Oh, Those Naysayers…

So, I’m out to dinner last night with my sister and her family (at Moe’s) and I’m eating my low-carb plate of chopped chicken, cheese and lettuce and my sister asks how the diet is going.

When I tell her it’s going well and I seem to be losing pretty quickly, she immediately starts telling me that everyone she’s ever known who’s lost weight on low-carb has gained it all back and how she guesses it’s ok for a short term goal but it won’t last.

Well, here’s the thing: anyone who loses weight will gain their weight back if they start eating the way they used to and stop exercising! Duh.

I asked her who she knew who’d ever gone on a diet and kept the weight off without changing their habits permanently. There is no diet (that I know of) that will immunize you from the effects of cinnamon rolls and loaded baked potatoes. No matter how you get the weight off, you do have to change the habits that loaded your body with fat in the first place.

Personally, I find losing to be the hardest part. Regaining is a relatively slow process that creeps up on you before you know it, but getting to my goal weight should motivate me for at least a year or more to maintain.

I can’t do low carb for the rest of my life, but I do think I can hit a reasonable weight and transition to a balanced diet that includes some of those treacherous carbs.