I tried to control my weight by exercising for close to half of my life and in the long run, I would fail every single time. It's not that I didn't work out hard enough but because I was missing the most important ingredient needed to keep my weight under control which is what I put in my mouth.

I thought that I was eating right by following Food Guide Pyramid and getting most of my daily calories from things such as bread, pasta, fruits, vegetables and avoiding fat but that was actually what was causing me to slowly gain weight. Every time I started doing cardio, my weight would slowly start dropping but once I stopped, and there was always something that would be higher priority than exercising, the weight would start coming back up.

The longest period that I was able to keep working out regularly was for around 6 months when I was in the military after I got myself to be the heaviest in my life (203 lbs). Over those 6 months, I dropped over 30 lbs by running on a treadmill. I was pushing myself too hard and when my knee started hurting, I tried to just push through and it didn't work out too well. I stopped exercising because I couldn't run and my weight slowly started to creep back up.

After that, there were many times when my weight started approaching 200 lbs at which point I would start exercising to control it. I would exercise for couple of weeks or months and something would come up again, like me getting a cold or a flu, lack of time or my knee would start hurting again so I would stop exercising. Once I stopped exercising, the weight started to come back. It was a constant fight that I was losing.

I stumbled upon low carb high fat diet towards the end of 2013 and started eating LCHF in November 2013. Over the next 2 years, after initially dropping 10 lbs or so, my weight was stable. I couldn't believe that the only thing I needed to keep my weight under control was to get most of my calories from natural fats and avoid things such as starches and sugars.

I didn't exercise during those 2 years because I didn't have time and I didn't need to as I wasn't gaining weight. I wasn't even keeping strict LCHF diet all the time as I was sometimes eating things such as ice cream or chocolates but most of the time, I was eating high fat low carb. Once I started eating stricter LCHF towards the end of 2015, my weight went down some more. Now I've added exercise not because I need it to control my weight but because I always enjoyed working out, I have a little more time now and I want to see what it will do for me in conjunction with eating LCHF.

If you're struggling trying to control your weight, do your research on Low Carb High Fat Diet and decide for yourself if this is something you want to try. I gave it a try over 2 years ago and I'm glad I did.

Hi Patti,

Sugar has been difficult for me to give up. I used to eat some sugar initially after I started HFLC. It was mostly in my head though thinking that it was fine since I was consuming small quantity. I think it would have been easier and I would have seen better results, sooner if I thought differently and just didn't eat any added sugar from the beginning.

Every time I gave in (by consuming a bag full of chocolates), I tried not to beat myself over it. I just tried to remember the feeling of being stuffed, not feeling well and the chocolates not tasting that good anyways. After a while, it sank in. I was giving in less often and the cravings got weaker.

Good luck on your journey and I hope you use this forum to help you along.