Why is Weight Loss So Hard to Maintain?

My experience with low carb dieting began in the 70s when I ran into Dr. Atkins’ original diet book at the library. At the time, it made a lot of sense. I could relate to everything he shared – and when I tested it, the plan worked better than anything I’d tried. I was 19, weighed in at a hefty 160 pounds on a 5-foot frame, and with virtually no metabolic resistance, that one golden shot earned me maintenance within only 6 weeks.

I realized the other day, that’s exactly where I’m sitting again today. I’m back to where I started from in 1975. A whole lot older, hopefully wiser, but despite finding out how to deal with my health issues, I’m still at the same starting line.

Yes, I managed to shed a whopping 80 pounds in 2007; and another 30 pounds last year – but that was above where I first began my low carb journey. I’ve regained a good 10 pounds of that last 30 though. So what gives? WHY is weight loss so hard to maintain?

Atkins 72: What was the Original Atkins Diet Like?

I can tell you what happened in 1975. With no internet helps available, I wasn’t creative enough to figure out how to make the original Atkins diet permanently work for me. Back then, low carb dieting consisted of:

• meat, poultry, fish, or eggs
• two small loosely-packed 1 cup salads with oil and vinegar dressing
• 4 ounces of hard cheese
• the juice of 1 lemon or lime
• 4 teaspoons of heavy cream
• 2 servings of D-Zerta gelatin

That was Induction, except that you could also use butter or mayo on your meat. If you wanted whipped cream on your jello, you had to drink your coffee black. There was no sausage, hot dogs, or lunch meat allowed; no cream cheese, cooked vegetables, or sour cream. The taste of artificial sweeteners sucked. And while Induction lasted only a single week, the 5- to 8-carb additions were equally limited.

Low Carb Blogs, Diet Forums, E-Groups, and Other Helps

I honestly can’t use boredom and a lack of imagination as an excuse today. Today, you don’t have to be creative to turn your low carb way of eating into a lifestyle. There are literally hundreds of creative people out there willing to help you stick to your diet for weight loss. Like the low carb blog I discovered yesterday. With a title like Kicking Carbs to the Curb, I couldn’t help but check it out.

After briefing through the current posts where I found a large number of enticing low carb recipes, and saw that she also sells an ebook on low carb salads for an extremely affordable price of 99 cents, I headed for the start of her blog where I generally can find the author’s weight-loss story. And what I found rather shocked me.

I’ve read many weight loss blogs over the years, and listened to many stories, but this was the first time I ran into a history that sounded pretty much like my own. Except for the mono and PCOS, you’d think that the path that led the author to choose a low carb diet was mine.

Wow.

Asthma, heavy prednisone and the resulting adrenal fatigue, and finally finding weight loss success with a PSMF diet. Not exactly like me, of course, since it’s the celiac disease and resulting fat malabsorption that made me turn from Atkins to a protein sparing way of eating – but still…

Facing Why I Crave Chocolate Chip Cookies

So what is it about gluten-free cookies that drives me to start throwing away the pounds I’ve lost? Why am I willing to lose ground after easily maintaining for weeks at a time? I can’t blame it on the wheat opioids this time around. Nor the lack of diet help. That only leaves myself; but is that about willpower and carb addiction?

I used to think so, but lately I’ve had to face those yummy cookies head on and answer WHY they are so important to me. Especially when I started talking about chucking the whole idea of weight loss and no longer wanting to strive to maintain what I’ve accomplished.

I initially chose a low carb way of eating because it made sense to me, and because I was curious to see if a different approach to counting calories held any truth. Was Dr. Atkins right? Was it all about the carbs? Like any diet book penned for the masses, the answer is yes-and-no. Each of us must tweak the basic principles of any diet to fit the confines of our own health problems. But I’d already done that.

As the feature writer for the Autism section at Suite 101, I recently wrote a series of articles on Sensory Processing Disorder; so that’s been on my mind lately. Chocolate chip cookies snugly fit into the realm of taste. That sensory system’s defects can range from hypersensitivity to hyposensitivity, or anywhere in between. However, I wasn’t experiencing an aversion to foods; like many low carbers, I tend to experience the opposite.

While allergies, sensitivities, opioid addictions, and all of that still holds true for some; I have come to realize that I eat homemade cookies to excess for the pleasure that sense of taste brings. That’s a hyposensitive taste defect; not an addiction. Similar to when I completely lost my sense of taste for salt and sweetness several years ago. At that time, I kept adding more, and more, and more salt and/or sugar trying to get what I couldn’t taste.

So Where Do I Go From Here?

My size 12 jeans are tight, tight, tight; had to literally stuff myself into them yesterday morning. So my maintenance phase is coming to an end. But what about the cookies? Well, the Rapid Fat Loss Plan I follow is a carb and calorie cycling plan, which does allow free meals and/or refeeds depending on how much body fat you have to lose. However, that’s side-stepping the real problem.

Pondering the issue of taste, I’ve come to realize over the last few days that I’ve never taken the time to find highly-flavored low carb foods and recipes I’d actually want to keep eating on maintenance. I’ve always made “on diet” food choices to get me by until…I traveled into a maintenance break and chucked all that bland, boring stuff – because I was now “off” my diet.

I'm beginning to understand that to be successful at making lower carb eating a lifestyle, I've GOT to find some low carb food choices that I love enough to make a part of my life forever. So that's what I'll be seeking this time around.