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| Can you really DO low carb for life? Changes need to be permanent |
Is this your second, third, or fourth attempt at living the low-carb lifestyle?
If so, you most certainly understand by now that there is nothing magical about a low-carb diet.
While ketogenic advocates like to put forth the notion that low-carb diets are somehow miraculously going to produce the success you're looking for, there is no guarantee that a ketogenic diet is going to get you to goal weight.
Nor does following Weight Watchers or some other low-calorie diet plan guarantee that you are going to fail.
It doesn't work that way.
No matter what dietary approach you use, self-discipline and motivation are essential to success. Otherwise, your old eating habits will get above you and begin to take on a life of their own.
Atkins and Keto, or whatever low-carb plan you're following, isn't just a temporary diet plan. It's a whole new way of living that you have to permanently adopt if you want to reach goal weight and stay there.
What Does it Take to Succeed on Atkins or Keto?
Can you really do low carb for life?
That is the ultimate question for those returning to a low-carb diet.
For some reason, you chose to let go of the low-carb dream and have now discovered that maintenance isn't as easy as you thought it would be.
The following comments are actual comments that I have heard voiced at low-carb forums. They only further encourage and add to the misunderstandings about what it takes to succeed on Atkins, Keto, or some other low-carb diet plan:
- "The further you go on plan, the easier it is to stay on plan."
- "You're not allowing yourself to get into ketosis which is why those cravings are getting to you."
- "There is no healthy weight loss plan that allows you to eat pizza and garlic bread . . . get your head on straight."
It is not true that the further up the carb ladder you climb, the easier it is to stay on plan.
If you haven't made honest to goodness changes in your attitude, beliefs, and lifestyle over the past year -- permanent changes -- then low carb is still not going to be easy this time around either.
It really isn't.
Nor does getting into the optimal state of Nutritonal Ketosis automatically cure your cravings for carbs, making them not missed anymore. Nutritional Ketosis isn't a magic pill you swallow that will get rid of your emotional eating patterns or attachment to food.
Yes, it helps to correct metabolic issues, and can greatly reduce your hunger and cravings, but it won't solve your mental and emotional attachments if you're running around looking for something that'll make you feel better whenever you're under stress.
It won't solve your mental and emotional problems if you're experiencing extremely low leptin levels from being on a diet for several months or years.
Nor is it true that low carb is the only healthy diet available.
Low carb doesn't work any better than any other diet. It corrects metabolic issues. But it doesn't cure them.
If you are insulin resistant, you're going to still be insulin resistant once you reach goal weight.
This means that low carb is a nutritional approach that you have to do for the rest of your life!
Lots of folks succeed at low carb over the short-term, but then they eventually fall off the wagon during one of life's challenges, and end up regaining their weight back -- at least partially, and more often than not, even more.
Does that sound like you?
This tendency is clearly visible when you look at the number of people who return to a low-carb diet every January.
So why is the low-carb moto:
THIS ISN'T A DIET; IT'S A LIFESTYLE
not working for you?
Why are so many people falling off the low-carb wagon in the first place?
And why is low carb not any better, statistically speaking, than any other weight-loss diet plan?
Low Carb Isn't a Diet
Taking off the weight can be accomplished by following almost any weight-loss plan you set your mind to follow.
Follow the rules, and you'll lose the weight.
Follow the rules, and you'll lose the weight.
Doesn't matter if it's a low-carb diet, or not. Diets work over the short term, almost always.
But keeping the weight off takes a change in attitude coupled with conscious daily effort to stay mindful of your aim because success on any diet plan requires you to totally give up the dieting mindset.
It requires you to reach the realization that permanent weight loss is not a journey.
Permanent weight loss is a result of who you are right now.
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| Low carb isn't just a weight-loss diet. It's a radical nutritional approach to living that requires you to adopt a whole new attitude. |
All diets, including low-carb ones, are tools and gimmicks useful to get you to the finish line, but not so useful when it comes to staying there.
Blasphemous?
Perhaps.
But, true.
You can't get from diet to lifestyle while still using the term "Low-Carb Diet."
You can't get from diet to lifestyle while still believing in a low-carb diet.
You really can't.
Because the switch in metabolic pathways isn't a diet.
The switch in metabolic pathways is the response your body makes when it runs short on glucose. And keto adaption is the response your body makes when your food choices permanently change.
When Will the Low-Carb Miracle Happen?
Weight-loss diets are something you eventually go off of.
They are designed to carve off the pounds.
But a lifestyle is something you adopt and actually make a part of your life, one small change at a time.
It is only after you figure out that the changes you are incorporating must be for life that the miracle will happen.
Self-discipline doesn't mean forcing yourself to follow a diet plan that you honestly don't enjoy.
It's just that you don't get to stop being low carb when an unforeseen challenge rises up to oppose what you're doing.
A low-carb diet isn't the miracle.
The change in you is the miracle.
The "doing something different than what you did before" is the miracle.
To succeed on low carb, or any weight-loss diet, you have to release the definition of insanity that has taken over your life.
As long as you continue to cling to the dieting mindset, the cycle will continue to be repeated:
- Diet . . . Fall . . . Regain . . .
- Diet . . . Fall . . . Regain . . .
- Diet . . . Fall . . . Regain . . .
And just because you've been blessed enough to find the benefits of a low-carb diet worthwhile, and what that way of eating can do for you, that doesn't guarantee you'll achieve success the second or third time around.
Self-empowerment comes only when you choose to change.
So keep this thought in mind:
The life you have led up to this point, and the physical condition you are in today, is the type of lifestyle that has created what you are today.
Overweight or obesity is a result of your current lifestyle. It's a result of your choices up to now.
Are you happy with that creation?
If so, then great!
If you are not happy with your physical, mental, and emotional creation, then you need to step over the fear and choose to make permanent changes that will eventually bring you what you want.
Because if the changes you are making today (or the choice you made yesterday) are just temporary, and you think that being thin is going to be easier, eventually you're going to quit low carb and slip back into your old way of doing things.
Again.
Especially, when stress and challenges come knocking on your door because maintaining your weight loss is downright hard.
Maintaining your weight loss is harder than getting the weight off in the first place.
Why?
Because at maintenance there are no rewards.
There is no crowd to pat you on the back and say, "Job well done!"
Compliments calm down and people stop noticing that you're different now.
So the ultimate question of:
Can you really do low carb for life?
Is what you need to ask yourself right now.
Can YOU do low carb for life?
If not, there are lots of other choices you can make. Low carb isn't the gold-standard of weight-loss diets. It's just one way to get to goal weight -- and beyond.
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