This day last year, I was disappointed with my slowing progress on a standard CICO type diet. Even adding the daily cardio had not made a difference. I was talking with my sister, who had started low carb for herself the month before.

She convinced me to give low-carb a try. She sent me some web links to check out, and told me to give it a week and see how I felt. I read the links and decided to give it two weeks; I thought that would be a fair evaluation.

Here I am 52 weeks later, and this is my lifetime WOE now. I may someday add slightly more more carbs, and will likely have to raise my caloric goals when I hit maintenance, but I can't see ever going back to the high-carb lifestyle.

To be fair, I haven't always been strict about it. The first 6 months or so I was not tracking either carbs or calories; I just consiously chose low-carb options and eliminated stuff I knew was higher in carbs. I have been measuring with ketostix since the first week, and according to them I have been in ketosis pretty much since the start.

I haven't been entirely 'cheat-free' either. Though I don't like to think of it as cheating; rather I look at it as an occasional treat. Eg. the week between xmas and newyears I indulged in a lot of treats that were higher carb than normal -- though I wasn't eating candy, chips, bread etc.

And every now and then (though no more than once per month) I allow myself something carb-heavy. Like tomorrow for instance, I am meeting one of my best friends for a sushi-date, and I do plan on eating a week's worth of carbs in one meal!

Gonna brag a bit - in those first 9 months of SAD/CICO I "only" lost about 50 lbs. In the first 3 months of low-carb, I lost another 50lbs. In the 9 months since then, I've lost about 100 lbs more. As of my weigh-in yesterday morning, my total loss is now 202 lbs!

This is the most weight I have ever lost, ever.

I've tried multiple diets and other 'programs' over the past 20 years, and the best I've ever done was losing 120lbs before gaining it all back again. This is the closest I've ever been to my goal -- 80% there. 200 lbs down, 50 lbs to go.

I'm excited to see what the next 12 months bring!