Need to lose 20 lbs and I have questions (1 Viewer)

[LDfan]

Yes the Atkins diet works. Is it good for you, No. At least from the doctors I've talked to. High protein is hard on the kidneys in the long run. You are forcing your body into a state of Ketoacidosis.
For someone with Diabetes this is a very dangerous state to be in and can be fatal.

jeff

 

[Leila Dougan]

You are forcing your body into a state of Ketoacidosis.

Let's not confuse ketosis with ketoacidosis. Very different things.

 

[Mark Zimmer]

I didn't think much of Atkins till I tried it; it seems so counter-intuitive. But I'm not feeling at all deprived, eat plenty of stuff I love, and I've dropped 38 pounds. I don't think of Dr Atkins as a cult leader or a godlike figure, and certainly don't buy most of the Atkins products. But the information just on the website for free gives you a pretty good start on what to do, and damned if it doesn't work. It's effortless beyond being a little careful in what you eat, and hardly the deprived feeling I've had from other diets. I could do this forever---which I suppose is the plan.

 

[Chris_Morris]

You can actually eat all you want because you get *true* hunger, not low-blood-sugar-induced hunger. All the carbs you eat are used for fuel, not stored as fat. That way you can really eat many more calories low carb than high carb while still losing weight.

Sorry, but that's all Atkins hype.

If you eat more calories than you burn, carbs, fat, protein, whatever, you will gain weight.

If my calorie burn a day is 3300 (assuming cardio or weightlifting that day) than I can eat 2100 calories worth of pure carbohydrates, and I will still lose weight.

Chris

 

[Tony Whalen]

If my calorie burn a day is 3300 (assuming cardio or weightlifting that day) than I can eat 2100 calories worth of pure carbohydrates, and I will still lose weight.

Some of us don't want to calculate the caloric intake of everything we put in our bodies. Don't get me wrong...I admire your discipline... but I'm not out to make myself buff. I just want to lose a little weight and get a little excersize.

I'm open to the idea that I'm consuming less calories... as my diet is far healthier... I'm just saying don't be so quick to dismiss a method that works for people.

And honestly? I'd love to see if you lose weight FASTER maintaining your current regimen whilst consuming less carbs. T'would be interesting!


As with many forms of diet and/or excersize, there are people who take things to extremes, and go too far.

But for those of us who do things "as suggested", a low-carb plan works just fine, thanks. For me at least...YMMV.

What you do is, of course, your choice.

 

[Chris Lockwood]

> The "Atkins" plan is just like WW, Jenny Craig, Body for Life, etc.

Thanks for proving you know nothing about it, because it's a lot different from those plans (which are different from each other as well). It's like saying DVD & VHS are the same thing because they both can play movies. The problem with WW & JC type diets is they often recommend starvation level calories, which slows your metabolism. Those plans also lead to losing a lot of lean weight, which makes you worse off if you gain back the pounds you lost, since those will be mostly fat. At least BFL includes weight training, so it's a better way to go than those two.


> Is it good for you, No. At least from the doctors I've talked to.

Did you ever talk to Dr. Atkins? I'm pretty sure HE was a doctor himself, hence the title "Dr.". I know people whose doctors have put them on low carb diets. One guy got his cholesterol down from the 500s to under 200 that way. Of course, only doctors who are willing to read up on nutrition will do this. They get very little training in it in medical school. That's why they keep giving out outdated advice like avoid eating eggs to keep your cholesterol down.

How many of those doctors you talk to have even read the book? How many of them have lost a lot of fat (via any plan)? People who have never been overweight should never give advice on fat loss. Ask those doctors if someone would be better to be 50 lbs overweight, or follow an Atkins type diet for a few months.

What I don't get is why we don't have more warnings about how useless the low fat mantra we've been sold the past 20 years is. Have you noticed that ever since all the low fat everything started showing up in stores, the population has gotten fatter?

 

[Chris_Morris]

Some of us don't want to calculate the caloric intake of everything we put in our bodies. Don't get me wrong...I admire your discipline... but I'm not out to make myself buff. I just want to lose a little weight and get a little excersize

You don't always have to keep track of everything, just having a general idea works fairly well. When I was losing weight, I didn't always count everything, though weight loss was alot faster when I did.

One thing I've learned these last 3 years is that you can't argue or talk sensibly with most hardcore Atkins followers. I have seen some pretty intense, nasty fights on Usenet about Atkins (head over to alt.diet.support.low-carb those are some of the most brainwashed people I have ever seen they are the ones who hold Atkins up like a god. Calling Atkins a kook there would have gotten severe nasty email and several death threats ), which has led me to the belief that, if it works for you, good, just don't try to tell me it's the best thing, or that nothing else would work


Chris

 

[Michael Hughes]

Chris,

Great post. I think my biggest turn off from Atkins and other plans like it was the fact that it BANS certain things.

I don't know about you, but when something is banned I want it even more than before.

That's why I think W.W. is one of the best health plans going, you can eat what you want, but most of all, you learn to be accountable to yourself, there is no magic potion or "tricking" the body. You want that cookie or donut, go ahead eat, but know you have less wiggle room for the day or the week. But I know I can have it, which psychologically is huge.

They give you the groudnwork for succesful, measured healthful eating. I can eat a hamburger, fish, candy, cake, ice cream, pasta, veggies, pootatoes, you name it, but when I make those choices I make them consciously knowing how it will affect me.

Any plans that lets you eat all you can eat (meats/fats), and limit fruits and veggies and whole grains (carbs) seems on the "gut" level to make no sense to me.

But to each his own, and good luck to all on whatever plan works for them.

 

[Chris_Morris]

But to each his own, and good luck to all on whatever plan works for them.

Agreed


Chris

 

[Chris Smith]

Atkins is the only diet I've ever lost weight on. Unfortunatly, I'm so addicted to carbs, I have an extreemly hard time staying on it.

I measured my caloric intake pre-Atkins and post-Atkins last time that I was extreemly strict with the plan. Before Atkins I was attempting to eat "healthy" low fat, etc and eating around 2000 calories a day (and with my size, by all accounts the weight should have been dropping off my body at that rate) and I was not losing at all. I wasn't gaining, which was cool, but wasn't losing. I tried Atkins. My caloric intake went WAY up (3500-4000 a day) yet the weight came off. Big time, I lost 30 pounds in a few months.

Senior year of college hit, and going to the Bar every night for a few beers (or few pitchers of beer, I was a big beer drinker at school) is very anti-Atkins, so I gained it all back over the course of a year and a half. But this is a time of my life that I was eating 5000 calories a day (est.) mostly of fast food and beer.

I'm back on the plan (down 5 pounds so far, mostly water weight as it's only been a few days.) Here is to the ONLY way of eating that my body has ever responded to.

 

[Chris_Morris]

Out of sheer curiosity, was there any change in physical activity to go along with the change in diet? What type of exercise were you doing?

I have a couple of theories as to why you didn't lose weight on 2000 calories, but I'll wait for the answers.


Chris

 

[Chris Smith]

Zero change in physical activities before/after.

I'd love to hear your theroies since many a people have tried to convince me it isn't the diet. To me, the simple Calorie In - Calorie Used just doesnt work.

Maybe Atkins, or the type of food I eat on Atkins, speeds up my metabolism, I don't know. I really don't care, I just know it works.

 

[Chris_Morris]

Forgot to ask this before, how much did you weigh before starting to eat at ~2000 cals a day?


Chris

 

[Chris Smith]

Well that was a few years ago, so I was about 260.

 

[Leila Dougan]

Chris Smith

I'm right there with you, bud. Carbs just cause my blood sugar to plummet, leaving me grumpy and starving. The remedy? Eat my carbs of course! Haha! Life's been so good since giving up most of my carbs. I know longer get the ravaging hunger I used to, my moods are more stable and best of all, I'm losing weight.

Who says you can't lose weight without exercising? I can I can! Now I realize that excercise is best, but when I can eat 30% more calories and lose weight instead of gaining, I'm a happy happy girl.

A *lot* of people are insulin resistant and for these people Atkins works best. Even for those that aren't, lowcarbing can still work but something tells me it's the non-believers that aren't IR. For those of us that are, no doctor ever tells us we are (blood glucose isn't high, so that's a good thing, right?). A lot of doctors don't routinely check for high insulin levels unless you go in for something else. I've got PCOS (polycystic ovary syndrome) and if I hadn't seen a specialist for my infertility, I would have never known about my insulin problems (which is the root of PCOS). Sure, PCOS sounds like a women's only disease but hear hear! There's a few theories floating around that "PCOS" affects men too but since they don't have ovaries nobody ever knows! But they are still insulin resistant. Since the infertility part doesn't affect them they never get diagnosed with problems until it snowballs and they get full blown Diabetes type II.

So, the solution? Eating low carb lowers your insulin levels and in women, straightens out the hormones. With diet changes a significant percentage of women spontaenously become fertile again. Yipee!

Now I realize most of you are men so you're probably tired of me drone on and on But the bottom line is that insulin turns carbs into fat whereas it does not turn protein or fat into fat. If you reduce your carb intake, you're reducing insulin levels and thus not creating fat. *Now* the playing field has been leveled and reducing calories can work but often times it's not necessary. *Now* you can eat like your neighbor (minus the carbs) and lose weight. Before then, though, you're stuck eating the same exact thing and getting frustrated because the pounds pack on instead :frowning:


Chris_Morris, please tell me your enlightened theory. Assume I'm not insulin resistant because let's face it, 50% of the obese population is and most of them don't realize it. If I can't lose weight on 1500 calories (recommended for my height and build), what can I do? Can you explain why I lose weight on 2200 calories low-carbing but can't on 1500 of high carb?

 

[LDfan]

Of course the easy way to lose weight is to hit the gym. I remember lifting 6 days a week and always having a ravenous appetite. No matter what I ate, Big Macs, Pizza, anything I never gained an ounce.

J

 

[Mark Hayenga]

I've been on the Atkins plan for almost five months now, and so far have lost 60lbs. I was going to wait until my official Sunday weigh-in to post an update about it (I started the super-long "Any Atkins diet experiences" thread a while back) but it seems there's already a discussion going on here

I'm a 23 year old male and I started out at 325lbs on June 1st. I had previously tried the diet twice, one time quitting due to an unrelated health concern and the second time quitting after a week and a half of not being able to get into ketosis. This time around I followed the idea of the 'fat fast' for the first five days and finally was able to detect ketones in my urine. Since then I've been eating around 20g of non-fiber carbohydrates a day (occasionally getting lazy and going as high as 30-35, but only with permitted foods). Pork and chicken constitute the staples of my diet, with lesser amounts of red meat, dairy and eggs. My favorite greens are broccoli w/cheese and bacon bits, and salad with tasty (read normal fat) dressing. I do not have a regular exercise program and the main exercise I get is in the form of walking from class to class around campus.

Over the last five months I've lost 60lbs (averaging 2.8lbs/week). Also, my blood tests have shown significantly improved blood sugar levels. In the year before I started trying the diet, my fasting blood glucose levels were tested to be 117mg/dl and 119mg/dl. This is out-of-range high and probably indicative of insulin resistance (nearly everyone in my family over 50 is type II diabetic). The last two times I had it tested (while being on the diet) my fasting level of blood glucose were 93mg/dl and 74mg/dl. This is the good news.

The bad news is that the last blood test showed an increase in both triglycerides and cholesterol, triglycerides being up to 79mg/dl (from 56) and cholesterol up slightly from 160 to 169. While they have increased, both are still well within healthy limits. From what I've read of recent medical studies, this is also atypical of the diet. Uric acid was also high, but my doc said to expect that on any diet plan, and Atkins acknowledges that the plan can have that effect on some people. BUN, creatinine, and all measures of kidney and liver function were identical to before the diet. I will say that that particular test was done after being on the diet just over two months, and that I'm wanting to get re-tested just to make sure everything's still OK at the five-month mark.

As to my personal thought on why the diet works, I think it's very obvious that I'm eating a lot fewer calories. My appetite is amazingly well-controlled, I have a sense of proper portions and when to stop eating, and it's eliminated virtually all of my cravings for sugary/starchy foods. I find it a very hollow criticism of the diet when people say "Oh, it's really just a low calorie diet" when that is what every registered dietician will tell you works The difference is that Atkins hasn't put me through the starvation hell of a high-carb, low-fat diet, instead allowing the naturally satiated feeling that a high-fat, low-carb diet will produce given an equivalent amount of calories.

 

[Chris_Morris]

Can you explain why I lose weight on 2200 calories low-carbing but can't on 1500 of high carb?

See above.


And for the record, I don't recommend a high-carb diet either (as in how Atkins determines high or low as an extreme, high carb would be 65-70%). Moderation is the key. I have always recommended a 50/35/15 diet.

And with that said, I bow out of this debate. I know hardcore Atkinites from years of debating them, and know that they will stop at nothing to convert the world to Atkinism(tm). Anything else I could say would just be repeating myself. Those who want to know more should not just read message boards (they are highly opinionated) but take the time to read different health books, and studies on line.

Chris

*This post corrected by the PC police. "We protect your sensitivity"

 

[Chris Smith]

You were eating too little.

And I would agree with that statement, EXCEPT, increasing caloric intake with the same ratios of food caused me to GAIN weight. Only when changing my ratios to a low carb one did I finally lose weight, AND it doesn't matter how much I eat, it still comes off (I mean within reason, I don't expect to be able to eat 10,000 calories and still lose weight)

 

[Chris_Morris]

Ok, my last post on this subject, then I am going to unsubscribe

increasing caloric intake with the same ratios of food caused me to GAIN weight.

Because your BMR (Basal Metabolic Rate) was low due to the "starvation" mode. It takes time for your body to 'right' itself, in extreme cases it may require thyroid medication (the thyroid helps control the 'starvation' mode)


Chris