Atkins style dieting
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Didn't for me. Doesn't for many. Keep your calories up, your body will adjust.Good for you on your weight loss! We all have to do what works for us. I have not found the right formula yet. I am really worried about the energy level drop that I know happens with low carb so I will wait and see.0 -
Does anyone have experience with the Atkins or similar low carb diet? I have an intolerance to gluten and find that I have to cut my carb intake anyways because let's face it, every single good carb has gluten in it! Has anyone had success with this type of dieting and been able to sustain on it?
If you follow the plan as written and increase your carbs the way the plan is written, then yes you will be able to be successful and keep the weight off and sustain it for life.0 -
I was having digestive issues and have difficulty maintaining my iron levels. My specialist attributed my issues to gluten intolerance. If I stay away from gluten for long periods of time, my iron shoots way up - regular gluten intake prevents my body from maintaining my iron levels. I feel much better and don't have the issues that I experienced before.
Thank you to everyone for the primal/paleo suggestions. I will look it up and see what its like. The Atkins induction is just not sustainable because I want to eat some vegetables beyond romaine lettuce and I love fruit. I also love rice and can have it although it is high in calories.
Sounds like the anti-nutrients are doing what they intend of keeping your body from absorbing the iron in the other foods you eat.
Atkins induction is for 2 weeks, then you start adding in other foods and the vegetable list for Induction is way larger than romaine lettuce.
Have you looked at the allowable food list for Phase 1 (Induction)???Vegetables:
You should be eating approximately 12 to 15 net carbs a day from vegetables, which is equivalent to
several cups depending on the Net Carb count of vegetable used.
1 cup is equal to approximately the size of a baseball
Vegetable Serving Size/Prep Net Carbs
• Alfalfa sprouts 1 cup/raw 0.4
• Argula 1/2cup/raw 0.2
• Bok choy 1cup/raw 0.8
• Celery 1 stalk 0.8
• Chicory Greens 1/2cup/raw 0.6
• Chives 1 tablespoon 0.1
• Cucumber ½ cup 1.0
• Daikon ½ cup 1.0
• Endive ½ cup 0.0
• Escarole ½ cup 0.0
• Fennel 1 cup 3.6
• Jicama ½ cup 2.5
• Lettuce Iceberg ½ cup 0.1
• Mushrooms ½ cup 1.2
• Parsley 1 tablespoon 0.1
• Peppers ½ cup/raw 2.3
• Radicchio ½ cup/raw 0.7
• Radishes 10/raw 0.9
• Romaine lettuce ½ cup 0.2
The following vegetables are slightly higher than the salad vegetables listed above; they also provide
important nutrients and add variety to your daily foods. Make sure you stay within the 12-15 grams net
carbs.
Vegetable Serving Size/ Prep Net Carbs
• Artichoke ¼ of medium/boiled 4.0
• Asparagus 6 spears/boiled 2.4
• Artichoke hearts 1/ canned in water 1.0
• Avocadoes 1 whole/raw 3.5
• Bamboo shoots 1cup/boiled 1.1
• Beets ½ cup/canned 4.7
• Broccoli boiled ½ cup 1.6
• Broccoli raw ½ cup 1.0
• Broccoli rabe 1 ounce 1.3
• Broccoflower ½ cup 1.4
• Brussels sprouts ¼ cup boiled 2.4
• Cabbage ½ cup boiled or raw 2.0
• Cauliflower ½ cup boiled or raw 1.0
• Chard ½ cup swiss/boiled 1.8
• Collard greens ½ cup boiled 4.2
• Eggplant ½ cup boiled/raw 1.8
• Hearts of palm 1 heart 0.7
• Kale ½ cup 2.4
• Kohlrabi ½ cup 4.6
• Leeks ¼ cup boiled 1.7
• Okra ½ cup boiled/raw 2.4
• Olives green 5 2.5
• Olives black 5 0.7
• Onion ¼ cup raw 2.8
• Pumpkin ¼ cup boiled 2.4
• Rhubarb ½ cup unsweetened 1.7
• Sauerkraut ½ cup canned/drained 1.2
• Peas ½ cup edible podded 3.4
• Spaghetti squash ½ cup boiled 2.0
• Spinach ½ cup raw 0.2
• Summer squash ½ cup boiled 2.0
• Tomato 1 raw 4.3
• Turnips ½ cup boiled 2.2
• Water chestnuts ½ cup canned 6.9
• Zucchini ½ cup sautéed 2.0
Salad Garnishes
• Crumbled bacon 3 slices 0.0
• Diced hard-boiled egg 1 egg 0.0
• Grated cheeses (see above carb counts)
• Herbs and Spices (make sure they contain no added sugar)
o Basil 1 tbs 0.0
o Cayenne pepper 1 tbs 0.0
o Cilantro 1 tbs 0.0
o Dill 1 tbs 0.0
o Garlic 1 clove 0.9
o Ginger 1 tbs sliced root 0.8
o Oregano 1 tbs 0.0
o Pepper 1 tbs 0.0
o Rosemary 1 tbs 0.0
o Sage 1 tbs 0.0
o Tarragon 1 tbs 0.0
• Sautéed mushrooms ½ cup 1.0
• Sour cream 2 tbs 1.20 -
I have had great success with lower carb eating. I typically do 5-6 fairly low carb days, then a day or day and a half of higher carb eating.0
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Did the research, found a phrase "there is no molecule in the group carbohydrates that the human needs to eat to survive".
This. Carbs are the junk food of the macro nutrient world. They let your body buzz along effortlessly by giving you glycogen with almost no biochemical work. Your body has a ton of mechanisms for doing this on a natural diet of vegetables and meat (what our pre-agrarian ancestors lived on). If you needed carbs to live, poor Grok with his leaves and buffalo would have never made it to adulthood to beget, eventually, us.
Would that be our Neolithic ancestors with a life expectancy of 20?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_expectancy#Life_expectancy_variation_over_time0 -
As a lifelong calorie counter i am counting carbs for the first time. After two weeks im still going strong wich compared to my history at weight watchers is an accomplishment. My goals are simple 20 - 50 carbs a day trying to achieve most of it from lean meats and veggies I limit for fruit and dairy . no grains or sugar. i splurge rarely but i do it makes it easier for me i dont know if this helps but its what i do and i like it and can imagine myself doing this for a long time.0
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Thanks for this quick reference. I have been sticking to romaine lettuce for the last few days as its easiest to put protein in a salad for lunch but its getting boring. I love yogurt and fruit so I have had some strawberries each day. But its hard to stick to the induction phase so I am making a choice to top it a little so that I don't restrict my diet as much as Atkins wants you to for the first bit.0
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Would that be our Neolithic ancestors with a life expectancy of 20?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_expectancy#Life_expectancy_variation_over_time
That's a fallacious argument. Can you directly correlate their life expectancy to their diet? What about lack of dental, medical and societal welfare, as well as lack of protection from predators, disease, infection, and aggression from your own kind? I think that a modern man, put in a neolithic society, but given a bottomless cave full of bread to eat, would also be lucky to live past 20.0 -
I had a lot of success with Atkins a few years ago - got my weight down to a healthy level, had loads of energy, enjoyed working out, etc. I did find though that I couldn't sustain it for more than a few months - I cracked about craving bread, rice, pasta, cider.... But it's different for everyone, what you van stick with and what you can't. I did learn that I do well on high-ish protein levels, but overall I prefer the MFP approach which allows me to set my protein target on the high side but still eat whatever I want within my goals0
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I had a lot of success with Atkins a few years ago - got my weight down to a healthy level, had loads of energy, enjoyed working out, etc. I did find though that I couldn't sustain it for more than a few months - I cracked about craving bread, rice, pasta, cider.... But it's different for everyone, what you van stick with and what you can't. I did learn that I do well on high-ish protein levels, but overall I prefer the MFP approach which allows me to set my protein target on the high side but still eat whatever I want within my goals
This is more or less what I'm doing, Sally. I'm not strictly cutting out any particular food, but I have reduced my carb intake to 15% of my calories, increased my protein to 190g (0.7 * bodyweight in lbs) and eat the rest in fat. (magic formula I found on several different paleo sites. Figured it was as good a place as any to start my low carb experiment.
That means my ability to have breads and pastas and whatnot is definitely hampered, but I'm not depriving myself cold turkey. Yesterday I tore up a pita and added it to a half a pound of browned ground turkey and taco seasoning and topped with a bit of shredded cheese. If I ate that once or twice a week, I wouldn't even miss my beloved crunchy tacos. about 30g of carbs in that meal, and I had only 15g in my other meals for the day, so i was still way low at days end.0 -
Did the research, found a phrase "there is no molecule in the group carbohydrates that the human needs to eat to survive".
This. Carbs are the junk food of the macro nutrient world. They let your body buzz along effortlessly by giving you glycogen with almost no biochemical work. Your body has a ton of mechanisms for doing this on a natural diet of vegetables and meat (what our pre-agrarian ancestors lived on). If you needed carbs to live, poor Grok with his leaves and buffalo would have never made it to adulthood to beget, eventually, us.
Would that be our Neolithic ancestors with a life expectancy of 20?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_expectancy#Life_expectancy_variation_over_time
I'm pretty sure it wasn't the lack of carbs that caused cavemen to die young! Regardless, some populations of Eskimo's still to this day have virtually zero carb diets and are perfectly healthy.0 -
I had great success with Atkins. I lost nearly 20 pounds in two weeks. But beware, as soon as you stop, the weight just jumps back on. I was ok doing it for a while but got burned out.0
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Low carb diets are fads! No good for you, not sustainable, and far better alternatives.
If you look at the research, you'll confirm the above. Your body NEEDS carbs. It is the primary fuel source. If you take them out, you are tricking your metabolism into using fat stores which is what gives you results in the long term, but as soon as you go off this radical diet, your metabolism will work in reverse and store the carbs you give it, rather than burn them, because you've shocked the system.
You will also suffer from low energy, irritability, etc. Everybody I know who has done a low carb diet has gained all the weight back, and then some.
There are no short cuts to long term and sustainable weight loss. You need a long term approach and a lifestyle change that includes PROPER nutrition and balanced diet, along with exercise. It is really that simple... although not simple to do.
High carb diets, which have been pushed by the government (and possibly food industry) for the past few decades, are FINALLY on their way out. I definitely wouldn't call low carb dieting a fad b/c it's been around for over a decade and doesn't seem to be dying out. The fact is that low carb diets work very well for many people.
I agree that sustainable lifestyle changes are the most important part of long-term weight management. But lower carb diets can be a sustainable lifestyle change for many people. At the worst, low carb diets teach people the change the way they eat for the better by avoiding all the processed carbs and sugar.0 -
I think you should separate "Atkins" with low carb, although I understand Atkins is a type of low carb dieting.
I say this because I hate systems in general, and you shouldn't fixate on Atkins or any other system (in my opinion) when developing a new lifestyle around your diet (not "dieting", which implies a short term quick fix, which will probably fail long term).
But yes, a low carb diet helped me lose 40 pounds, and I feel so much better now. I just cut back on the pasta, rice, bread, and beer, plus stopped eating most processed foods (if it's in a can or box, it's probably bad) and the weight just flew off. Of course I replaced those foods with more veggies. And I ate lots of chicken and fish. I also ate more fruit, but I didn't overdue this.
So by all means cut back on the carbs (note: cut back, not "eliminate"!). Just don't get fixated on "Atkins".
Good luck.0 -
Low carb diets are fads! No good for you, not sustainable, and far better alternatives.
If you look at the research, you'll confirm the above. Your body NEEDS carbs. It is the primary fuel source. If you take them out, you are tricking your metabolism into using fat stores which is what gives you results in the long term, but as soon as you go off this radical diet, your metabolism will work in reverse and store the carbs you give it, rather than burn them, because you've shocked the system.
You will also suffer from low energy, irritability, etc. Everybody I know who has done a low carb diet has gained all the weight back, and then some.
There are no short cuts to long term and sustainable weight loss. You need a long term approach and a lifestyle change that includes PROPER nutrition and balanced diet, along with exercise. It is really that simple... although not simple to do.
I can tell you don't actually know how the body works.
Please, try saying that to the people who've been in ketosis for ten years, at www.reddit.com/r/keto and you'll be educated in short order. If low-carb diets are a "fad", then why did our ancestors only eat berries and fruit to give us energy to hunt mammoths and ****? Face it, sugar and grains are a recent development in our species' history, and it's the reason for the obesity epidemic.0 -
I haven't tried Atkins so can't answer your question, but just wanted to mention that brown rice and quinoa are healthy and tasty grains without gluten.0
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I lost 100 pounds on the Atkins diet in 1999 over a 9 month period. Loved it! Got to eat all the fats, cheese, bacon, etc I wanted. But then reality hit in the form of kidney stones. My doctor told me it was because of all the animal proteins I was eating and told me to get off the diet immediately. I ended up having about 13 outpatient surgeries over the next 10 years and gained all the weight back too. (Sad when the nurses at 2 different hospitals know you by name
) I know my case is isolated and also due to my genes, but I would warn anyone planning on staying on the diet for any length of time to talk to their doctors and have tests done as recommended. Kidney stones are not my idea of fun. 0 -
I had great success with Atkins. I lost nearly 20 pounds in two weeks. But beware, as soon as you stop, the weight just jumps back on. I was ok doing it for a while but got burned out.
Because that's just water weight. To lose 20 pounds of fat in two weeks, you'd have to burn, what, 70,000 calories? To gain it all back, you'd have to eat that much again. That seems pretty unrealistic. The thing about the "induction" or "ketotic" phase of Atkins is to get over your sugar cravings and start on the road to defeating insulin resistance. This depletes the muscle glycogen and liver glycogen, and the thing about carbohydrates in your body is that to convert a molecule of carbohydrate into a molecule of fat, you need to bind it with four molecules of water. So when you deplete the sugar in your body, about 4/5 of what you're "losing" as far as weight goes, is water.0 -
I've done Atkins before, I definitely dropped the weight....FAST! I lost about 50lbs in 3 months with absolutely NO exercise. However once I quit the diet I gained it all back then some. I won't blame all the weight gain on the diet but I will say that my body was sooooo not used to grain carbs and even fruit carbs that when I introduced them even moderately into my diet I saw the scale creep up. Eventually, I just lost motivation and gained a ton of weight. I would say that I probably didn't follow the diet to the letter. I loved the fact that the weight was falling off but I hadn't changed my eating habits much. I was still eating a lot of fast food, just removing the bread off if burgers. I ate eggs and cheese, butter, lots of processed meats, pork skin chips, heavy cream and all things fat fat fat fat! I knew it wasnt exactly the Atkins plan, but I didn't think any thing of it because I was losing the weight. But my cholesterol suffered, and I never really conquered my battle of over eating because I could eat all the non carbs I wanted and still lose weight. this go round I prefer a more nutrition balanced diet that forces me into making good decisions and encourages me to exercise. I am more serious about my health now and I'm willing to work hard, eat less and healthier, and lose my blubber slowly in order to keep it off.
Although i do still monitor my carbs very closely because they do affect my weight.
Losing weight is different for everybody and I wish you much success through your journey.0 -
Would that be our Neolithic ancestors with a life expectancy of 20?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_expectancy#Life_expectancy_variation_over_time
That's a fallacious argument. Can you directly correlate their life expectancy to their diet? What about lack of dental, medical and societal welfare, as well as lack of protection from predators, disease, infection, and aggression from your own kind? I think that a modern man, put in a neolithic society, but given a bottomless cave full of bread to eat, would also be lucky to live past 20.
Now wait a minute - it wasn't me that used the eating habits of ancestors from long ago to prove their argument
The statement was 'If you needed carbs to live, poor Grok (from neolithic times) with his leaves and buffalo would have never made it to adulthood to beget, eventually, us.' ..... Used to back up the 'no need for carbs' argument
I replied with "Actually he didn't often make it to adulthood!" Thus negating the 'proof'
I can't correlate their life expectancy to their diet, just as you can't assume it wasn't0
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