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Don't give up making new beginnings. No matter how many times you've tried and failed. No matter how many "good intentions" have become paving stones on the road to your own personal hell. No matter how much it hurts. I've been there, and felt the pain of having to start over again. I know what its like to be so afraid to try one more time that you'd rather give up. That's what this story is all about. For those of you who are looking towards the new year with dread rather than hope, this one's for you!

When I started the Atkins Diet back in 1999, losing weight was like falling off a log. I mean, once I got past the first few days of induction, it was an all-out fat-melting, energy-filled, happy-day party. It was beyond exciting - it was a bona-fide miracle. Honest. Because for the first time in my life, I didn't think about food all day long. Think about lunch during breakfast. Think about dinner during lunch. Think about snacks for the rest of the time. No mood swings, no drowsiness, nothing. For the first time, I WAS IN CONTROL OF THE FOOD, INSTEAD OF THE FOOD CONTROLLING ME!

What was even more amazing, looking back on it, was that I was able to stick to the plan despite the chaos in the rest of my life. From early 1998 through 2000 I was caring for my mother, who was slowly losing the battle to emphysema and lung cancer. I spent most of my days driving her to treatments or appointments, or taking care of her daily needs as she got frailer and needed more and more help to do the simplest of tasks. All this while juggling the needs of a new baby, an older sibling, a husband, a senile grandmother and a home. I'm sure many of you are going through the same kind of thing right now, and I don't mean to make a sob story out of it. But it boggles my mind that, after so many years of relative calm when I couldn't get control of my weight, I was able to do it when I had all this other stuff going on in my life. A pretty good testimonial to the wonders of ketosis, methinks.

On October 1, 2000, my mom finally gave up fighting and passed from this life to the next. And right about the same time, I lost the momentum I'd had with my weight loss. I started having a "little something" now and then. Using carbs as a comfort food again. Making excuses that this diet was just so darn expensive. Of course, this all had the inevitable result of making the scale start going in the wrong direction. A five pound gain became a ten. A fifteen. A twenty. And a year later, I had gained back a whopping thirty five pounds. And I was very depressed. Not just because of the weight gain. See, the problem was that by this time my little low carb support website had started to get a bit of a following. People "knew" me. I was the webmaster. I was "supposed" to be the example. I was supposed to be strong. I couldn't tell anyone what was going on because, after all, WHAT WOULD PEOPLE THINK! Oh, how wrong I was.

Every day, I looked in the mirror, and down at the scale, and thought, "Andrea, you're a fake." And, as all fakes do, I felt very very uncomfortable. So I did the really noble thing. I tried to slink away. That's right, I decided to sell my website. Surely, it would be worth something...I could get something back for all my time and effort, and move on. Maybe someday I'd get back on track. But in the meantime, I wouldn't have to feel BAD all the time. (Shades of trying to get the albatross off my neck,eh?) Anyway, I made some calls and all the folks I thought might be interested told me "Sorry, it's just not worth anything near what you're asking." Bummer. So there I was, a fake in my own eyes, with a worthless little website. And I had to make a decision. Was I going to give up, or give it "just one more try".

That's when something amazing started to happen. And I really think, in my own heart, that this was God's way of whacking me on the head and saying, "YO! Are you paying attention here, stupid?" (God almost always has to whack me to get my attention, sorry to say.) What happend was, I started getting these e-mails. Lots of them. You know what they said? "I just wanted to tell you how much your website has changed my life!" "I just want to thank you for being there for me!" "I think this is a great site and you're helping a lot of people." And WHOOOO felt lower than a pregnant ant right about then??? Yep. Yours truly.

As I write this, I really am starting to cry, because you see, the very same people who I had given to all that time were the ones who gave me back the will to go on. I started to think, maybe this website is worth something. Maybe, if it can help THEM, it can help ME, too. See, I had forgotten that I was a person who needed help, too. I didn't have to ALWAYS be the strong one. (And I bet many of you can relate to this, even if you're not webmasters, can't you?) For a while I struggled to get back on the wagon, but once I got myself back onto Induction and made the decision that I was "here to stay", why would you believe it, the weight once again came off quickly. (Yes, ladies and gentlemen, the diet works when you work it! ) Not only that, but I started to feel better about myself. (Who would have thunk it?) Due to my little "excursion" on the low carb journey, I'm not yet at my goal weight. But I'm 80 pounds lighter than when I started (as of today!). And I'm still going strong. Well, not ALWAYS STRONG. But mostly.

Anyway, I now know that having the support of others who really do care, and who have been through the same thing, and who accept you even when you fail, is the very best way to make a new beginning. (Maybe, the ONLY way?) So I would urge you, if you want to make a new beginning this January, find some other low carbers you can be honest with. Talk about stuff. And don't always have to be the strong one. It's not impossible to start again. But you just might need a little help from your low carb friends.

Ready to make a new beginning?

Me too!

LCandrea
LCE Founder