Okay...I have been lurking around here for sometime and I have tried various methods to try to control my apetite -I don't stick to it and then stay the same weight. It is clear to me that I will not lose weight with any other method at this point unless I reduce my carb intake permenantly. But for some reason, I keep going back to thinking that I will be okay having carbs if I just count calories . Then, that quickly morphs into not being on any plan. It's like I am in total denial of what I need to do to be successful. Has anyone done this? -or do I have rocks in my head?

There is no rocks. I struggle with this daily. You just have to be stronger than that thought process and convince yourself that low carbs will help you, not always low calorie.

No rocks in your head. I have to remind myself on occasions that if I've gained a pound or stagnated, starving myself is NOT going to lose the weight and keep it off because eventually I'll crack and overeat/go OP...only sticking to my WoE will have lasting results.

I do this too. Or rather, I get tired of "counting" every morsel of food i put in my mouth (be it carbs or calories) so I start to just eyeball it mentally and not actually record it anywhere -- i will check the carb content of boxes and stuff, but I stop "counting" for long stretches. The good news is that if I DO keep my carbs low, my cravings for them will decrease to the point where I'm practically craving-free, but since I'm not being accurate, my "eye-balling" knocks me off plan.

So many times low-carb is criticized, because the diet is difficult, even nearly impossible to "stick to." And I agree - if you demand perfection and won't consider anything else.

In the "real world," there are a lot more shades of gray. I know that if I eat too few carbs, I get cranky, irritable, and light-headed. If I eat to many, I gain weight. Finding the "magic number," and knowing how to create that balance, that's a lot more difficult.

If I were more rigid with my diet, I would probably lose weight more quickly. However, if I were a lot more rigid with my diet, I suspect that I would also be more easily frustrated and more likely to give up, than the path I have chosen.

So you're not crazy (at least not any more so than the rest of us), and finding the right balance is just hard.

Thanks for everyone's reply. I hate even tagging my way of eating as "Low Carb" because I am convinced that biologically human beings are meant to eat like this...lean meats, veggies, some fruit...unprocessed food basically. 86 rice, potatoes, and corn, but essentially everything else grown on this planet is fair game. I have to keep reminding myself of that. Cookies and ice cream didn't exist 100,000 years ago.

I'm funny about what I "call" or consider my plan. It's not "really" low carb, because I don't go Atkins low, or even count carbs. It's not "really" South Beach, because I use an exchange plan I modified to use fewer starch exchanges. I need the portion control and do occasionally eat high carb foods (I don't call it "cheating" anymore, because it can still fit into the exchange plan), but I try to pick my choices from whole food "South Beach friendly" mostly foods.

Rather than define it too closely as what it is or isn't, I just call it "the way I eat."

Absolutely! This has been part of the problem I've been having coming back to lowcarbing in the last few years. I lost 30 pounds lowcarbing 3 years ago and felt better than I ever have. Then I decided to go vegetarian and then try veganism. I read a lot of books on the vegan diet which, unfortunately, is very heavily influenced by the low fat/high carb dogma. I also keep pinging back and forth, thinking "If I just eat beans, fruit, and whole grains as my carbs, they're good for me, right?" Well, I've gained 20 pounds thinking that way. You'd think something in my head would have clicked by now, like "it's the carbs, stupid" but I keep going back to the same trials and error (error being binging over the weekend).

My goal now is to stick with a lowcarb plan that I can live with (vegetarian, no limit on veggies, etc.) and reread my lowcarb books to remind myself why lowcarbing works for me and why doing even "healthy" carbs does not. Once I lose these 20 pounds, then I'll look into doing something that's low GI and maybe go back to veganism again.

Tam