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Atkins diet experience (1 Viewer)

Kelley_B

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Well after one week I have lost 8lbs!

We bought some of those Atkin's bars and to me they all tasted like wax, not good at all. We got the Atkins corn bread, lemon muffins, and blueberry muffins mixes gonna try them throughout the week.

I made some cherry sugar free jello then took some creme cheese and whipped cream mixed them together and layered on top of the jello and made a VERY tasty extremely low carb desert.

Another tasty meal was ground beef, smoked sausage cooked together and then 2 table spoons of queso on it(only 2 carbs!). That was very good.

I am starting to get used to the taste of diet colas...still crave the regular Dr. Pepper though.

I would highly recommend eating a salad a day just to stay "regular".
 

Joe Szott

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I tried the Atkins Induction diet for 3 days, had to stop doing it. Only had maybe a 2 cup salad for dinner and maybe 1/2 cup green bell pepper added to morning eggs (under 20 g carbs a day), other than that all meat/eggs/cheese/whatever. After the first day, I felt terrible. Total lack of energy, none of the food allowed was appetizing after 48 hrs, and just feeling, well, run-down. Had to stop Atkins and switch back to a 40/30/30 calorie counting scheme (Met-Rx) that worked out well.

Anybody had the experience I had? Just wondering if my body is unusual in this reaction, or if it is a hidden 'phase' everyone goes through on Ketosis.
 

Shawn Sefranek

Second Unit
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Sep 30, 1998
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For all you people starting this diet……
Congratulations, but please buy the book. It’s only like 7 or 8 bucks in paperback.

I can tell by the questions and methods that are being posted here that there are some of you who are just going to attempt this plan based on the labels of what they eat.
This is the WRONG way to do it and could cause you to get sick.
Vitamin supplements are also important.

FYI for those that are stocking their refrigerator based on carb counts:
If the label says “ZERO CARBS” it could have as much as 0.4 grams in it.
If the label says “LESS THEN ONE CARB” it could have as much as 0.9 grams in it.

When you’re only doing 20 grams per day this could become a big issue.
If you think an item is ZERO and it’s really 0.9 and you eat (10) of them. Well, you do the math.

Buy the book. Follow the rules.
Otherwise you’ll be back in three weeks as an “Anti Atkins” person because it didn’t work out for you.

Shawn S
 

Shawn Sefranek

Second Unit
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Sep 30, 1998
Messages
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I tried the Atkins Induction diet for 3 days, had to stop doing it.
Total lack of energy, none of the food allowed was appetizing after 48 hrs, and just feeling, well, run-down.
Joe,

Some people just can’t do it.
One of my sisters friends tried and she actually passed out on the third day and had to stop.
My doctor actually told me to keep a couple of chocolate candy bars in my desk at work and take one for a quick sugar rush if I felt nauseous or faint. I never had to do this though.

Were you taking the proper Vitamin supplements ???

Shawn S
 

Joe Szott

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Shawn,

Yeah, I was taking a really good multi-vitamin supplement during the diet. My mother-in-law works for a big LA sports doctor and he gave me a list to take for everyday health. I also read the Atkins book before I started the diet, although looking at some of the recipes above I wish I had been more creative in menu.

Pretty much followed it as laid out in the book to the letter, just didn't get the effects that were discussed there ;) I attribute the first day to just not having any caffiene or sugar intake (DTs), but by day 3 I could tell something was not going right. As soon as I started eating more carbs and had a little sugar, I felt right as rain again.

I'm probably like your sister's friend, one of those oddball genes people. I might go back and try to start with the maintence part of the diet (40 g carb/day) and see if that is ok. Will take longer, but no rapid weight loss was worth feeling like that for two weeks (for me at least).

PS - I also didn't enter Ketosis during that time, so maybe that has something to do with it. I didn't check at the end of the third day, but in the morning I was still getting only trace Keotenes using the LTS strips.

PPS - The best soda in the world for Atkins is Fresca. 0 calories, 0 caffiene, 0 everything but taste. Most taste in a diet soda that you can get.
 

Philip_G

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so far no problems here. Basically all I did was cut out the soda I drink. I don't eat a lot of carbs as it is, besides the occasional plate of pasta. No loss.
 

Allen_Appel

Second Unit
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Dec 13, 2002
Messages
418
Don't eat ketchup on your steak. Ketchup is just tomatoes and corn syrup. Don't drink milk, either. Milk has a great deal of natural sugars. You can make "milk" by mixing water with heavy whipping cream. Not that you'd really want to drink a big glass, but it's good for protein shakes and recipes that call for milk.
 

Philip_G

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I can have 20g of carbs, that's 5 tbl spoons of ketchup, those were my carbs for the day :)

I didn't have any dressing on hand to make a salad. While not ideal, I'm within tolerances, so that's A-OK in my book. NONE of the steak/BBQ/teriaki(no shock there) sauces are carb free, the store here doesn't have any diebetic friendly or sugar free type BBQ sauce, and A1, heinz 57 and all the others are pretty carb heavy IIRC, I looked at them all. Steak I can do, but a burger with no bun I can't do dry, so I need to figure something out. It was tasty though, wrapped it in bacon because, well. I can :D

I packed my lunch and some snacks for work tomorrow, mostly processed meat stuff (no carbs but again not ideal) some cheddar cheese, and some tuna salad made with 2 cans of tuna, real carb free mayo, some spicy seafood spice stuff to kick it up (i despise mayo and love miracle whip, so I have to do SOMETHING to spice it up and it's carb free) and some lettuce to wrap it in and chow down. I like finger foods so that will replace a burger and fries easily I think.

for dinner tomorrow I think I'll have a nice 3 cup of lettuce salad with vinegar and oil, with lots of blue cheese, it's carb free as well, or I think "less than one gram" per serving, that'll be tasty and healthier than ketchup.

I don't see scallops mentioned anywhere on his website, shrimp, lobster and other seafoods/fish are all OK so we'll assume scallops broiled in garlic butter will be too. Garlic is A-OK according to the good Dr. :D

hell, I'm eating better ON the diet than I did off. No complaints :)


BTW I'm 6'3 @ 252lbs.
I'll weigh myself again the first of next month, not gonna worry about it until then.
 

Allen_Appel

Second Unit
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Dec 13, 2002
Messages
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hell, I'm eating better ON the diet than I did off.
I find this is the case with me as well. Off the diet, my vegetables are potatoes (mashed, french fried, and chipped) and corn (puffed and chipped). The lettuce and tomato on my BLT is my salad. But when I'm on the diet, I eat salads and vegetables every day. I also don't snack constantly or eat at late hours.
 

Greg O' Connel

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I cringe when I hear Dr. Atkins' mantra that it's carbohydrates that are making people fat. While the Atkins diet obviously will cause you to lose weight by inducing ketosis, I don't believe that's the healthiest way to lose weight.

For the sake of comparison, I lost 40 pounds several years ago with a diet that was the antithesis of the Atkins plan:
very little fat, high carbohydrates (practically my entire diet consisted of bread, baked potatoes, pasta, and other carb rich foods). The weight only started to come back on within the past couple years when a new job and a much busier lifestyle made the siren song of a quick meal at McDonald's the most convenient place to eat lunch (and breakfast, and dinner :b). Carbs don't make you fat - high caloric intake no matter what the source and a sedentary lifestyle make you fat.
 

MickeS

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I gotta agree with you there, as I lost 40 lbs on the Weight Watchers program, which is about reducing calories and fat, but not so much about carbs.

I think the important thing is that you pick an eating plan that is suitable for your needs. It doesn't matter how effective a plan is if you can't follow it. The thing with Atkins is that a lot of people seem to be able to give up certain foods in return for other kinds of food, and it seems to be easier to give up high-carb foods for fatty meat than fatty meats for low-fat food.

Like I said before, I would have a hard time giving up my carbs, so it wouldn't fit me, but I think it's great that other people are having such success with it.
 

Jonathan Burk

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Well after one week I have lost 8lbs!
Sadly, that's probably not fat you're losing. To lose a pound of fat, you need a 3500 calorie deficit. That means you either burn 3500 extra calories through excercise, or consume 3500 less calories by eating fewer. Hopefully, some combination of both. Obviously, this would need to be done over time (maybe a 300 calorie deficit per day, over 12 days).

If you stopped eating entirely (not recommended), and burned nothing but stored fat (not glucose or muscle), and expended 3500 calories/ day through heavy excercise (especially not recommended if you're not eating anything), then you could theoretically lose a pound of fat in a day.
 

Joe Szott

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Jonathan - I know where you are coming from, but I would really suggest you read Atkins book before you make assumptions like that. It is indeeed fat as that is what a high protein ketosis does: it burns your fat for fuel (leaves muscles alone.) It doesn't seem to make conventional sense, but that is what is happening on Atkin's diet. Also, the metabolism shift from glucose to fat causes you to use much more fat than you would normally to get that amount of energy. The rest flushes from your system (I assume.) It gets pretty techincal, but it is understood and studied, check it out in Atkin's book.

Greg - I have lost over 100 lbs following a similar carb-heavy diet, but don't dismiss Atkins because it is different. The key to the low carb diet is to change the body to using fat by only allowing it fat and protein, no glucose. A'normal' diet simply reduces the overall caloric intake to support a caloric deficit, which makes the body turn to fat as a last resort. In some ways, Atkins sustain diet and a regular diet as very, very similar: limited white flour intake, no unneccessary sugar, low caffiene, balanced daily intake of p/c/f. The only real difference in the long term is what % they use for p/c/f.

All I can say is read the book before you condemn this diet. It's not as radical or as extreme as most people think it is. Just a different way to feed your body (no better or worse...)
 

Allen_Appel

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Sadly, that's probably not fat you're losing.
Actually, Jonathan is correct. The first seven pounds or so lost on the diet are water weight. This is weight you will gain back immediately if you cheat. This is often a criticism laid against the diet--"that's just water weight you're losing"--but after this first drop, the rest is fat loss.
 

Jon_Are

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The first seven pounds or so lost on the diet are water weight. This is weight you will gain back immediately if you cheat.
I lost eleven pounds the first week. Was it "water weight"? At first it may seem so, but realize that I was drinking bucketfuls of water every day. Also, if one were to lose eleven pounds of water, one would exhibit some signs of dehydration. I had not even symptoms of mild dehydration. And something tells me that my eating a bagel and a handful of potato chips - major cheating - would not put those eleven pounds back on.

I started on 1-1 and have lost 25 pounds. My clothes fit much better, I have more energy than I've had in a decade, and folks are noticing.:D

Good luck, everyone.

Jon
 

Philip_G

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Phillip...You really should read the book. Just because you are allowed 20 grams of carbs a day does not mean you should "spend" them any way you want.
I have read the book.
if you go on to read what I said, veggies weren't available that day so in a pinch I had the ketchup, because I could.
 

Allen_Appel

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I lost eleven pounds the first week. Was it "water weight"?
Seven pounds or so was. Drinking bucketfuls of water every day *is* a sign of dehydration. I once gained fourteen pounds over a weekend carb binge. It was gone again in a couple of days, but still a scary experience. Remember, I'm a proponent of the diet, but it's important for us to acknowledge all the facts. That first seven pounds is water weight. Now, stay on the diet and that weight loss is permanent.
 

Carlos V III

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I think everyone seems to forget that everyone is unique....just like everyone else! ;)

Everyone is different and the same diet won't work for everyone. I'm in the middle of reading the Atkins book getting ready to start the full blown diet and am preparing by cutting back on my carbs now. I'm already feeling quite a bit better.

I think some people are just sensitive to carbs and gain weight easily on them. Atkins isn't for everyone. If it doesn't work for you, try something else. I've tried counting calorie diets, but they never seemed to work on me.

Just my .02 cents.
 

Jonathan Burk

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I think everyone seems to forget that everyone is unique....just like everyone else!

Everyone is different and the same diet won't work for everyone. I'm in the middle of reading the Atkins book getting ready to start the full blown diet and am preparing by cutting back on my carbs now. I'm already feeling quite a bit better.

I think some people are just sensitive to carbs and gain weight easily on them. Atkins isn't for everyone. If it doesn't work for you, try something else. I've tried counting calorie diets, but they never seemed to work on me.
While there are variations among people, there are things that don't change. No matter who you are, or where you are in the world, a pound of fat = 3500 calories. No matter who you are, each calorie consumed has to be accounted for. Some people might store fat more readily, and some people might have allergies and intolerances to different foods, while others may have very high metabolic rates, but our bodies and diets are governed by the same laws of physics, chemistry, and biology. There is no "mystery" to what happens to the food you consume. The chemical reactions have all been well documented, for example, here:

http://www.np.edu.sg/~dept-bio/bioch.../aab_lipid.htm

This site will show you the actual chemistry behind different kinds of diets (and ketosis).

Now, let's say someone claims they've lost 5 pounds of fat in 10 days. Let's also assume that there is some magical process that allows your body to convert fat to energy at a rate of 3 calories/ gram (instead of 9 calories/ gram). We won't worry about what happened to the other 6 calories/ gram; this is magic. That person is still claiming that they've used an extra 1167 calories every two days (instead of 3500 calories), above and beyond what they usually use. Now, if you haven't increased your metabolism by 500 calories/ day, then you're fooling yourself (or someone's fooling you.) And remember, we've already invoked the "fewer than 9 calories/ gram of fat" excuse.

Learning a little (or a lot) about these laws can help you to judge whether a diet is likely to work, and if so, how. And if your understanding of the actual process isn't deep enough to explain such a fundamental issue without telling someone to "read the book", then you need to do more homework.

It also appears that the Atkins diet makes little distinction between water weight, lean body mass (muscle weight), and body fat. It appears that losing 5 pounds of water weight makes people just as happy as losing 5 pounds of body fat. That's fine, if you don't care, but it shouldn't be implied that all weight loss is body fat, or that you can just "tell". Body fat measurements are simple and inexpensive, and should be a big part of measuring the success of diet.

Here is a free online body fat calculator. Get a tape measure and try it out:

http://www.healthcentral.com/cooltoo...s/bodyfat1.cfm

While it may not be accurate down to .001%, it can give you an excellent comparison between the start of a diet, and your ongoing progress.

You can also google "body fat test" and get much more information about tools and locations for a more accurate measurement.

Maybe the people that are considering starting a diet plan (Atkins or not) could post their progress? Can someone post a meal plan of 3 or 4 days that they followed during the two week induction phase, and then what they follow now to maintain their health? I've seen the recipes on the Atkins web site, but I'd like to see what people are actually eating.
 

Jon_Are

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if you go on to read what I said, veggies weren't available that day so in a pinch I had the ketchup, because I could.
Philip - I was all set to apologize, but I read and re-read your posts and could not find where you said the above.

No matter, though. I only suggested that you read the book because you're new to the diet and I wanted to get you off to a good start.

By the way, you'll be interested to know that I found an awesome-tasting barbecue sauce that has zero carbs (although I wonder about this, since it also has zero fat and zero protein, but does contain calories - probably has something like 0.9 carbs/serving). Anyway, it's Mike Ditka's sauce. It's called, I think, simply "Ditka's". I bought it at Meijers. Don't know if you have Meijers in North Dakota or not. I tried looking at Ditka's Chicago restaurant website, but the 'products' area is under construction.

Good luck, and keep us posted on your progress.

Jon
 

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