Last Friday my scale reported 196, which is 19 pounds down from my starting weight! I am definitely pleased, and the success is acting as its own motivation to continue. You all have been invaluable as a source of support. I think I would have quit when I hit my first stall at the 3-4 week mark. Though through a largely variable series of ups and downs, the summary of my story is that in 4 months, I have lost 19 pounds. That means that on average, I have lost about 1.2 pounds per week. Is that consisitent with the rate others have seen over several months?

Ken

Wow. You're doing great. And you have a great attitude about things, too. That helps tremendously. It has been my experience that weight loss is 75% mental. So, since you're looking at the broad spectrum of things and averaging your weight loss over the weeks, then you can see for yourself that you are losing at a consistent rate.

Kudos to you!

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Ken, congratulations on the loss. You are absolutely right, sucess is very self-motivating. However, one of the traps that people sometimes fall into is to try to linearly extrapolate a rate of weight loss and arrive at a date at which they "expect" to reach a certain weight. Unfortunately, it does not work that way. You will have additional stalls and as you get closer to your goal weight, your rate of loss will slow down. 1 pound a week is a nice rate of loss. However, you should not expect to maintain that rate of loss. Remember, you are changing your WOE to a healthy lifestyle that will sustain you for life. Reaching a "goal" weight is partially an illusion. At some point you will have a good self image and decide that that weight is fine for you. That weight may be more or less than your current "goal" weight. However, when you reach that point of satisfaction with your weight, you will then be in a position to maintain that weight through the eating and exercise habits you have developed along the way. Good luck on your journey.

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Henry

Congrats to you, Ken!
To answer your question, yes, for me anyway. I have lost 24 lbs in about 20 weeks....so that's about 1.2 lbs per week if I average my loss. I know there were some weeks I lost 2 or 3 lbs, and some weeks, only a half or less. As Henry says, things will slow down for us as we get closer to goal. But, as long a I see a downward trend I am ok with that, and like you say, that's very encouraging!

KUTGW!!!(keep up the good work)
The journey continues; but now it's simply a way of life

Shelley

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Shelley


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Congrats Ken - way to go!! Just keep it up! I've only been low carbing since Feb 07, I really don't think I will ever go back to my old ways now. It is more just habit now!

I am very proud of you

Christina

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2bthinagain

196.5/151/136

Good for you, Ken!

... and I very much echo what Henry said. I started with a very modest goal but, having adopted this way of eating, wound up at my current weight over the course of a couple of years. Still maintaining in the 110-115 range.

I'm confident that you'll continue to have success.

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ken- i think your report is very consistent with others who have maintained their lc lifestyle long term. it's easy to panic and decide it's "not working" when you run into one of the normal pauses along the way, but normal they are.

a pound or two a week is a very solid trend to me, and i think it sounds like you're doing very well. not only that, of course, but it appears you've learned a lot about how your body works through this process, and have been able to avoid some of the pitfalls of your earlier lc expermientation. so even better than the overall downward trend is knowing that you know how to maintain it.

congrats on your progress!

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Ken- great job!
When you see the scale moving it is a great motivator! When you hit a pause don't forget to assess how great you feel now vs. when you were eating a diet high in carbs!
I lost 1 to 1.5 pounds a week and then hit a major pause. It is true that as your body gets closer to where you would like your weight to be the pounds do not come off as quickly.
The interesting thing for me is that although I have only lost 5 pounds in the last five months, I have gone down two dress sizes. So you might want to consider measuring yourself as well as weighing in to measure your success.
Keep up the fantastic job!

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Great work ken.

Ken,

Keep learning about this way of eating.

You'll probably be surprised to learn of all the health benefits of eating this way for life. I originally approached LC as a diet three or four years ago, something that I was never about to do successfully on low fat. But after I saw improvements in my joints and my lipid profiles I kept at it. You'll also be surprised how soon you won't even care that you don't eat pasta or potatoes or cake anymore, cuz you don't have those hunger pains 2 hours later anymore, either.

If you don't already know about these bloggers and websites, they are useful resources too!

http://www.weightoftheevidence.com/

http://www.westonaprice.org/knowyourfats/index.html

http://www.proteinpower.com/

Thanks to everyone once again for the encouragement. Having gone through an 8 week stall was very instructive. My expectations are more long-term now, and I actually get really stressed when I eat carbs. My wife's birthday was August 20th, and just for dinner, I ate Mexican food. I didn't want her to feel constricted by my diet. Then on my birthday, a week later (), I literally took the day off. My wife made me a large cake, so I felt duty-bound to take off long enough to eat some of it (we mustn't be ungrateful). but I felt a bit stressed about it the whole time, and literally looked forward to getting back to the low-carb way! Now THAT is a change in attitude.

BTW, last week I weighed in at 195...20 lbs down. but this week I did not weigh in. I figured with the birthday breadk this week, I might as well skip the weigh-in this weekdance2.

Thanks again again!

Ken

That's it...that's the switch you're describing, Ken! That's the difference between losing 20 pounds to gain it back and losing 20 pounds (and more, if you want) and keeping it off.

It's when you eat low carb because you want to, because feel better that way, because you like the food. There will be times when you eat offplan for whatever the reason, but if you find yourself relieved and ready to get back in the lc saddle, as it were, that's the transition from "diet" to "way of eating."
Delightful and encouraging to hear. Thanks for sharing that with us.

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