Hello, I am new to this forum but not to low carb. I was never overweight as a kid, but pregnancy and babies made me fat! After having my second child at 25, I was huge. When I discovered Atkins and started exercising, I managed to go from 195 to 127 in 18 months. The Atkins diet changed my life and pretty much got rid of my hypoglycemia. However, I am having trouble maintaining and looking for support. The main times when I lost that weight I was really not eating much at all. I think the true secret to my success was using low carb foods to keep off the cravings and I lost the weight by calorie reduction. During the biggest portion of losing weight (after the big induction loss), my basic diet was 2 eggs for breakfast, 2 cups spinach and 1 tbsp. dressing for lunch and 1/2 cup of meat or a steak for dinner. I was basically starving myself but it worked. After last summer when I hit 127 (my goal had been 125) I've spent the last year bouncing between 130 and 145 but not in a healthy way. I binge quite a bit on junk food (that's how I got fat in the first place) and then diet like crazy for a few days to get the extra pounds off. The binges follow the stressful times in my life. Anyways, I'm sitting at about 140 now and would like to get back to where I was and do it properly this time. I keep falling into the trap of trying to starve the weight off, then binging. I don't know how I ate so little for so long! I guess it was just pure motivation. It's hard to motivate myself because I am thin and look good but know I can't keep up the diet/binge cycle as my hypoglycemia is coming back. What the heck do I do now? I know it sounds silly because I've been low carbing for so long but I'm not sure what my daily diet should be at this point. Help!

If you don't eat enough, your body thinks you are in a famine, and your metabolism slows down. And as you age, it gets harder to rev up that metabolism!

Your menu you posted is not nearly enough food to function properly. Food is fuel, and without enough your body will rebel. So you start craving junk food.

Go back and read Dr. Atkins book, and start eating more food. Lots of green leafy veggies! Enough protein to keep your lean muscle mass. Some other lc veggies. Get out of the mind set that you have to starve yourself to lose. You don't have that much to lose, so do it slowly, and re-educate yourself about the importance of EATING!

Eat consistently - the same way (not necessarily the same thing!) every day. Starving and binging will only cause you problems further down the line.

In this low-calorie age, it's hard to think that eating more can cause us to lose weight, but that's pretty much why low carb works so well. We eat enough to satisfy our hunger and cravings, but low carb enough to burn the fat.

I hope this is some help to you. No doubt you'll get lots of other ideas and recommendations from others, but I'm sure all will tell you to eat more!

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Nita

Hello "Heart."

I am very concerned about the binge/stave cycles you are describing, regardless of weight gains and losses. It sounds like you are, too. Please be aware this is not "low-carbing." It's starvation. As you probably realize, extreme eating habits can wreak havoc on not only your metbolism, but your physical and mental health overall.

With the patterens and health concerns you describe, I would strongly encourage you to work directly with your personal physician and professional support people in order to get your eating habits and blood sugar regulated before you even consider any sort of "diet," low-carb or otherwise. 15 pounds is simply not worth sacrificing your health or emotional well-being over.

Good luck to you!

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