.

I once saw a weightloss special on PBS where a doctor used the following analogy - for some people, losing weight is like running up 5 flights of stairs and then not breathing hard. You can stop yourself from doing it for a little while, but eventually you WILL break down and start huffing air. Your body will always win.

For me, it was JUST like that. I'd have to fight constantly with myself to avoid eating. It would dominate me. The thing that's different about low-carb is that it takes that all away. When you're doing Atkins properly, you're in lipolysis, the by-product of which are ketones, which are a natural appetite suppressant. It's a state that is commonly known ketosis - and is NOT AT ALL THE SAME THING AS diabetic ketosis - and your body runs much more cleanly.

Your body is big on self-preservation. It will use the easiest form of fuel first. The easiest fuel to turn into glucose (which you body uses to run) is carbohydrate, so if it's in a state where that's what it's being fed, that's what it relies on and that's what it craves when you haven't had them. It wants to preserve itself, and body fat is a good way to do that - until it becomes a liability.

But once your body switches over to using fats and proteins as its primary fuel - in lipolysis - if I haven't eaten enough calories to cover the activity I've done, my body uses body fat WITHOUT first craving carbohydrates. If I eat sugar, my blood sugar spikes and drops out - leaving me hungry. This does not happen when you follow a low-carb plan.

I'm not, incidentally, advocating it for anybody - I think it's wonderful, a godsend, but I'm also keenly aware that different things work for different people.

But no, it was NOT a lack of willpower that stopped me before. My attempts were not half-hearted. I would have never, ever, ever, ever chosen to be fat, especially not as fat as I was. It was awful. I would have done anything to avoid it.

At a certain point, however - in my early 20's - I just gave up. That lasted for a few years. I literally just couldn't bear it anymore. It was "I'm miserable and I'm fat, I'm miserable about being fat, I've tried everything, I'm going to BE fat, I'm just not going to try anymore." Which is a very, very dark place to be.

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Also, if you were good at sports, why were you so shocked when you found yourself completely out of breath after a short walk?

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I was good at sports - I HATED exercise. If I didn't have to exercise, I wouldn't - but at the same time, if I could find a pickup basketball game or a soccer or baseball game to play in 7 days a week, I'd do it. I'm smart, so despite my size I was always able to keep up. I knew how to play the games so I could stay one step ahead.

Now I WAS shocked at how far I'd fallen. For probably 1-2 years before I started this I fell into a deep depression and did nothing. And while before I'd been very fat but in some relative shape (at least good enough to play some pickup basketball with friends), I'd fallen from that during that time.

I do think that it's possible to be fat and in shape - I always had been, until the recent past before starting Atkins. But I think if you STOP exercising and you're heavy, you fall WAY out of shape REALLY, REALLY fast. And I think that that's what happened to me. And it was unspeakably awful.

One of the things that got me started on this was playing with my 4 year old nephew and just feeling like I was going to die after 15 minutes. I literally needed to take a nap. And I realized, "this kid is going to put me in a box, and he's barely going to remember my name." It sucked.

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Anyway, I hope this didn't sound too negative. I'm sure you're rightfully proud at what you've done. Nice work. BTW, what's your longterm goal now?

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I'm proud of what I've done but constantly mindful of the fact that I was the same person who got myself in that boat to begin with. For that reason I know that I will have to be vigilant about this for the rest of my life.

My longterm goal is to drop around another 20-30 lbs. The thing is, I don't really know what I'm going to do...I wear smaller clothes now (at XL) than I did when I was literally 12 years old. I don't KNOW where I want to end up. I'm not concerning myself with an ultimate goal. My determination is to stay on track and be healthy. I have no real endpoint in mind beyond that. I want to feel good and not die before I'm 35 (which I'm positive I would have).

Thanks for the congrats. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

-bb.