RedBeanie I'm going to tell you what I've experienced with this WOE and hopefully you'll join us!
I'm chronically obese, by that i mean I've never in my life been in a BMI weight range lower than obese, for the last 5 years I've been morbidly obese.
This, I know now, is because I've been on a low fat, high carb diet since I was a small kid. My mum put me on slimfast when i was 7 years old because the doctor warned her I was very overweight even then. Don't judge her, it was the 90's.
Since that time I reliably gained about a stone a year despite a traditionally healthy diet. I topped out at christmas this year (I'm 26) at 19st 1lbs.
I feel like I didn't eat much differently from my friends and in fact had never experienced fast food until I went to Uni at 18. There has never been a period of time in my life where I haven't been on some form of caloric restrictive diet. Despite that though, I was obese and insulin resistant and on the borderline of diabetes. At 26.
What I did have which seemingly my friends didnt was an overwhelming frequency of intense cravings for sugar and fat. I fought them back mostly, but there were times when I'd be clawing my hands into my hips to stop myself having cake in the office, or taking different routes home in the car to avoid petrol stations/ KFC to prevent myself from stopping off and getting whatever I was craving. One memorable night I took a 40 minute detour to avoid a single petrol station because I knew I couldnt drive passed one without stopping. I had a massive amount of food guilt and felt like my cravings for food were a weakness of character. I was a bad person because I craved.
I was on weight watchers for the 2 years before BC, and found I could have a good breakfast at 9 and be starving by 11. In a similar way, I'd have a full on roast dinner at 6:30pm and be so hungry by 9 that I'd trip up and fall head first into a hot chocolate and WW biscuits. I could convince myself that all this was perfectly fine and normal because i was on a diet, and you were supposed to be hungry. That's how you lose weight right? Despite all this I found I couldnt stick to the plan consistantly and although there were periods of time when I did lose weight (the lowest I got to was 17st 13lbs), I'd go to group most weeks and be tutted at for "cheating" and told it was my fault the plan wasnt working for me, I wasnt strong enough.
It all came to a head on new years day this year. I threw myself back into WW (I was back up at 19st 1lb) and used the momentum of new year new start to really really kick it into gear. Unfortunately for me this meant a very very unhappy life. I was eating fruit and yog for breakfast, was starving hungry by 11am so having a bag of WW crisps, then diving on lunch which was usually a tiny sandwich with salad in it and another yoghurt. THen I was starving at 3 so I'd have chocolate and a cup of tea, then dinner would be rice/ pasta/ potatoes, a tiny amount of very low fat meat and some veg. The cravings were still there so strongly that there was more than 1 occasion I was in tears over it.
Anyway, I lost 10lbs from Jan 1st to Feb 8th and felt good about that, until DP came home one night to me crying my eyes out because I'd eaten some pizza I'd found in the freezer. Frozen, because cooking it would have taken too long and I was craving so badly i needed it that second. He cuddled me and basically said no more weight watchers, it wasn't worth this.
Now, I'm getting married in April 2018 and want so badly to lose weight by then, so the thought of being cast adrift without a diet for the first time at this critical time in my life was terrifying. I recognised my problem was craving, so I started researching what cravings are, what they do and why certain people get them more than others.
Long story short, I stumbled across LCHF and subsequently this thread and my very skeptical self decided to give it a go just to prove it wrong and get it out of my head so I could go back to weight watchers.
The rest is history really, this is basically it:
Felt like death from day 4 until day 10, craved like mad but stuck it out because at this point, it was an experiement and I needed a fair test.
Day 10 woke up and wasnt hungry. Weirdest feeling ever. Had a slight craving later in the day for something sweet but it passed really quickly after I ate my dinner.
Haven't really had a craving for anything since.
I've eaten this way since 8th Feb, lost 31lbs so far and dont really have to think about it anymore, it's second nature. The hardest bit was the first week when I was breaking my sugar addiction but since then it's really been a doddle.
For the first time in my adult life I'm eating proper food, my skin is glowy, I'm sleeping better and best of all, my cravings are now monthly if that, not daily and no where near as strong. I'm enjoying the food I eat but it's no longer the centre of my day. I'm just not hungry, ever.
You won't believe a word of that last bit until you experience it but I promise you, if you stick to the rules you can break a lifetime of poor nutrition habits in 10 weeks.
If someone like me who statistically doesnt have a chance at a healthy weight can do this shit, you definately can.