OTOH, Kaplods, I lost more than 50 pounds by eating a high carbohydrate/low fat diet back before "low carb" became the word of the day. I started out at 180 pounds at age 41 and wound up six months later at 128 pounds, with no exercise other than walking every day. If I was hungry, I'd eat, and often what I'd eat was bread. It's my belief that HC/LF diets got a bad rap when the food companies began producing all that "fat free" junk food that was loaded with sugar and chemicals, and people thought they could eat a whole box of Snack Wells or whatever and still lose weight. Low carb diets do not agree with me. I feel sick and weak, and get awful gastrointestinal problems. If you need carbs, then your body will tell you so. Your body is wise; it knows what it needs, and will react negatively when you give it the wrong food.

I'm not saying that low carb is for everyone, or that low-fat dieting doesn't work (that is if you're reducing calories). If you reduce calories, you generally lose weight, regardless of where you cut those calories. If you can lose (and when the time comes, maintain) comfortably by reducing calories without reducing carbohydrates, that is fantastic. I firmly believe that the least restrictive method that works, and works in a way you can do forever, is the best one.

I've been overweight since age 5, and morbidly obesese since puberty. I've lost weight, oh maybe 5,000 times. 4,996 of those times were on diets that were not low-carb. But there were only three times that I could get more than 20 lbs off, before giving up (and only one of those times did I even attempt low-carb and that's this time). The first time was when I was prescribed amphetemine diet pills (at age 13). The second was after a herniated disk to try to prevent the need for surgery (fear, excrutiating pain, and vicodin are fairly good appetite suppressants, especially in combination). And the third is now with trying to eliminate grains and generally eating fewer carbs and a birth control change. This current attempt has been, by far the longest I have ever kept weight off. I'm not eating "low-carb" because I keep trying to convince myself I don't have to - even thow I've also learned that I lose more, and am less hungry on fewer carbs.

For me the difference IS in how I feel. My first two attempts at low carb weren't very successful. I believe that induction-level is just too low carb for many people, and definitely too low carb for me. I would feel so sick, nauseous, dizzy and weak, with brain-splitting headaches, that to me it just proved that low-carb was indeed very unhealthy. I didn't think to go on to the higher-carb phase, because I was so overweight, and the low-carb books at the time, encouraged people with a lot of weight to lose, to stay on induction longer and made assurances that the sick feeling would dissipate - it never did, and I wasn't smart enough to experiment with low, but not too low carb eating.

For me, it's possible to lose weight on any diet that restricts calories, but the more simple and small-chain carbohydrate-rich foods I eat, the hungrier I am. With refined carbs, the hunger is insane, all-encompassing, can't eat enough, got to have more, more, more. Not eating is torture. And that's what dieting was like most of my life, pure unrelenting torture. I couldn't think of anything except eating - or not eating.

On South Beach the hunger wasn't as bad (dropping from insane, to slightly unreasonable) I lost weight well in Phase I (which is generally fairly low-carb), but on Phase II, I stopped losing (but didn't gain). I recognized it as a portion-control problem, so decided that I needed that control, and went back to the plans I've lost best on in the past, an exchange plan.

I liked the flexibility of the old WW plan, which encorporated a few "flexible" exchanges that could each be "spent" on about 80 calories of any food. I found a 1200 calorie lower-carb exchange plan on a website and added in about 800 calories of flexible exchanges (which I considered optional). So in theory, I would eat between 1200 and 2000 calories daily.

I've experimented enough with it to know that it is the carbohydrate level that is responsible for unreasonable hunger, and also flares of some health issues also (like many people with autoimmune disease, and/or fibromyalgia, large amounts of carbohydrates seem to trigger flares. It may be sugar, grains or a combination of both, from what I've been reading).

Ultimately, it boils down to the fact that a carbohydrate-controlled diet that eliminates refined carbs works best for me. The carbohydrate level I feel best at, would I suppose be a technically moderately-low carb diet. I've been told by low-carbers that it's too high carb, and I've also been told by folks opposing low carb, that it is too low carb. For me, it's "just right," but convincing myself of that when I want foods high in carbohydrates, has been a challenge.

I've never believed in "forbidden foods," but I'm coming to realize that there are some foods that (at least right now) I really need to keep out of my diet, or I will eat too much of them or become so hungry, I eat too much in general. Most of those foods are high carb (some are high fat/carb combinations).

But the main issue remains, why I won't learn to stick to my "sweet spot" when it comes to carbohydrates. Is it because I find that level of carbs "unreasonable, or unsustainable," or because I'm not trying hard enough to stick with what I know works because I THINK it's unreasonable.

For me, I think it's the latter. I keep thinking that I SHOULD be able to eat more carbs than I can, so long as I control calories. The big issue though is that when I eat more carbs, I get so hungry that I find it virtually impossible to control calories. I end up going off-plan almost every time. It would make more sense for me to just come to grips with the fact that SHOULD has nothing to do with it. I have to deal with what is, not what should be.

I am in the midst of reading [I]Rethinking Thin[I] by Gina Kolata, and she describes symptoms in people exactly as you have just described...the absolute compulsion that the person must eat. Apparently (I have not finished the book) this is what led to research that eventually discovered leptin, the hormone that helps control eating. Apparently some people do not make enough or even any. I know that I was overeating due to emotional issues stemming from an unhappy marriage. I tend to gain some poundage very easily, since I love to eat and cook, but married to my second husband, a vegetarian who is very conscious of healthy nutrition, I have found it much easier to control my weight, so that is obviously not the issue with everyone. I'm all for staying away from refined, unhealthy carbs. White bread, white rice, etc...poison. We eat brown rice, whole grain pasta and cereals, sweet potatoes, etc. I have discovered that it really is "calories in, calories out." I can be more satisfied and eat fewer calories if I eat brown rice as opposed to white. ((HUGS)) Kaplods; good luck and I hope you find what truly works for you.