I Can't Believe It Has Been A Year!!

Hi Everyone! I was a frequent visitor last spring and summer when I was just starting (again) a LC WOE. Over the past several years I had some success, but then it seemed to stop working for me. When I started again last April, I cam to the LCE site to get your advice, wisdom and encouragement. I apologize for not having posted in, well let's see, about 8 months! I did NOT fall off the wagon.

And though I probably should have checked in to help others instead of taking all the help myself, I didn't feel I was expert enough in how to make the WOE a real WOE and not a diet that was only going to last 6 months. During all that time, I stayed "on-plan" as my default, and only took short breaks infrequently. I thought I'd share what has worked for me (though I know our different bodies may react differently, so YMMV).

When last I posted, I believe it was to report that I had broken through a stall that lasted more than 2 months! I was weighing in only 1 time per week, at the same time (early morning before breakfast). Amazingly, I weighed in at 206 (started at 215) for 8 solid weeks! There was no discernable variation at all. I mean the needle went straight to 206, NOT 205 and a bit, NOT 206.5...206 on the dot. Even the lack of variation was frustrating.

In August we went on a week-long camping trip, during which I stayed on plan. I was active, and we walked everywhere. When I got back, I had broken the stall, weighing in at 201! Yay! I just kept at it. I had increased my carb intake per day was about 50 grams.

Instead of eggs and sausage every morning, I have been eating a single serving of Fiber One cereal, a piece of high-fiber toast (Mrs. Baird's Fiber Plus, with about 7 grams of effective carbs per slice), a few strawberries, and a hard-boiled egg. That has been my daily breakfast for 8 months.

I eat a half a peanutbutter sandwich (extra crunch for the extra fiber on that high-fiber bread) at around 2:00. Then around 4:00pm, I have some pepperoni snack sticks and some cheddar cheese. For dinner, I'll have meat of some kind with another piece of that toast and some vegetables. For dessert I have a couple of squares of Lindt 85% Dark Chocolate (very low carb!!).

I take 12 hours off every weekend. On Saturday night, I eat whatever I want, same goes for Sunday Morning. My wife makes these delicious (and really bad for you) cherry turnovers. Yum! But at noon, I'm back on plan. Oh, and I still religiously take my supplements and drink lots of water.

The bottom line is that I am now 190 pounds (25 pounds down) since I started. The ONLY time I went back up was during Christmas when I took like a week off. My wife's cookies, and everything else surrounding the holidays made me decide to do this. After that week, I did gain about 6 pounds...back up to 196. But I just got back to plan and don't really think much about it any more. It's just the way I eat!! I still haven't reached my goal (180), but since I didn't give myself a time-limit, psychologically it doesn't matter! I'm 25 pounds lighter and my back feels better, and I'm still chugging away.

So that's me in a nutshell. I hope this is helpful to someone.

Ken