I'm really struggling :-(

[macnab]

This is just a 'please tell me it will be ok' sort of post.

I decided to try to kick my carb/sugar addiction last week, so Thursday was the last day I had bread, rice, potatoes etc. I got through the weekend, Monday felt like the worst day but I managed. Yesterday though was a disaster. I made pancakes for DD with apricot jam and nutella. She left one - I scoffed it. Although I'd had scrambled eggs with cheese and some baby plum tomatoes, I was starving! I ate a humongus amount of mixed nuts throughout the day. Later we went to inlaws for a family gathering and MIL had made a gorgeous lasagne. So I had a big slice of that. Now she had chips and garlic bread too, but I managed not to touch those so I had the lasagne with salad and small bit of coleslaw. But then she produced an apple pie and of course I had a slice. With cream

I feel like a failure. I'm not trying to go completely carb free because I don't have a huge amount of weight to lose and I run 3 times a week so feel I need some carbs. Therefore I have porridge in the mornings (just a 30g portion) but other than that, no bread, rice, pasta etc. I got my period on Monday so maybe that's caused the cravings to get so bad?

Please tell me this is a blip and that yesterday's slip ups won't have a major effect overall....

Try not to worry about it, start a fresh, it was just one day, put that down as a "cheat day" then get back on it, and maybe add more exercise to try and cancel some of those calories/ carbs. Lol. Carbs are delicious and cheap, its hard weaning off them when carbs are incorporated into every meal as the norm. Hope this helped. X

Thanks NatNad

I think so long as you have the porridge you will struggle as you are not carb free so will be hungry as your body has not adapted to low carb.

When hunger and opportunity present you are to some extent self sabotaging. Do you really need to low carb or would you be better off on a different way of eating? There's not really an option to dip in and out of low carb as with the high fat you will end up gaining if you cheat. Sorry to be all doom and gloom but I think it's better you are aware.

However saying all that I had a night of no sleep last week,needn't into work and had cheesecake and chocolates to get me through the day! I'm not prefect I've written the day off as a blip and have been really good since.

It's possible to low-carb and add in some carbs around exercise, but you have to time your carbs (and type of carbs) more carefully. Have some fruit (and some protein) immediately after exercise, so as to replenish the carbs used exercising. You can add carbs before/during exercise if your runs are long, but if they're less than 90 mins or so you shouldn't need it.

Have a read of Volek and Phinney's 'The art and science of low carbohydrate performance' or Loren Cordain's 'The Paleo diet for athletes' for more info.

FWIW I am mainly paleo but have blips every now and again. I still feel better for it. Unless you have a considerable amount of weight to lose, the 80/20 or 90/10 rule (i.e. 80-90% of what you eat is on-plan, remainder is stuff you really 'shouldn't') should work fine for health and wellbeing benefits.