Has anyone here ever done Atkins or any other low carb diet?
Question:
I am not breastfeeding. Also, when you get into ketosis with purple test strips which I read about in Dr. Atkins book does that mean you start burning fat and losing weight.
Answers:
First off, you can't do Atkins on a low-fat diet. Big mistake. You need your fats.
Please please do not listen to the anti-Atkins crowd. They have been so misled by the medical establishment it has ceased to be funny.
There are indeed bad fats out there. They are called polyunsaturates, you know them by the names Mazola and Canola. Never use margerine, use real butter. Also trans-fats, which is what happens to most polyunsaturates when you fry with them. Even if they don't convert to trans-fat during frying, they certainly are oxidized and that is just as bad. So avoid KFC and Popeyes.
If you want to pan fry only use healthy saturated coconut oil. Use the refined one sold in most healthfood stores like vitamin shoppe. It has no odor and makes your pork chops and pan fried veggies very tasty indeed. Never heat to its smoking point, you oxidize it and make it unhealthy.
Use extra olive oil for salads not for cooking since you will oxidize the fat and make it unhealthy even without reaching its smoking point.
I lost 30 pounds on Atkins over ten years ago... I gained back about 15 after a year but realized I had made a big mistake. It is not a diet, it is a lifestyle change in eating.
After realizing that I maintain now, for the lat 7 years the 30 pound loss.
My blood is normal and my triglycerides are low once I learned to stay away from restaurant fried food and processed foods. I only fry my own with coconut oil. Eat fresh meat, green veggies, nut, and fruits in moderation, best choise berries: starwberries, blueberries etc. (if you are in induction fruits are not allowed for the first two weeks). Keep up the exercise.
If you have Dr. Atkins book you need to read it and follow it.
See link below for a great article about why Low-Fat diets are stupid and dangerous.
Good look and remember not to pay any mind to the anti-low carb crowd, they have been so fooled and they don't even know it.
Other Answers:
I have, I did the South Beach dit with greeeaat resutls! I lost 30 pounds while on it. :-)
i have never tried it but i know alot of people that has and they say it works great.
i did and after 10 months i lost 100 lbs it was great
Yes, the atkins diet makes you very weak, and not feel very well. I don't think it helps the immune system too well either. I recommend excercising first thing in the morning before you eat with lots of water every day for 20 minutes. In a month, you WILL see results and you WILL have more energy. Try it. It's plain and simple.
Atkins works real well. It is great because you can eat as much as you want. If you go on atkins i recommend taking fiber so you can go to the bathroom. the only side affect is that when u get off the diet you will have huge cravings for carbs which can be a bad thing resulting in gaining the weight back.
No, Atkins is not that well balanced (too much unhealthy fat), try Bill Phillips (Body-For-Life, Eating-For-Life bookstores everywhere), he has plenty of great tips. Sometimes it may sound like for bodybuilders, but don't get scared, you're not gonna get bulky or nothing, you can get nice and lean, you're definitely not gonna be hungry, it gave me tons of energy. Good luck.
P.S. Oh, and its not "diet", its more like lifestyle, so no side effects when you come out of it...
First of all, Lose the diet. They don't work. Low carb diets rob your body of important vitamins and nutrients. Not to mention make you feel like a slug.
You need a good balance of protein, good carbs, and yes, fat. My suggestion, call your health care provider and make an appointment with a nutritionist. They will put you on a healthy path so that have the energy you need to take care of yourself and your family.
Sometimes, even if you do everything correctly, you do hit a plateau and will need to change your caloric intake and or your exercise regimen. Try adding more cardio and weight training.
Good luck
Yes the Atkins diet does make you spill key tones, spilling key tones can be dangerous and if spilled for too long can make you very ill. The Southbeach diet is better because it does not take you to the level of spilling key tones. But you can go on a low carb diet of your own making (generally less expensive). The link below lists foods and how many carbs they have. Eating complex carbs (rice, potatoes, pasta, bread, etc.) in smaller portions and avoiding the junk food, will go a long way in helping you lose weight. Filling up foods with foods high in protein or low carb veggies and keeping the high carbs to a minimum will help keep you from being hungry. Exercising for at least 30 minutes (even just walking) everyday will also help and can be done in 3 10 min sessions if need, add more time when can.
I did Atkins, and for the first 2-3 days, I didn't feel so hot. But after that, I felt a lot better. I lost 10 pounds in those first 2 weeks (I was at about 140). Bad thing is that I started eating to many "bad" carbs when I got past the first 2 weeks. I did gain the weight back, but it took well over a year - and that's because I started eating crap like cookies, cake, etc.
I am going to do South Beach because they use a bit less high fat foods (like heavy cream used in some Atkins recipes). This eating plan does not hurt you because you are only reducing/eliminating carbs that have no nutritional value - white bread, rice, white noodles. you can eat the whole grain version of those things. People who say these plans eliminate carbs are dead wrong - they require you to eat salad and veggies the first 2 weeks.
I've used Atkins to control an insulin condition since 2003, and it works really well for me. Low-carb plans keep your blood sugar nice and stable, so you don't feel hungry as often. There are a lot of them out there: Atkins, Protein Power, South Beach, The Zone (sort of low), Susanne Somers, Sugar Busters.
I recommend Atkins because it's what I have the most experience with, it is "tried and true", and because its lifetime maintenance plan gives you the skills you need to keep the weight off. However, there is no one right plan that works for everybody; the right plan is the one that you can live with and stick to.
The important thing to remember about Atkins is that it's a lifestyle change, *not* a short-term diet. You start with a 2-week Induction phase which is the strictest, and then you gradually add carbs back in as you progress through four phases, ending with lifetime maintenance. Throughout those phases, you build good habits and learn how much carbohydrate your body can handle (and from which sources). It takes some getting used to, but if you can find a way to make it work for you, it should be easier to stick to in the long-term than a low-calorie diet, because you aren't hungry all the time.
Here is a list of tips, plus a few misconceptions (in no particular order):
- make friends with vegetables.
When you take out all the starches, you're going to need to put something in their spot on your plate. Try new veggies and new recipes. Some people think that all you eat is meat and cheese. That is NOT the case. The first phase, which only lasts two weeks, restricts WHICH vegetables you eat, and limits you to three cups per day - which is six servings, MORE than the recommended "five a day", but you reintroduce the restricted ones, and increase the amount of them that you eat as you progress through the four phases. I eat a LOT more vegetables now than I did when I was on a "standard" diet.
- Do it by the book.
The Atkins web site has changed a lot since the Dr. died, and some of the company's new recommendations don't mesh entirely with what he laid out in the New Diet Revolution. I'd recommend reading the book, and following the plan exactly as laid out there.
- keep suitable food and snacks in the house
Most low-carb foods are fairly perishable, so it takes a little more planning to keep the refrigerator stocked. Make sure you have what you need for low-carb meals (and don't forget lunch!) and have some good snacks on hand. String cheese, celery and dip, or radishes with butter and salt can really hit the spot when you need something salty or crunchy.
- Avoid too many processed low-carb foods (bars, candies, shakes)
These stall weight loss for some people. By all means, have some low-carb candy when you're really desperate for something sweet, and keep a low-carb bar in your purse for emergency snacks. But most of what you eat should be real, whole food.
- On a related note, strictly limit sugar alcohols (polyols)
A lot of low-carb processed foods contain polyols (aka sugar alcholols), which are really useful because they behave like sugar in food, and don't affect blood sugar very much. However, they can give you gas or diarrhea if you eat a lot of it, so be very careful. Usually one serving (as labeled on the package) will have no more than 25g of sugar alchohol. That's about all I can handle. I have had some very mild effeects from as little as 18g. Sugar alcohols include: maltitol, sorbitol, xylitol, mannitol, etc. Maltitol is the most common, and also causes the worst symptoms for me.
- Don't worry if you feel *awful* on the first couple of days. In the weight-loss phases, your body switches from using sugar in your bloodstream as its energy source to burning stored fat. During the transition, you're likely to feel pretty lethargic. This is the same thing as "the wall" runners hit during marathons; it's what happens once your body runs out of available carbs. Once you get on the other side of the wall, though, you should feel a lot better than before. When transitioning, it really helps if you start being good at dinnertime (so you spend more of your transition time asleep), get some long but easy-going exercise the next morning (I like an hour of not-too-brisk walking), and drink lots of water.
- actually *count* and record carbs, and MEASURE!
When I stop counting, the scale starts creeping up. It's very easy to eat more carbohydrate than you think you are. I highly recommend keeping a food journal (I do mine online at http://www.ezmealtracker.com) and measuring or weighing your food, so you can get accurate carb counts for what you are ACTUALLY eating, rather than what you think you are eating.
- don't overeat.
A lot of people trying to discredit low-carb plans claim that a calorie is a calorie. This is partly true. You can eat more calories on a low-carb plan because you burn more (the process of burning fat for fuel requires using more energy than the process of burning carbs). However, there is a limit. You don't have to count calories, but you can't overeat. As it says in the book, when you're hungry, eat until you aren't hungry anymore, but stop before you are stuffed. It takes a little while, but you will learn how to recognize that point. It's also easier on a low-carb plan, since you will be feeling genuine hunger, rather than the blood sugar swings you get on a high-carb plan, so you will learn when to stop. I find that when I honor my hunger and stick to the weight loss guidelines, I naturally eat about 1500 calories a day and can still lose weight.
- don't be afraid of fat.
Fat helps keep your blood sugar stable (which keeps you from getting as ravenously hungry), and you NEED it in order to use fat-soluble vitamins like vitamin D. Furthermore, there's no reason to believe that fat is bad for you EXCEPT when you eat a lot of carbs with it. The studies that the low-fatrecommendations were based on compared a high-fat/high-carb diet to a low-fat/low-carb diet. They failed to vary an important parameter; carb intake! Studies that compare high-fat/low-carb and low-fat/high-carb tend to show that the high-fat/low-carb groups do as well as (or better) than the low-fat groups in terms of good-to-bad cholesterol ratios and triglycerides. More tellingly, children with epilepsy have been put on a ketogenic diet (mostly fat, with a little protein and almost no carbohydrate) to treat their condition since the 1920s, and they have shown NO ill effects from that diet. Plus, in the 20 years since low-fat/high-carb became the conventional wisdom, we have all gotten fatter, and diabetese, hypertension and heart disease statistics have skyrocketed.
- find some support networks
Finding message boards, web sites, mailing lists, and other people on a low-carb plan can really help. They keep you motivated, answer questions, share recipes, etc. There are several in Yahoo Groups, or just do a web search.
- don't worry about the test strips
Ketone test strips can tell you if there are concentrations of ketones in your urine. (Ketones are a by-product of the fat-burning process.) However, ketones can also be expelled in your breath, or they could be too diluted in your urine to turn the test strip purple. It is fun to watch them turn colors, but don't worry if they don't. Don't let anyone tell you that ketosis is dangerous; unless you have pre-existing kidney disease, there is nothing dangerous about it. There is a condition called ketoacidosis, which diabetics can get, and that is dangerous, but that is completely different.
- have a recovery plan.
Nobody is perfect, so make a plan for how you will get back on track if you fall of the wagon and cheat. Otherwise, it's easy to just keep cheating until you've gained a lot of your weight back. I have two plans:
- regular: if I cheat at one meal, I start back on Induction the next morning, stay there for a few days before working back up to my normal carb count.
- extended: for some special occasions (my birthday, christmas) I'll go on a mini carb bender for 2-3 days. I plan those in advance, including when to stop, then get back on Induction the next morning, bump up my exercise routine, and stay there for at least a week to undo some of the damage before transitioning back to my regular levels.
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I hope this helps, and good luck!
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