Need motivation!! usually good at eating healthy (low carb) and workouts, but the last days I havent been good with the nutrition, eventhough I have keept up with the workouts, I have been on low carb diet for two weeks now,, and I feel like my body feels like its feed up of it. Is this normal? have any experiences? I feel like low carb is working good, but I find it difficult to continiue at the moment. Any good motivation tips? deff need them now. Looking forward to replies =)

Are you eating the same things? Maybe you need to switch it up if you are just bored with the same foods.

When you say your body is fed up, do you mean you are tired? What exactely do you mean by that?

Sounds like Carb Withdrawl to me... it's part psychological and part physiological, but it's all very real.

Either ride it out, or change your diet to something you can handle. Personally... I'd change it to something more manageable for success later in the game. It's hard to go from a keto diet to a maintenance diet because it isn't as easy to come by (calorie counting is more difficult in my opinion).

How low carb is your diet (how many gms of carbs are you eating per day)? What part of the diet is getting you down?

How low carb is your diet (how many gms of carbs are you eating per day)? What part of the diet is getting you down?


Seek Steve's advice (if he is willing to share an opinion), and listen to this young man.

Also, there are some excellent stickies......on this forum. Be sure to check them out. And, I do mean excellent, stickies. Read and educate.


I am going to post my response to your post, as written on the brotha forum (in the event someone else could benefit, hope you do not mind):


Yes, your body can provide you with a negative response when low-carbing, and is normal. I do not know specifically your previous two week history (calories, and macro nutrient ratios, etc, etc), so I am making an "assumptive" comment:

It is possible your glucose stores are very low or depleted. You are more than likely carrying less bodily water (water retention, and may be dehydrated), and your body (dependent on the aforementioned and macro nutrient ratios), are under going some abnormal biological processes (abnormal in the sense of your "recent history", but not in the sense of "what" the body is doing), such as converting various biological items into glucose, and other forms of fuel, which means you will experience some negative (feeling) side effects......


Now.......read on........

When I write this. This is assuming a healthy individual.

No, I am not going to write up a big, RAH! RAH!.......you can do this, and its all in the mind, sort of post, like have done many times before.

Though it STILL IS (:)).

Most persons problems with diet are:

Between the mind (educated reaction, choices made) and one's human body biological response:


A huge part of motivation on a diet (and its close kin fitness activity), is taking the time to educate one's self on the human body from good and reputable source material, and learning how to "effectively" deal with some of your biological feed back the body gives, once a "sound diet plan is implemented".

Even reading material from well respected individuals, one can learn fairly quickly that even they can disagree (at times) on an approach on diet (even tailored specifically) to an individual.

However, there is a main theme between them, I want to convey.


The BEAST in the HEAD must be Wiser than the BEAST WITHIN
(Because it can be a battle of the wills)

(by Chillen)

Most reputable persons in diet and fitness would agree, that what one consumes in Protein, Carbohydrates, Fats, and Calories, regulates (up or down) powerful hormones, influences metabolic shifts (up or down), and the byproducts from these hormones, and metabolic shifts (etc), can affect how you feel psychologically, emotionally, and physically, etc, and can be as powerful as a consuming an external narcotic drug.

And, is "one" of the main reasons people fail so-called diets, have problems with motivation, energy, etc.

Your body is a walking pharmacy store. A pharmaceutical factory that can mix and match its natural drugs, attempting to obtain a balance, repair, rebuild; sometimes its efficient and sometimes its not. Sometimes its on par with your fitness goals, and sometimes it is not. It can effect your brain chemistry.

But, a piece of you is always unaffected, and must deliver---on time, like UPS Mail.

Yet, it is this powerful. You are literally are walking drug store, and these drugs can "vary in strength", "sometimes rather convincing", and "very influential", dependent on several personal factors.

But, sometimes the "prescription medications" the body writes itself isn't "necessarily" in its best interest. It can make you think resistance it is futile. You must write "counter prescription medications" through education with diet and fitness.

Let's take a look at this way. A person "assessed" their self as being overweight.

Implements a course of action (changes diet and activity). Let's say this person is extremely overweight (hypothetically). While you are in this change on diet and fitness and "assessing your progress", your body is "likewise assessing itself". The efficiency meter between your "assessment of progress" and the "body's unique assessment" (based on its design intention) can be at "odds" with one another, or in line with one another, based primarily on the body's prescription writing (based on its assessment) and ones dietary/fitness habits.

For example. The body assesses body fat is high (glucose stores, full). You assess body fat is high. You both are agreeable. You start a brand new diet trend to solicit weight loss. Lets assume, this is a traditional diet where it involves a traditional deficit of -500 calories, and macro nutrients are "normal" (so-to-speak).

Since the efficiency is high (again assuming healthy person) between you and the body, weight loss is going to be good (assuming deficit diet in place hypothetically). If the diet implemented contains a reasonable deficit, the bodies "feedback production" can be very low (high in positive low in negative), and for most tolerable. But, as time passes (assuming diet continues), body fat drops (as the body senses its house), the body will down regulate (up-regulate) certain hormones, down regulate its metabolic rate--and becomes more "efficient" in its burning of calories (an use of macro-nutrients), and it "seems" the leaner one gets the more powerful the body writes prescription medications to "compel" one to eat.

There are three elements at work here, working on the body prescription medication response: 1. Body weight is lowering (body's assessment trigger), 2. The body's adaptive element in response to lower calories (which some debate even exists, I believe it does, and it seems tougher on leaner persons than ones with higher body fat), 3. The biological responses to 1 and 2 (good and bad).

Additionally, if a persons is deficit dieting and associating a very low carbohydrate (macro nutrient) intake the "prescription medications" the body writes, and the hormones (and other feedback) released by the body "can" provide additional (and "sometimes" different) but powerful side effects. For example:

Loss of water (water retention can be reduced, and misunderstood as fat loss OR muscle gain by some fitness persons), nausea, light headed, dizziness, head aches, lethargy, lack of energy, depression, and lack of motivation, and so on. And the prescription medications written by the body, the hormones released (and lack thereof, etc, etc), are very powerful, and it can effect you physically, emotionally, and psychologically.

The degree of severity can vary per person (again assuming one is healthy), but in most cases (understanding exceptions), the feedback response to the lack of carbohydrates is short lived (but friggen powerful), and the length of these sort of symptoms can likewise vary in length.

If you are running a calorie deficit, and adjoining very low carbohydrates, it is imperative, that your proteins and fats are up to snuff.

Its important you drink water as well.

Additionally you do not "operate" in a MIND BLIND. In order to handle your biological feed back, you MUST (IMO) embark on a "personal quest" to combat this biological feed back.....that has very high odds in coming in order to "reduce the odds" of personal failure.

Sometimes one has to be a "hard @ass" on oneself to bring results. No one ever said this was going to be easy.

That box of tissue doesn't WORK.

You must be the diet CLERK

So bring your goal PERK by going BESERK

Be a self @SS today! :)

It WORKS.

Education, soaks up the cries for help.

No matter how you shake and bake it, if you want to get lean (dependent on ones personal definition of what this lean is), there are side effects (and to a degree consequences) you are going to be required to accept when manipulating: Protein, Carbohydrates, Fats, and Calories. The degree of side effects can depend on the person........either accept them, or one will never get lean (or extremely lean--naturally).

With this in mind, and to save writing time, I would like you to PM me ( if you so choose), and I will send you a "ton" of information that will help you (and is close kin to your post topic). Just provide your E-mail address. And, they are yours.

Best wishes to you,


Chillen

(Post 2 next)

I know that I can be somewhat unorthodox in my posts, by my heart is in the right place.

People whom have been successful with their fitness goals, have something within them, that keeps the motivation strummed, and its called "heart".

I am going to use myself as an example:

What of my greatest assets and one of my greatest enemies is: Stubbornness.

This came to a pivotal point last year, but my "heart" governed by education is what ultimately lead to winning a seemingly losing battle.

For most of my fat loss, I never had to tweak Carbohydrates. Basically, all I had to do is set a calorie deficit (in my own 24 hour cycle style), workout 4 times per week, and fat came off rather easily. I could eat any type of Carbohydrate and at any time. It simply didn't matter, as long as a deficit was present, fat loss came (very brief synopsis).

About March 2007 (just prior to joining the forum), a fat loss plateau developed at about the 9%-10% BF range, with me wanting to get to about 8%.

For 3 months, I "refused" to tweak carbohydrates, because of my past history of not having a complication with them being at relatively normal consumption levels with adequate fat loss rate.

For 3 months, I was manipulating the heck out of my weight training routine, and calorie deficits (NOT macro-nutrients). And this is going to grossly understate what I attempted to do: At times I was doing 4 cardio sessions at 30 minutes a piece per day--7 days per week. Mixed in this equation was "heavy" weighting training 3 to 4 times per week.

To make this short, and simple: It didn't work (again "grossly" over simplifying the process). I was frustrated, mad, depressed, and wanted to rip my own head off. I was moody and just flat pissed about it (foundation of my heart).

For 3 months I was simply flat stupid. I "wasn't" listening, "nor thinking out of the box", nor learning....what I should have learned.

And, to this very day, I will never forget the "learning" lesson it taught me. I went on a shopping "spree"---for more brains. And, like I state once in a while on the forum: The time I spent, paled in comparison to what I had learned, and what I got in return. Again, grossly over stating: When I began to tweak Carbohydrates lower (increasing associated macro nutrients and dropping the ungodly cardio), and increased and/or tweaked the "the energy levels" in my "heavy" weight training workout program, is when I began to see results I wanted. My stubbornness was a friend and a foe, and my heart for my goal carried me through it---guided by education.

For 3 months, I made some monumental diet and fitness mistakes--applicable to me. I thought........I was doing everything right. I wasn't......doing.......EVERYTHING....right. Only some major things right (like eating right foods), but the macro components of those foods.........killed my goal.

However, another demon developed. Does this every stop....? ;)

The side effects of low carbohydrate consumption. And, I pay rather dearly for it. Headaches, light headedness, etc. And, I will write what I did about it.

But.....it STILL takes some heart---and understanding what is happening "within you" during low carbohydrate consumption to assist you through. If you study what "happens" sometimes studying this very thing.....leads to answers in how to handle them--properly for you.

Of all the pictures I have shown on the forum, the one fondest to me, is the picture I first shown on forum. I have ALOT of blood, sweat, and many tears, behind that picture.

Now, I know what to do.....THANKS TO FALLING DOWN.......and getting UP.

Do not be afraid of trying and making mistakes.......just learn from them.....and have HEART.

You can have all the education in the world, and know how to apply it, but you have to have some degree of passion within the heart to see things through. I KNOW THE WALK. I have walked it.

And, I leave you with this thought.

This is your body talking:

I never stop talking day or night.

I never shut up; I am always flappen' the lips.

The language I speak is controlled by my forked tongue; I can sometimes lie and tell the truth.

I can be your greatest asset or your worst enemy.

Your attitude influences the nature of my tongue and the degree of my lip flappen'

You must keep tappen' the lip flappen to make YOU happen'


You walk with me but can you handle me?

Any questions?


Best regards,

Chillen