I'd say tweak tweak tweak to suit your needs. Most of my calories come from carbs (70%) and I have PCOS and hypoglycemia. I lose weight as long as I'm eating the right carbs. When I'm maintaining, I have a slight leeway in that I can have an occasional off plan food but for the most part I stick to nonprocessed complex carbs and natural simple carbs (ie fruit). Of course my maintenance weight is higher than your high weight so I'm a bit different.

Have you read The Beck Diet Solution by Judith Beck? You might find it an interesting approach.

Jay

....I have that book... haven't read it yet... :chin:

Yes. Yes. And yes to the above.

For years I had heard that giving up the "white" stuff was the way to go in order to lose large quantities of weight. I figured that I was doomed then. Doomed. Because there was no way in H@*L I was going to give up "those foods". Then after many more years of MISERY, I WAS willing to try anything (healthy that is). I had become so sick and tired and miserable. I had had enough of being fat. I mean I had REALLY had enough of being fat. My desire to be fit, healthy, trim and strong outweighed my desire for *those foods*. FINALLY. I wanted to be slim and healthy more then anything. I was WILLING to make the change. Earlier it had seemed ludicrous and impossible. And then suddenly, when I wanted it (to be slim and healthy) badly enough, it seemed doable. And I was WILLING to do it. I was willing to do whatever was necessary. Whatever was required. Including foods I thought I could never, ever live without. The irony is, upon giving them up - now I'm first living.

If you would have told me years ago that I could do without those things I would have though you were a crazy, insane person. Same goes if I would have been told that I would actually look forward to, enjoy and crave the foods that I'm eating now WAAAAY more then that other stuff I was eating in the past. I am a bigger lover of food now, more then I was when I was 287 lbs. Without a doubt. No question about it.

But the great thing about it is, I also LOVE how I feel/look/act/live now 100,000% better. It was a win/win situation of GIGANTIC proportions.

I urge you not to DREAD these changes. But look forward to them. That's right. Look forward to the wonderful turn and transformation your life will take. Get excited about the changes and what it will mean for you and your very life. :hug:

I think that the addiction model for overeating, isn't a perfect one, but for many, including me the analogy is pretty close. For me to think that I can't follow a food plan that eliminates the foods I'm mostly likely to overeat, would be a lot like a heroine addict refusing to go on a narcotic-free "diet" because they love their opiates (It happens, but it's equally wrong thinking).

I'm not finding it easy to give them up. High-carb foods are much like drugs to me (and there's even research in insulin-resistance research and brain studies of "carb-addiction" that lend some support to the analogy).

When I was in college and graduate school (psychology) we studied models of substance abuse treatment (mostly for alcohol abuse) that did not require total abstinence, but allowed "responsible social use." I have tried over and over again (and failed repeatedly) to use bread and other carbohydrates responsibly, and I think it's really finally and completely sinking in that there is no responsible use for me, at least at this time. So, for now I have to eliminate most high-carb foods and learn to live with it, because it has to be easier than trying to "use responsibly" has been.

Hubby finally helped me "get it." He's been watching me try to eliminate wheat from my diet, and watching me fail every four to five days. He finally asked why I keep wheat in the house, and I said, "I don't want to keep you from eating it." He said, I obviously had not noticed that he is not eating it (just me). He said he could always buy a small package of crackers or bread if he wanted it - and that he really didn't need it either (he's diabetic and also trying to get more of his carbs from vegetables and less sweet fruits and less from grain and high-starch foods).

So, I finally made a really big step and got rid of every single bit of wheat in the house, except for the two small boxes hubby asked me to keep (a granola bar that lists wheat in the ingredients, and a whole grain breakfast "cookie" that contains whole wheat flour. I gathered all the intact boxes to donate to the food pantry, and all the open boxes went in a trash bag.

Parting with my "good carb" wheat foods, like my teff, flax seed and whole wheat Lavash bread (like a square tortila) and my boxes of cracked wheat and whole wheat couscous was hard. I really had to keep myself from snatching the boxes from the trash and the donation bin.

Using an addiction model, I'm far from the point that I could call myself "abstinent," and I may never be able to eliminate problem foods completely, but I am sure that the closer I can come, the closer I will get to my goal weight.

I can't envision myself never having a brownie again, and I do want to hope that at goal weight I will be able to add grain foods back in (if not wheat). There's some evidence that I might be able to (hubby's diabetic counselor says that insulin-resistance and the insulin spike/hunger cycle does seem to shrink as a person loses weight. So at 150 lbs, it's possible that high-carb foods won't trigger such extreme insulin spike hunger reactions. Maybe.

And maybe I'm just an addict wanting to think she can someday "use" socially.