Low Carb Diets and Sustainability

How many calories can you eat once you get thin?
It's far less than you might think.

The low-carb road I have traveled toward thinness has been long and rugged. Many times along the way, I’ve been tempted to give up.

By following a variety of low-carb diets, I have learned a lot about myself.

My health has improved because I was able to discover many of the food categories I need to avoid like gluten, cow’s dairy, and corn; but looking back now, I can see that I've made little progress in my weight loss attempts since I left Kimkins behind.

I am no closer to my weight-loss goal than I was then. That’s the cold, hard truth for me.

This morning, I weighed in at 173 pounds, (May 2012), and all I could do was sigh. While that makes my before and after pictures still accurate, that glorious one-hundred pound marker I had at one time achieved was, unfortunately, not sustainable.

I’ve never talked about how I managed to carve off those extra pounds because I did it with the help of hHCG drops at a calorie level that I would never recommend on this blog.

Like all of the other low carb diets I’ve been involved in, I did not follow Dr. Simeon’s original protocol exactly.

Although low in carbs, it was far too low in protein, and after only two days, I felt absolutely terrible! So I tweaked it by dropping the fruit (except for strawberries when they were available in the area), doubling the protein, using mostly turkey breast, and increasing my variety of vegetables to match what was allowed on Lyle McDonald’s plan.

Even so, the 12-week experience was so traumatic for me that one diet round was all I could stand. I have never been able to talk myself into doing it again.

I am an extremely inactive person due to the vertigo and ataxia, and I cannot imagine what it would be like to attempt that strict of a diet if you were working outside of the home or had to take care of little children.

It just totally blows my mind!

The Biggest Problem with Low-Carb Sustainability

The biggest problem for me in regards to low-carb sustainability has not been the calorie level I’ve used while dieting. It’s been:

• my food sensitivities; and
• the calorie level needed to sustain my new maintenance level

Food allergies and food intolerance keep the intestines inflamed, and that causes all sorts of strange body reactions.

Corn on the cob isn't a standard low-carb food,
but corn is found in many low-carb foods and products.
Starchy vegetables are allowed on rung 8.

Unfortunately, when I started reacting to corn, my weight loss suddenly became unsustainable.

Part of that has to do with an increase in appetite that occurs when you come in contact with an allergen, but I also believe that your metabolism slows down, freeing up body resources that are needed to fight the perceived invader. 

The result?

I’ve regained almost all of the weight I lost while using hHCG.

When I reached about 165 pounds, I started to panic. It felt like I was losing ground, and I didn’t want to look at my hHCG experience as a complete waste of time.

So what did I do?

Did I move to a well-balanced diet that contained healthy foods and reasonable portion sizes? Did I move to a standard Atkins maintenance diet like I did when I was pregnant or going through my divorce?

Nope.

I joined Weight Watchers online out of a knee-jerk reaction to protect myself.

I honestly didn’t know what else to do.

I knew I couldn’t return to Atkins’ Induction and eat at a 20-net carb level ever again. I knew that a very low-carb diet would mess up my metabolism again.

So I did the next best thing:

I turFned to simple calorie control.

But I didn’t get very far before I realized that I was putting out a ton of cash for an extremely low-fat diet plan that was creatively designed to hide the fact that all you are actually doing is counting calories.

Today's Weight Watchers program is nothing like the old Weight Watchers exchange program at all.

Today, Weight Watchers has you keep track of points, and they claim that their new diet formula is not connected to calories. They claim that these points come from a formula that only takes fiber, protein, carbohydrates and fats into account.

You can see that in their old formula that’s easily available online.

Most of us low carbers already know that calories are easily determined if you know the grams of protein, fiber, carbohydrates, and fat of any particular food. Protein and carbohydrates have four calories per gram, fiber has one or two, and dietary fats have nine.

It would be easy for their computer program to know exactly how many calories you’re eating.

Plus, I was also plugging everything I ate into Fitday as well as their online program, and my calorie count for the day was fairly consistent: 1200 to 1300.

I ended up canceling my subscription because I realized that if I wanted to count calories, I could do that by myself for free.

I didn’t need to count fancy points.

Corn Intolerance is a Nightmare!

At the moment, my weight loss road has come to a halt because I’ve been fighting to find some type of stabilization in my life. I’ve been trying to figure out all of the places where corn hides, what safe brands are, and what I can and cannot eat.

Throughout this process, I’ve come to the shocking realization that a typical low-carb diet is loaded with corn and corn derivatives. It isn't always grain free.

Corn hides in almost everything, especially in the way that meat is processed and preserved.

It hides in the waxes that coat fresh vegetables, such as cucumbers, tomatoes, and bell peppers.

It hides in the gas that’s used on avocados, and in the way that eggs are washed and sometimes coated.

It’s found in almost all cheeses, butter, and other dairy products.

Heck, it’s even used to make distilled vinegar and can be found in refined oils as a de-foamer, which makes mayonnaise also off limits.

Citric acid and maltodextrin are generally made from corn (but not always) and can be found in catsup, canned tomatoes, and most sugar substitutes, especially sugar alcohols such as erithritol or sorbitol.

To be intolerant of corn is basically a nightmare. 

Can You Do What it Takes to Maintain Your Weight Loss?

This is one of the most important questions you need to ask yourself. 

And right now, not when you reach maintenance. 

So here I sit, not knowing where to turn to next because my own answer to that question is that:

I can't do what it takes to maintain 125 pounds!

To do that would require me to eat fewer than 950 calories per day for the rest of my life. 

Most of the low carbers who have reached goal weight maintain their weight by eating very few calories. What I've learned about myself isn't rare. 

Of those I've investigated so far, the average calorie count at maintenance is about 1,000 to 1,200 calories per day. And those who are short like me? Fewer than 950!

This is maintenance I'm talking about, and not a weight-loss diet that requires you to temporarily restrict portions like that. Options for keeping the calories down are few.

So, I've been thinking about this a lot over the past two weeks. Struggling with a decision, actually. Because if I can't maintain 160 pounds at a size 12, I won't be able to sustain anything less than that.

Maybe its time to call it quits and just be content with my current size 14.

Part 9: Personalize Your Low Carb Diet with Atkins 72
Part 1: How to Tweak a Low-Carb Diet (this post contains links to the entire series)