Starting the Atkins diet
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There is no secret to losing weight. It all boils down to burning more calories than you take in, whether those calories come in carbs, fats, or proteins.
Actually, there is a secret! When you lower your carbs, you usually up your fat and protein. When you eat more fat and protein, you feel full and tend to eat less calories!
Conversely, if you're only tracking your calories and exercising more, you feel hungry more often and faster, making it easier to cheat.
IMO.
Based on an individuals preference. It can vary from person to person, but in the end it still comes down to burning more calories than you take in no matter if you eat carbs or not. You can cut all the carbs you want out of your diet, but if you are still eating 3000 calories a day of proteins and fats, you are going to have a hard time losing weight.
well when I was on it I lost 60 lbs....and I ate alot......it was ketoacidosis that caused the weight loss.0 -
There is no secret to losing weight. It all boils down to burning more calories than you take in, whether those calories come in carbs, fats, or proteins.
Actually, there is a secret! When you lower your carbs, you usually up your fat and protein. When you eat more fat and protein, you feel full and tend to eat less calories!
Conversely, if you're only tracking your calories and exercising more, you feel hungry more often and faster, making it easier to cheat.
IMO.
Based on an individuals preference. It can vary from person to person, but in the end it still comes down to burning more calories than you take in no matter if you eat carbs or not. You can cut all the carbs you want out of your diet, but if you are still eating 3000 calories a day of proteins and fats, you are going to have a hard time losing weight.
THIS!!!! The last one!!0 -
totally not good for you health but a little article on a twinkie diet by a proof in Kansas university....
http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/11/08/twinkie.diet.professor/index.html
Its cals in/out0 -
Don't do it! Please ive done Atkins it's so bad for you! I was 160 when I did Atkins lost a ton of weight had bad headaches felt weak and shaky at times. When I introduced carbs my body latched onto them and it was horrible! I blew up to 196 like that! Please don't do this diet just eat healthy small portions. Get a little of everything! No diet should ever cut out carbs that strictly. Your body needs carbs when it doesn't get it your starving yourself and essentially your body eats itself yuck! When it gets a little carbs back it stores the he'll out of them because it thinks you might starve again. Fuel your body right!0
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Best of luck to you! I love low carbing - it changed my life!0
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Sorry for the rant I just feel very strongly about this. A little info though I don't cut carbs but I don't eat much of them. If I have toast I'll only eat half or if I make a sandwich I just use half the bread. I watch how much I've had and I usually stay well below the recommended 300! I think the Atkins can be great if you skip induction. Completely removing carbs from your diet is bad in my opinion and experiences.0
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I've done Atkins a few times and lost weight with it (yo-yoed a lot due to feeling deprived) but after really tracking it (at first with weight watchers now with MFP) I've come to realize i was losing weight when i was sticking with it because I was taking in ALOT less calories because I was so much fuller on whole, clean foods instead of processed stuff. You need to do what works best for you. I've learned that I do better keeping a somewhat low carb diet but as long as I'm under on my calories I don't feel guilty if I want a bagel, a piece of toast or any kind of fruit (I love bananas!!). Good luck with your journey no matter which path you take
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I started the Atkins diet two days ago and I got on the scale today and it says I lost 2 pounds in two days! I have been counting calories and exercising like crazy for three weeks and I haven't been able to lose anything and now I am finally losing.
I tried this diet a year ago and lost ten pounds in two weeks. It's a great diet for quick weight loss, but it's hard to keep it off after the initial induction phase. But people have done it. I went to a forum called lowcarber and looked at success stories of people who stayed on the atkins diet and lost tons of weight!
I know there are a lot of naysayers out there when it comes to this diet, so that's fine. I expect to be blasted on this thread. But it's a tried and true method of losing weight, (as long as you stick with it) and I'm going to try to stick with it. If I can't, I can't, but after all the work I am doing, I am happy to finally be getting results.
So for all of you who are ready to give up, try this diet. Just google it.
the problem most people have with atkins, is that its not sustainable. like you said, its a great way of losing weight, good for a quick weight loss, but then people have trouble maintaining that type of diet.
good luck0 -
When you transition for as lower-carb to higher-carb diet, you will gain an easy 8-10 lbs. of water weight, even if you still maintain a caloric deficit. There is nothing wrong with this, but it is good to know that if you see the scale jump up a ton after a "bad" day, it's no big deal. You just need to burn off that glycogen stored in your body.
Induction phase gets a bad rap, because it makes people feel so crappy. Transitioning from primarily burning carbs to primarily burning fats for energy is a slow process, and it takes a few days to a week of "carb flu" for the body to make the adjustment. For some people, this is unnecessary, and for others it could even be dangerous. For many of us, it is an absolutely necessary, safe step on the path to better health, because it breaks to physical addiction to carbs that we have developed. On these forums, you can read about many people who use Atkins Induction as a periodic step in their eating strategy to help them stay off the sugar in an otherwise "standard" calorie restricted diet.
It is also important to note that you still need to use more calories than you take in to lose weight. Many lower-carb diets also use tricks to tweak the body's metabolism and try to maximize the calories used, but it is not a good idea to rely on this. I use ice packs to stimulate brown adipose tissue into heat production, and I also might be peeing out ketones in my urine. but both of these are at best debatable advantages. View them as a bonus. You cannot count on any tweak to the system reliably working, so stick to a caloric deficit if you mean to lose weight.
Good luck on Atkins! You have a few rough patches ahead of you as you transition to a lower-carb lifestyle, but many of us have found success here where we have only found failure in other strategies. If it does not work for you, then there is no shame in trying a different strategy.0 -
From reading some of the posts above, I feel that some of you are WAY overcomplicating things. Thats your business and you can lose weight whichever way you feel works for you and I wish you the best, but from my past experiences with Atkins (I did it 3 times), whenever you deprive yourself of something, sooner or later you are going to give in, And the thought process of coming out of ketosis from one carb cheat day can make someone give up the whole diet completely, and balloon back up adding more weight on. It happened to me 3 times. I am speaking from experience.
Remember, this is a slow steady approach to living a healthy lifestyle. We all did not become overweight overnight, so we cannot expect the weight to come off overnight either.0 -
From reading some of the posts above, I feel that some of you are WAY overcomplicating things. Thats your business and you can lose weight whichever way you feel works for you and I wish you the best, but from my past experiences with Atkins (I did it 3 times), whenever you deprive yourself of something, sooner or later you are going to give in, And the thought process of coming out of ketosis from one carb cheat day can make someone give up the whole diet completely, and balloon back up adding more weight on. It happened to me 3 times. I am speaking from experience.
Remember, this is a slow steady approach to living a healthy lifestyle. We all did not become overweight overnight, so we cannot expect the weight to come off overnight either.
No matter what you do, you still have to deprive yourself of calories, which is not an easy task. Atkins is a great approach if it can manage hunger effectively.0 -
I know someone who got really sick doing atkins...she lost a lot really quick but gained all the weight back plus some when she stopped due to deteriorating health/energy levels.0
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From reading some of the posts above, I feel that some of you are WAY overcomplicating things. Thats your business and you can lose weight whichever way you feel works for you and I wish you the best, but from my past experiences with Atkins (I did it 3 times), whenever you deprive yourself of something, sooner or later you are going to give in, And the thought process of coming out of ketosis from one carb cheat day can make someone give up the whole diet completely, and balloon back up adding more weight on. It happened to me 3 times. I am speaking from experience.
Remember, this is a slow steady approach to living a healthy lifestyle. We all did not become overweight overnight, so we cannot expect the weight to come off overnight either.
No matter what you do, you still have to deprive yourself of calories, which is not an easy task. Atkins is a great approach if it can manage hunger effectively.
But according to Atkins, being in the state of Ketosis takes about 3 days of eating under 20g of carbs a day. Their whole diet is based around being in a state of ketosis where you burn stored fat as energy, instead of carbs. One bad day on Atkins eating regular carbs can bring you out of Ketosis. You then have to no carb it again for another 3 days to get back in the Ketosis. It can definitely mess with the mind of someone who is over weight and trying any fad diet to lose weight quickly.
Depriving myself of calories, to me, is a lot easier than restricting myself of an entire food base; carbs. On the low calorie diet, it is all about portion control. You can still eat any food you desire. You want a slice of pizza, great, have one. You want a burger and fries for your cheat day, great have one. Going with this approach has led me to stick with a lifestyle change and stop the fad yo yo dieting and took 78 pounds off my frame.0 -
From reading some of the posts above, I feel that some of you are WAY overcomplicating things. Thats your business and you can lose weight whichever way you feel works for you and I wish you the best, but from my past experiences with Atkins (I did it 3 times), whenever you deprive yourself of something, sooner or later you are going to give in, And the thought process of coming out of ketosis from one carb cheat day can make someone give up the whole diet completely, and balloon back up adding more weight on. It happened to me 3 times. I am speaking from experience.
Remember, this is a slow steady approach to living a healthy lifestyle. We all did not become overweight overnight, so we cannot expect the weight to come off overnight either.
No matter what you do, you still have to deprive yourself of calories, which is not an easy task. Atkins is a great approach if it can manage hunger effectively.
But according to Atkins, being in the state of Ketosis takes about 3 days of eating under 20g of carbs a day. Their whole diet is based around being in a state of ketosis where you burn stored fat as energy, instead of carbs. One bad day on Atkins eating regular carbs can bring you out of Ketosis. You then have to no carb it again for another 3 days to get back in the Ketosis. It can definitely mess with the mind of someone who is over weight and trying any fad diet to lose weight quickly.
Depriving myself of calories, to me, is a lot easier than restricting myself of an entire food base; carbs. On the low calorie diet, it is all about portion control. You can still eat any food you desire. You want a slice of pizza, great, have one. You want a burger and fries for your cheat day, great have one. Going with this approach has led me to stick with a lifestyle change and stop the fad yo yo dieting and took 78 pounds off my frame.
Ketosis is only part of the 2-week induction phase. Atkins has phases where the dieter is supposed to slowly add in more carbs until they find a sweet spot where they can maintain the weight. So its not a complete removal of carbs or anything.
For you restriction of calories may be easy, but for others it is near impossible. I find for me that low-carb is great because it makes decision-making that much easier. Most of the foods I cut out are very dense in energy and low in nutritional value. So I naturally end up eating less calories by allowing myself to eat foods higher in nutritional value and more satiating.
So the one thing I will agree on is people must be satisfied with their food choices in order to be successful on Atkins. If you don't like meat, the diet is probably not for you.0 -
Sorry for the rant I just feel very strongly about this. A little info though I don't cut carbs but I don't eat much of them. If I have toast I'll only eat half or if I make a sandwich I just use half the bread. I watch how much I've had and I usually stay well below the recommended 300! I think the Atkins can be great if you skip induction. Completely removing carbs from your diet is bad in my opinion and experiences.
If you are low-carbing correctly, you are not eliminating carbs completely. You are simply getting the majority of your carbs from veggies and avoiding carbs that come from foods like breads and pasta.0 -
From reading some of the posts above, I feel that some of you are WAY overcomplicating things. Thats your business and you can lose weight whichever way you feel works for you and I wish you the best, but from my past experiences with Atkins (I did it 3 times), whenever you deprive yourself of something, sooner or later you are going to give in, And the thought process of coming out of ketosis from one carb cheat day can make someone give up the whole diet completely, and balloon back up adding more weight on. It happened to me 3 times. I am speaking from experience.
Remember, this is a slow steady approach to living a healthy lifestyle. We all did not become overweight overnight, so we cannot expect the weight to come off overnight either.
No matter what you do, you still have to deprive yourself of calories, which is not an easy task. Atkins is a great approach if it can manage hunger effectively.
But according to Atkins, being in the state of Ketosis takes about 3 days of eating under 20g of carbs a day. Their whole diet is based around being in a state of ketosis where you burn stored fat as energy, instead of carbs. One bad day on Atkins eating regular carbs can bring you out of Ketosis. You then have to no carb it again for another 3 days to get back in the Ketosis. It can definitely mess with the mind of someone who is over weight and trying any fad diet to lose weight quickly.
Depriving myself of calories, to me, is a lot easier than restricting myself of an entire food base; carbs. On the low calorie diet, it is all about portion control. You can still eat any food you desire. You want a slice of pizza, great, have one. You want a burger and fries for your cheat day, great have one. Going with this approach has led me to stick with a lifestyle change and stop the fad yo yo dieting and took 78 pounds off my frame.
Atkins does not recommend cheat days where you carb up. Atkins recommends 2 weeks of Phase I, and then gradually moving up the carb ladder, until you find the right amount of carbs for you (where you are not losing or gaining weight).
But, you're correct. If you feel deprived of something, it's easier to cheat. Which is why I couldn't stick with Weight Watchers. I always felt hungry, and craved more and more bad carbs!0 -
I am not going to knock the diet, Lord knows I have tried a lot of different things myself. If it works for you then that's great! I did try Atkins back in 2004 before I was getting married. I was thrilled when I dropped 5 pounds the first week but I wasn't able to stick with it. I just enjoy ketchup and bread too much for it to be a lifestyle change. And I noticed i was eating really unhealthy things. For example, a typical lunch at the time was cheesesteak meat and cheese in a bowl with mayo. lol I lasted a couple weeks and then stopped. Unfortunately the 5 pounds came back pretty fast.
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Bump! Considering this!0
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All diets fail because we perceive "diet" as a short-term solution to a long-term problem.
I myself have failed a few times. I did Keto as a diet instead of a lifestyle. I've put on 20 pounds in the last year since going back to "eating normally". That doesn't mean the diet failed, it means *I* failed.
Well no more, I am back to Keto and I am sticking with it forever or until something better (for me) comes along.
Don't diet - instead, change your outlook on food and your lifestyle around consumption. Don't do the Atkins diet, live an Atkins life. That means it's not for 3 days, or 3 weeks, or 3 months, but forever.
Remember too that diets never fail, a diet is just a thing. Only the person fails to follow the diet and thus doesn't reap the rewards.0 -
All diets fail because we perceive "diet" as a short-term solution to a long-term problem.
I myself have failed a few times. I did Keto as a diet instead of a lifestyle. I've put on 20 pounds in the last year since going back to "eating normally". That doesn't mean the diet failed, it means *I* failed.
Well no more, I am back to Keto and I am sticking with it forever or until something better (for me) comes along.
Don't diet - instead, change your outlook on food and your lifestyle around consumption. Don't do the Atkins diet, live an Atkins life. That means it's not for 3 days, or 3 weeks, or 3 months, but forever.
Remember too that diets never fail, a diet is just a thing. Only the person fails to follow the diet and thus doesn't reap the rewards.
Agreed. And nicely put.
I also tried Atkins twice, and I failed it. I set a goal, and when I met the goal, I quit. I've been at it almost a year now, and have never felt better!0
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