----- Original Message -----
From: "John Footen" <[log in to unmask]>
>
>  if any successful people had good advice for keeping it off when you get
there.
> I want to do it only one more time as it is coming off much more slowly
this time.
>
My experience has been that I had to make permanent changes in my
relationship with food and my approach to life in order to be successful.
After "dieting" my way up to 327 pounds, I have been somewhat paleo for 3
1/2 years. I have lost 145 pounds. At first when I went paleo it took me 3
months to give up eating some dairy and wheat but I gave up most of it and I
did lose 30 lbs. Then I started to gain the weight back so I became
desperate. I was looking for a way of eating that I could live with that
wouldn't make me fat. But that was not to be until I changed myself. I had
to become a changed person who could live with the healthy diet. It was I
who had the excessive appetite caused by wheat allergy. It was I who ate
because I was thirsty, tired, bored, scared, angry, etc. It was I who didn't
know when to quit eating when I was full. I had to retrain my satiation
reflex so that I would know when I had had enough food in a meal and I could
then quit eating. I did this retraining by eating one paleo food per meal
and paying attention to the taste and texture changes to know when to quit.
The effect was immediate. My appetite dropped to an unbelievably low level
and I was satisfied at every meal. I soon began to realize what it meant to
feel hungry and my appreciation for the taste of food grew enormously. I
lost 110 lbs in two years. Then I got it into my head, always a dangerous
place for me to be <GRIN>, that I could eat anything I wanted for just 5
days when I went on vacation. Well, the 5 days stretched into 2 months and I
gained 50 lbs. I was back to eating the standard American diet
uncontrollably. Realizing that I was my own worst enemy I reached out to a
support group. I go to about 2 meetings a week to deal with the emotional
and thinking issues that were keeping me fat. This group supports me in
staying on the paleo way that was working for me. I am now at my high school
weight although it has been somewhat redistributed (I'm 57 yo). I am also
more happy and joyous than I have ever been. Because my life is so good now
I am hopeful that I never act on the idea to go back to my old way of
eating. Today I am able to eat many different foods in the same meal and I
am able to know when to stop eating. I also love getting very hungry before
I eat because that makes the food taste much better.

Best wishes to you all and thanks to this list for all your support.

Michael