More of a QUESTION - but should we diet backwards?

[runnr]

I posted this in the war zone but I really doubt this is going to get heated

I was listening to a personal trainer, who is a friend of mine. She had a very interesting opinion on dieting. She thinks that one of the main reasons that diets fail is because people Diet Forward - as she likes to call it. Meaning, they go from horrendous eating habits to - COLD TURKEY - into a strict diet program

So they make substantial changes to their eating habits in the space of a very short period in time. And as we know, many of them don't end up CHANGING their diet habits, and go back into the vicious cycle of gaining the weight back and dieting again

She thinks that long-term, people would be thinner and healthier if they Diet Backwards. What she means by that is basically, make one change at a time until you arrive at an optimal diet, instead of radically changing to an optimal diet.

So, in her opinion, people should say, give up soda first. Do that for two weeks to a month. Then, they should reduce their sugar intake. Again, stay with just those first two changes for another month. And then continue

She says she has clients who have lost weight through this kind of methodology, and they tend to be the ones who have kept it off the longest.

The one example she gave me was of a guy who drank at least a litre of full calorie soda each day. He switched to diet for 2 months and lost 15 pounds. Then, he started to exercise. Did that for a month, and lost 5 pounds. Then, he started cutting down on eating out. And on and on. He ended up losing 100 pounds and he's kept it off for 5 years, and he is in phenomenal shape

Thought this was an interesting concept that we could discuss here. The Atkins diet also works "Forward" - in that you have to go to the strictest level of carb intake, and work up from there. So I guess there are two main things we could discuss:

1. Would Atkins be easier to adopt as a WOL if people succesively reduced their carb intake, rather than going cold turkey to induction?

2. Ignoring Atkins, what do you think of her theory?

[featherz]

Don't know about atkins, but this is what I did. It was MUCH easier to make small changes, see some weight loss, get motivated and make bigger changes. However, some folks may find it easier to go cold turkey. For me, all the cold turkey starts I made were unsuccessful. :)

Now, whenever I get the 'can you help ME' lose weight, I say 'sure! give up all sugar sodas for two weeks as a start'. I figure if they can't even give up that, they aren't ready.

[runnr]

Kind of as a quick aside - do you know how much weight the general population would lose if they just cut out soda? I'm totally floored by the amount of full calorie soda that some people drink

[dreamnfae]

Kind of as a quick aside - do you know how much weight the general population would lose if they just cut out soda? I'm totally floored by the amount of full calorie soda that some people drink

Was watching our local news yesterday, and they were talking about just this subject and kids in school. They quoted that one can of regular soda equals 15% of their daily calorie reccomendation! ACK!! They also equated regular soda to "liquid candy". I would have to agree!

[Dodger]

The cut down slowly is part of "Life without Bread". Dr. Lutz recommends that those with health problems eliminate carbs from their diet slower, to avoid any shock to their system.

For me the 'cold turkey' approach is what worked. Cutting things out one at a time would have been pure torture.

[nawchem]

I had to cut my carbs slowly as the sudden change irritates my heart murmur. I think if you are really dedicated to making a change it doesn't matter which way you do it. I did cut out diet coke and when I had one a few weeks ago it triggered a hypoglycemic episode. That totally caught me by surprise. I would have sworn that diet coke had no effect on me at all. I only cut it out because my dentist was saying how crappy it makes your teeth look when your old. My chiropractor kept saying it leaches minerals out of your bones.

[ItsTheWooo]

I totally agree with the trainer. This is the reason they advise people to lose weight slowly. Slow weight loss isn't objectively better, it's just an indicator of doing things that make STAYING at your goal effortless. If you make slow little changes one at a time, giving yourself time to adapt to the changes and live with them, you are better off than the person who goes on optifast or has their stomach shrunk with a surgery, losing gobs of weight really fast. Because, when you eventually reach your goal you are pretty much already in maintenance you know but the person on optifast or who basically got anorexia surgery needs to figure that out. I can't tell you how many times I've read "success stories" where people plan on bearing down and getting to goal asap, but then doing something like binging once they get there.

This is also the reason formal diets don't work. First of all it forces people to take on too much at once. Except very few abnormally organized and/or motivated individuals, most will eventually rebel against all the sudden extreme changes by dropping the diet. Diets don't give you enough time to adapt to change. People need to feel safe and secure and comfortable, too much instability and change and lack of comfort (the familiar) is poorly tolerated by almost all (except for that minority previously mentioned). So almost no one turns their diet into a lifestyle change, despite what everyone says they are doing.
Also, diets don't concentrate enough on getting people to realize it's all about changing who you are with food, on learning to make the right choices of your own volition. Instead they work on a primitive "moralizing" of food - that food type/amount is bad and/or forbidden, that food type/amount is good and/or safe. People on diets never learn it's not the FOOD, it's how you're eating it, so they never quite get that they have the control to make the right choice. There needs to be more focus on learning to make good choices to achieve what you want to achieve, not following rules out of fear or ignorance.
Formal diets are basically strict rules that you are following, it's unnatural and no one does it forever. Formal diets can be a gateway to lifestyle changes, though, they are usually a step you have to cross before you know what & how to eat.

Either way, the fact is big goals are made up of lots of little changes. Learning how to make lots of little changes in your real life that you can do forever more or less naturally and innately (without a lot of self-forcing and conscious control) is what successful weight loss is all about. Anyway you can do that is the real goal, not a size or a number.

[Nancy LC]

Just to throw in another opinion or viewpoint, the diet I'm currently on is supposed to be fast weight-loss. (It isn't for me, its normal weight loss, just because my metabolism is so pokey.) But there are 2 week long breaks on this diet where the goal is to maintain. So its an opportunity to sit down and really think through the whole maintenance thing and practice it.

I think one of the things I have to learn is how to eat at maintenance levels but how to have feast days occassionally. So there needs to be continual balancing of calories and flexibility.

[Aetheana]

But isn't it important to go cold turkey on carbs to get rid of the cravings? I mean, I thought that was the point of Atkins, get the blood chemistry under control quickly, cut down the cravings, get into ketosis and then go from there. its all about fixing the insulin resistance problems.

I agree, i think giving up things gradually is a great plan and should work, but for some people, it just isnt enough and they need to go cold turkey so they dont crawl up the walls and end up binging on food that isnt good for them.

whatever works for YOU is what works.

[Nancy LC]

Even Atkins concedes that not everyone can go cold turkey. The changeover of metabolism from sugar burning to fat burning can be brutally hard on some people. He recommends for those people to do it more gradually.

[nawchem]

The thing that is hard for me to grasp about maintenance is the forever part of it. On the hypoglycemic diet you are not supposed to eat sugar, alcohol, caffeine or aspartame ever again! Just thinking about it makes me want to buy a box of Godiva chocolates. The fact that those foods are off limits to me will probably make me have a binge because my mind feels like there are no levels of blowing it. Another words your either perfect or your not. How do you learn to deal with something like that?

[Samantha22]

I think its a pretty good idea....it just might work much better for those who have a problem with radical change...or for those who resist changing their diet completely. I didn't have a problem with it....and i think as far as atkins is concerned induction is probably the best way to start....but i'd say for someone who constantly quits..why not try another approach!?

[runnr]

One argument I can see (for those living a low-carb life) is that you would continually be restricting, whereas at least with the cold turkey approach, the restriction is all at once

And one of the reasons Atkins is more sucessful than other diets is because once you restrict, generally you experience the positives of a) weight loss b) reduced hunger and c) general improvement in your physical well-being due to blood-sugar control. Which, you wouldn't experience to the same degree on a general reduction program

However, like most females I'm perpetually on a diet, and I can say that the nutrition improvements that have lasted the longest with me are the ones that I did gradually (and, one at a time)

[Lisa N]

The thing that is hard for me to grasp about maintenance is the forever part of it. On the hypoglycemic diet you are not supposed to eat sugar, alcohol, caffeine or aspartame ever again! Just thinking about it makes me want to buy a box of Godiva chocolates. The fact that those foods are off limits to me will probably make me have a binge because my mind feels like there are no levels of blowing it. Another words your either perfect or your not. How do you learn to deal with something like that?

I suppose that all depends on how severe the consequences are if and when you do decide to 'blow it' and eat one of those forbidden foods. For me, the absolute crappy way I feel when I eat something high in sugar and/or starch is more than enough motivation to avoid eating something like that more than a few times a year...it just isn't worth it. It almost seems a little twisted to me how we can convince ourselves that we are deprived by choosing to not eat something that makes us feel like crap every time we eat it! It's almost like a recovering drug addict convincing themselves that they are deprived because they can never have their drug of choice ever again. :p Every day, you have the option of eating something or not eating it. When you have a choice, it's not deprivation, it's a self-imposed limitation and whether or not you choose to cross that boundry is up to you.
As for the 'dieting backwards' theory, I think it would work for some people. I also think it wouldn't work for a lot of people due to the fact that you have to maintain each previous change every time you make a new one in order for it to work and it's very much human nature to convince ourselves that we 'deserve' to have something that we previously gave up because, after all, look at all the other good changes we've made, right? Before long, you're right back where you started.

[runnr]

I also think it wouldn't work for a lot of people due to the fact that you have to maintain each previous change every time you make a new one in order for it to work and it's very much human nature to convince ourselves that we 'deserve' to have something that we previously gave up because, after all, look at all the other good changes we've made, right?


Everyone is different. I know when I stopped drinking so much pop (I always drank diet), once I kicked the habit - it was kicked. I can have pop occasionally now without wanting to go back to my old habits

But I imagine if I tried to give up coffee - I might be more easily romanced back into a full-fledged coffee drinker after a dalliance or two

[nawchem]

Good point Lisa. I'm going to put that post in my journal so I can remember its a choice (not to have a glucose hangover), not a diet.

[Nancy LC]

The thing that is hard for me to grasp about maintenance is the forever part of it. On the hypoglycemic diet you are not supposed to eat sugar, alcohol, caffeine or aspartame ever again! Just thinking about it makes me want to buy a box of Godiva chocolates. The fact that those foods are off limits to me will probably make me have a binge because my mind feels like there are no levels of blowing it. Another words your either perfect or your not. How do you learn to deal with something like that?

You might want to check out Lyle McDonald's book called Flexible Dieting. I haven't read it but I hear it helps one deal with that all-or-nothing mentality one gets about dieting.

[ItsTheWooo]

Just to throw in another opinion or viewpoint, the diet I'm currently on is supposed to be fast weight-loss. (It isn't for me, its normal weight loss, just because my metabolism is so pokey.) But there are 2 week long breaks on this diet where the goal is to maintain. So its an opportunity to sit down and really think through the whole maintenance thing and practice it.

I think one of the things I have to learn is how to eat at maintenance levels but how to have feast days occassionally. So there needs to be continual balancing of calories and flexibility.
Excellent!
I was going to write a post dealing with this very issue in the PSMF thread actually.

Learning this lesson while you are losing weight makes maintenance a non-issue, so despite it's extreme nature, I think PSMFers are ahead of the game already. Let me tell you, that is the trouble with maintenance in a nutshell, speaking as someone who's maintained weight for awhile now (I haven't lost/gained more than a pound in a couple of months and have maintained my weight within a 5 pound range for several more). It's all about learning how to make the right choices to achieve what you want to achieve... how to balance desire & living with your goal. You can eat out, you can eat whatever you want... you just can't do it without being conscious of the consequences. Meaning, you have to do the responsible thing later and/or before, and eat less.

[ItsTheWooo]

But isn't it important to go cold turkey on carbs to get rid of the cravings? I mean, I thought that was the point of Atkins, get the blood chemistry under control quickly, cut down the cravings, get into ketosis and then go from there. its all about fixing the insulin resistance problems.

I agree, i think giving up things gradually is a great plan and should work, but for some people, it just isnt enough and they need to go cold turkey so they dont crawl up the walls and end up binging on food that isnt good for them.

whatever works for YOU is what works.
All roads eventually lead to maintenance. Unless you plan on living your life in ketosis (some people actually do choose this), it is unnecessary. You're going to eat the way you're going to eat eventually... if ketosis and complete abstinence from carbs was requisite in order to curb excessive desire for them, this means the latter phases of the diet are not effective and nothing but book filler :lol: .

Atkins is so strict early on because the early phases are designed to induce rapid and marked weight loss. It does this to make the diet more popular, effective, and motivating to compensate for the difficult sudden and radical changes being asked of dieters. Atkins induction is a perfect weight loss plan. When you're eliminating almost all food choices - combined with fixing metabolic problems - it's really hard stay fat. I mean most people would have to really try to mess it up in order to lose NO weight by doing something silly like eating lots of 2 "net carb" protein bars, or tons of nuts and cheese, thinking calories didn't count at all. Lots of people eventually stall out (and there they must make a choice to reduce fat more or stay heavier) but it's really hard to follow induction to the letter and drop nothing (assuming the person is in reasonable health and some kind of endorcine/metabolic problem isn't behind it).

So no I don't think cold turkey is necessary, even for carb sensitive people. The real question is cold turkey effective short term... and even if short term effective, is it effective long term?

Cold turkey might work better for some people, but others don't do well with it. I did well with cold turkey in the short term, but that's because I was extremely motivated and wanted to lose weight as fast as possible. I also think I was very sensitive to carbohydrate, so the fact there was such a marked change in me made it very easy for me to understand WHY I was abstaining from carbs. I remember back then I thought low carb was like a miracle, it was so amazing to me how I was living my life a slave to food and hunger all because of carbohydrate. Back then I had just been introduced to the concept of "insulin" and stuff like that, from a background of total and complete nutritional ignorance, so all this education combined with observing such a dramatic change felt a lot like a one. If the improvement/difference is not as severe, it's probably easier to justify bad choices. But for me, I thought the minute I ate cake and sugar, I was back to hypoglycemic episodes, starving constantly, PCOS, weight gain, etc... so I was really not ever seriously tempted. The benefits outweighed the restriction.

Later on when I figured out that reality wasn't that extreme... that I could have SOME carbs (even "bad" ones) without going back to that way of living - when I figured out it wasn't as simple as carbs = bad... things got tricker. I now had to make choices. But the thing is, it was like I was trapped because I had drilled it into my brain this extreme way of looking at food, weight, and eating.

For one, it made me unusually fearful of anything "unsafe" or "vague" in food and weight. Whenever my food and weight was not clear and simple - the nutritional info of my food to the letter, my weight steadily going down - I didn't know what to do. I had this extreme point of view that if I messed up it at all in any way, it was all over and I was basically resigned to obesity. For awhile I had trouble stopping weight loss because of these fears.

The sudden extreme black & white nature of a diet like atkins made my transition from "weight loss" into "weight maintenance" far more difficult than it had to be. If I had figured out during weight loss that it was OK to be human, I think this wouldn't have been an issue. It's normal to gain some weight (1 pound does not mean you have slipped, it just means you have to cut back). No one stays the exact same weight every single day, yes people even gain fat for awhile. It's normal to eat like a piggy and let loose occasionally (EVERYONE over eats sometimes). It's irrational to think even the most insignificiant amount of dietary sugar will trigger you back to what you were. I honestly thought, until I TRIED it, that if I had a small portion of cake I would helplessly be at the mercy of my body and be magically be "forced" to eat gluttonously and gain weight. Talk about crazy. The sad thing is a lot of people are getting that black or white message from rigid diets and they are BELIEVING it!

Anyway, if I learned I had the power to make choices and to balance my choices to achieve ALL my goals, things would have been a lot easier and I could have avoided a lot of unnecessary problems. So, because of who I am, I don't think a diet like Atkins was a good choice. Even though cold turkey was extremely effective weight loss diet, in the long term, cold turkey did not work as well as a low carbohydrate plan that emphasized behavior and the power to make choices.

[Kristine]

Atkins is so strict early on because the early phases are designed to induce rapid and marked weight loss.

This is what I was going to mention. For people with the patience of a saint, dieting backward might work. It would work for people who are not feeling totally fed up, helpless, and hopeless.

The one issue I'd have with the backward concept is how wishy-washy it is. Unless you're going to be very regimented with yourself, it just seems kind of half-arsed. Half-arsed effort gets you half-arsed results.

For the record, I eased myself into LCing by first eliminating sugar, then grains and starchy foods. It was PP intervention after that (30-40 g carbs). So I guess I was cold turkey enough that I took it seriously, but not so cold turkey that I had withdrawls. I had some buffer time. The advantage of a cold-turkey approach is that it forces you to put your eating on "project status", as Dr Phil would say. If you don't take the time to really learn how to do it, how are you supposed to be successful long term? :idea:

[kyrasdad]

Atkins is also designed to supress your appetite early on. If you don't go all-out, would you not be giving up the appetite supression that so many people experience?

I think not being hungry early on is why you see rapid weight loss on Atkins. Why is it more rational to "slip" into it when the thing is designed to change your metabolism and reduce your hunger by being strict in the early phases? Absent that, I'm not sure I'd be where I am.

[kwikdriver]

Atkins is also designed to supress your appetite early on. If you don't go all-out, would you not be giving up the appetite supression that so many people experience?

I think not being hungry early on is why you see rapid weight loss on Atkins. Why is it more rational to "slip" into it when the thing is designed to change your metabolism and reduce your hunger by being strict in the early phases? Absent that, I'm not sure I'd be where I am.

There's also the psychological advantage of seeing that early weight loss (lots of it water, but still). When Atkins came out it was widely ridiculed, and people said it would never work, it would kill you, blah blah blah. Quickly losing 5 or 10 pounds can be a big psychological boost to a dieter, and get someone to buy in to a plan they were skeptical about. People here have confidence in low carbing; not everyone does. Edging your way into a program you don't really believe in and not seeing immediate results isn't the best way to overcome doubts.

[Wyvrn]

Atkins is so strict early on because the early phases are designed to induce rapid and marked weight loss. It does this to make the diet more popular, effective, and motivating to compensate for the difficult sudden and radical changes being asked of dieters.

The purpose of induction is not to lose weight, in fact most weight lost during induction is water. Induction is designed to shift the body to fat-burning metabolism. This is more likely to fail for both physiological and psychological reasons if attempted in a half-fast fashion.

On the other hand, I went from a low-carb diet with lots of restaurant and processed food choices (no real lifestyle change required) to a paleo-style diet which IS a major lifestyle change - but doesn't involve a physical addiction - by making incremental changes ("dieting backward"). Every few weeks I'd select an undesireable food to eliminate, spend whatever time needed to figure out alternatives or otherwise adapt to the change, and then move on to the next.

Wyv

[ItsTheWooo]

The purpose of induction is not to lose weight, in fact most weight lost during induction is water. Induction is designed to shift the body to fat-burning metabolism. This is more likely to fail for both physiological and psychological reasons if attempted in a half-fast fashion.

Wyvrn you're kinda forcing me to take a position I don't really support. Just because I feel induction is structured the way it is to primarily lose weight fast, doesn't mean I don't ALSO think it's also designed to get the body burning fat. I just think induction takes that template of getting blood sugar under control, and adds in a whole bunch of other rules on top of it to produce rapid weight loss. These rules make no sense, if induction was exclusively about detoxing from sugar. I'll list a couple of those rules now.

1) No nuts. (Nuts are extremely high fat and extremely low carb, percentage wise they are the ideal food for induction (all nuts are at least 65% fat, mac nuts I think are 95). They are more than conducive to fat metabolism. Unfortunately, nuts are notoriously hard to portion control. On induction they are forbidden explicitly so people lose weight).
2) Limited amounts of cheese, avocado (half per day), cream. (You are allowed these foods, but asked to watch portion size, again to control calories. These foods are all perfect percentages for induction, if not BETTER than some foods that are free (avocados are over 70% fat). These foods are not forbidden because they aren't as hard to portion control, but they are limited because people still tend to eat too much of them.)
3) The fact that induction is optional. Would be Atkinsers are told if they don't have much weight to lose, or don't want to lose weight at all, they can skip this step or cut it really short and move directly to finding their ideal carb tolerance levels. On the other hand, very obese dieters are told they may prolong induction to lose weight faster if they wish.
4) The emphasis on ketosis. Atkins does say not to worry about strips, but ideally he would like you to be in measurable ketosis while on induction. Ketosis is not necessary to have your blood sugar under control. Ketosis is necessary to make you adverse to food and your appetite suppressed, though.

There's lots and lots of other rules which are more vague and can be argued (lack of berries, limited AS)... but those are the most obvious and it's really hard to argue that those rules exist for any reason other than calorie control and weight loss.

[Faust]

1. Would Atkins be easier to adopt as a WOL if people succesively reduced their carb intake, rather than going cold turkey to induction?

I'd have to brush up on the science behind this, so I'm not going to comment on that part. However, I'll avidly read what other have to say.

What I will say is that I'd find this tough to do on a personal level. Going from six (okay, sixteen ;) ) chocolate chip cookies to two would require more of an exercise of willpower for me than simply saying "no" to chocolate chip cookies in the first place. Being able to eat sour cream & onion potato chips without being able to wash them down with soda is the sort of thing that will have me back drinking soda in very short order. It's not so much an issue of cravings, I don't think I get those. It's just that I have a tendency to well, finish what I start, whether it is a package of cookies, a bottle of soda, what have you. I almost turn into a automaton.

In fact, I'm thinking it was something similar to the above that made me fail at an LC diet the last time I tried one. (Nobody's fault but mine, of course. But this time 'round I'm trying to be sensitive to any traps. And I'm fairly sure that sort of thinking is one of my biggest.) I'd start thinking that "just one [whatever] won't hurt me" and before to long I'd have chowed down on fifty of them.

I've never bought the analogy of carbohydrates as being like tobacco, but perhaps there's something to be said for it, at least in a limited way.


2. Ignoring Atkins, what do you think of her theory?

It sounds like a very complicated plan to follow. Could I knock out Ring Dings one month and Suzy Qs the next? :lol: Sorry. ;)

Seriously, I guess it boils down to personal preferences and your own abilities to handle this sort of thing. I really doubt I could, but that's me. I'm also the sort who throws himself off the dock rather than wades into the lake. I find it far easier to get into the water that way.

In a strange way this sort of dieting reminds me of my old company, which used to lay people off in small numbers, and cut our benefits just a little bit, but never seemed to stop doing it. Everybody was always on edge, wondering what the next thing taken away was going to be. In consequence, morale was horrible, performance suffered, etc.

At least on a plan like Atkins you can look forward to some things coming back once you take the plunge.

My $.02, and doubtless worth every penny.

[Nancy LC]

What I will say is that I'd find this tough to do on a personal level. Going from six (okay, sixteen ) chocolate chip cookies to two would require more of an exercise of willpower for me than simply saying "no" to chocolate chip cookies in the first place.

Yes, indeed! I was asking my SIL, a psychologist, whether its possible to change bingeing behavior. She said its extremely difficult. She said it is far better to practice avoidance. I think she said something like 100% is much, much easier than 97%.

[runnr]

I just think induction takes that template of getting blood sugar under control, and adds in a whole bunch of other rules on top of it to produce rapid weight loss.

I actually totally agree with this, because the nut and cheese restriction seems to be in there ONLY for the sake of keeping calories low

As to the point about dieting backwards being complicated, I actually don't understand that. You make one healthful change, and then move forward.

[Nancy LC]

Actually, someone just posted something about it taking 2-3 weeks for your body to convert from running on glucose fuel to running off of glycogen from protein and fat. The process is a pretty uncomfortable one for a lot of people.

[Wyvrn]

Wyvrn you're kinda forcing me to take a position I don't really support.. I'm not forcing you to do anything - how you respond to my post is completely up to you. I'm just telling you what Dr. Atkins said about induction. Regardless of whether you agree with his rules for how to accomplish the switch fat burning, that's what he said. The initial weight loss is just a side effect that demonstrates the success of the method - not at burning excess fat, not in 14 days - but for reducing excess sugar in the body. The dieter is encouraged to find this process motivational, but the stated purpose of induction is the metabolic switch.

I just think induction takes that template of getting blood sugar under control, and adds in a whole bunch of other rules on top of it to produce rapid weight loss. These rules make no sense, if induction was exclusively about detoxing from sugar. I'll list a couple of those rules now.

1) No nuts..... 2) Limited amounts of cheese, avocado (half per day), cream. (You are allowed these foods, but asked to watch portion size, again to control calories. These foods are all perfect percentages for induction, if not BETTER than some foods that are free (avocados are over 70% fat)... These foods are limited because even though they are low in carbs, they are high enough that it's easy to go over the 20 grams per day if allowed or not limited. Notice eggs, butter, meat are even potentially higher in calories than the limited foods... but they are not limited! It's possible that some people can have some of the limited foods on induction without trouble - but Atkins developed his diet for people who are more, rather than less insulin resistant.
3) The fact that induction is optional. Would be Atkinsers are told if they don't have much weight to lose, or don't want to lose weight at all, they can skip this step or cut it really short and move directly to finding their ideal carb tolerance levels. On the other hand, very obese dieters are told they may prolong induction to lose weight faster if they wish.People who don't need to lose weight are less likely to be very insulin resistant... they don't need induction to get into fat-burning mode because they're already there. In their case moderating their carb intake would be preventative. Whereas people who are very insulin resistant (thus obese) may need to keep carbs at induction levels to remain in fat burning mode. Makes perfect sense to me.
4) The emphasis on ketosis. Atkins does say not to worry about strips, but ideally he would like you to be in measurable ketosis while on induction. Ketosis is not necessary to have your blood sugar under control. Ketosis is necessary to make you adverse to food and your appetite suppressed, though..Measurable ketosis is a useful indicator for people starting the diet. As for appetite, I've been in ketosis for months and it hasn't made me "adverse to food". It doesn't suppress my appetite, unless you call getting rid of addictive carb cravings "appetite suppression". I just call it normal. I still get good and hungry when it's time to eat.
There's lots and lots of other rules which are more vague and can be argued (lack of berries, limited AS)... but those are the most obvious and it's really hard to argue that those rules exist for any reason other than calorie control and weight loss.How do you figure? I know I was eating huge amounts on induction. 3000+ calories a day, trying to drown my carb cravings in prime rib and butter. I lost about 10 pounds anyway. It's not about the calories.

Wyv

[bluesmoke]

In my experience, it's not a particular food item that's the problem, it's a whole class of foods. Anything with high sugar (carbohydrates) from potatoes to Hershey bars causes the same problem, any amount causes the same problem. For my body, it is strict low carb or nothing.
Atkins induction worked for me and his advice was the result of years of experience with thousands of patients, so I trust what he had to say n the subject. What you have to remember is that Atkins considered the ketosis strips to be pretty unreliable and use a machine that measured all the types of excreted ketones in the exhaled breath. Also the strips only measure the unburned ketone bodies, post vigorous exercise there may be none excreted because the body has used them all. Nyah Levi

[runnr]

Thought I would bump this (even though its my own thread) because I thought this was a great discussion

If you don't agree, feel free to let it die :)

[Bat Spit]

Thanks. I think its interesting.

I actually started out 'backwards'. First I recognized that breakfast cereal left me more hungry in an hour than if I'd never eaten, so I gave that up. Then I noticed that I needed to control carbs to control hypoglycemia, so I started really cutting down on starches with my meals. Then I started cutting sugared soda down to just a few a month.

I didn't really lose any weight doing that, but I didn't gain anymore either, and I think it put me in a much better head space for a low carb lifestyle. I never binge, I don't have trouble limiting my treats to what I have pre-decided is allowable, I only occasionally have trouble when confronted by a previously favorite food. I think the years of cutting down gradually, and the practice knowing what certain carby substances were going to do to my body made taking the plunge much easier.

I highly recommend that approach for people with ED, because it helps us moderate our control issues.

[Fialka]

Eh, this is a ymmv thing. Normal, healthy people with normal metabolisms who are just eating too much will benefit from almost any diet plan they follow and stick too. This phased in concept is another way to approach dieting and I'm sure it would work for people who just need to change their habits.

For people like me who are metabolically compromised, this approach will not work. In fact, I did cut my pop and reduce my sugar intake and it did nothing. I did ten years of lowcal/lowfat with high intensity exercise, nada. Maintained and/or gained with that approach. Cold turkey lc is the only way for me because I have since learned (working with endocrinologists), I do not properly metabolize carbs and never will. Carbs will make me gain weight and keep me fat if I eat them.

So, I guess anyone who wants to try this advice needs to figure out if their weight is from bad habits or from a compromised metabolism.

F

[ValerieL]

Totally a YMMV thing.

I hate it when people try to pigeon-hole everyone into one way of being or the other. Dieting backwards will work best for some, dieting forwards will work beset for others. I'd even go further to say that within the same person, dieting backwards would work better at some points in their life and dieting forwards would work better at different points in their life.

We are individuals, not clones. Just because something worked well for one doesn't mean it works well for others.

To go back to the original poster, your trainer has some good ideas. I'd be even more impressed if they took those good ideas and instead of putting all his/her clients on that regime, he or she took the time to figure out the personality and individualness of the client and decided what approach was best based on the individual client rather than the one success story.

Val

[kwikdriver]

This kind of touches on something I've been thinking about lately. People with serious weight problems usually try to go from 0 to 100 in 2 seconds flat. They go from eating anything and everything, and their exercize consists of walking from their car to their desk and back again, to rigidly following some diet plan, joining a gym, walking 10,000 steps a day: they are going to go from fat couch potato to the ideal health nut. It's a radical shift, and such things seldom work, because our habits are products of our environments and ourselves, and those things don't change much overnight. So people end up burning out, because they are constantly fighting against themselves, a battle you can't win, instead of slowly changing who they are, and how they relate to their environment. I think a gradual approach has a better chance of producing lasting change, instead of the, "OK, I've been a sloth, but now I'm going to be super dieter! 10,000 steps and an hour a day at the gym, I'll never cheat, this weight will be gone in three months, you watch!" approach.

[Nancy LC]

I think it depends on the person. I always did pretty well going Cold Turkey on habits. Except caffeine. I don't want the flu like symptoms of going CT, so I'm increasing the amount of decaf.

[yogamom]

My DH lost 25 lbs since xmas just by switching to Diet soda, and lowering his calorie/ carb intake (no chips w/ sand!) :()

I did lower my carbs for a few days before moving into induction, and avoided the induction flu!!!!

Maybe we're lucky, but there does seem to be truth to that theory.

[ItsTheWooo]

This kind of touches on something I've been thinking about lately. People with serious weight problems usually try to go from 0 to 100 in 2 seconds flat. They go from eating anything and everything, and their exercize consists of walking from their car to their desk and back again, to rigidly following some diet plan, joining a gym, walking 10,000 steps a day: they are going to go from fat couch potato to the ideal health nut. It's a radical shift, and such things seldom work, because our habits are products of our environments and ourselves, and those things don't change much overnight. So people end up burning out, because they are constantly fighting against themselves, a battle you can't win, instead of slowly changing who they are, and how they relate to their environment. I think a gradual approach has a better chance of producing lasting change, instead of the, "OK, I've been a sloth, but now I'm going to be super dieter! 10,000 steps and an hour a day at the gym, I'll never cheat, this weight will be gone in three months, you watch!" approach.

Totally and 100% agree.
Time and time again I see people do diet, exercise, all at once.
Time and time again I see people who attempt such a dramatic overhaul almost always fail.

Start with the easiest changes first. Take on more as you can.
Rule of thumb is if it's a battle for you to do it, and it is not getting easier or more routine, you are wasting your time because eventually you'll quit.

It's about changing parts of who you are. If the change isn't happening and it continues to be a battle, you're not making any real lasting progress IMO.


I've decided that for me exercise is like that. With exercise I start out really high enthusiasm and enjoy it. Eventually I like it less and less... my body aches more and more... I loathe thinking about tomorrows session at a point :lol:. I am just not cut out for formal exercise and I always quit.
(Fortunately I don't mind restricting and actually enjoy it in many ways... and I enjoy walking on a whim. However I will NEVER be the person to have a ritualistic high intensity exercise program.)

Some of us take like a shine to atkins or other diets, others don't. I think it comes down to being as simple as how enjoyable the change is for you. For me, I always loved meat, never cared for starches, plus for the first time ever I was not always really hungry. I was extremely motivated to lose... I felt like I had no options but to get it off me. For the first time ever I was losing weight and that was very motivating.
So, the "dramatic change" really wasn't all that hard for me. What appeared to be this HUGE undertaking really didn't feel that bad. I did not need much willpower since I enjoyed it, just discipline to stay on the straight path. If I were a cake/bread person and I did not get as dramatic a change in my metabolism or results, I seriously doubt the hugeness of induction would have worked and I probably would have cheated and quit early on.

[CLASYS]

In the early '70's when I first tried Atkins [Diet revolution first printing era], I just did what I thought was low carb [which it mostly was] and no one had any notion about "induction", just change your ways and you got results.

[Later, I got to my first plateau, and ultimately found out that too many tomatoes in a salad isn't a good thing if you are trying to limit carbs, etc.]

I didn't particularly miss anything, as the cravings-removal really worked well. I went on to losing about 30-35 lbs in just under a year, winding up probably 25 lbs above ideal weight for body type/build, etc. [And basically stayed in that range for literally years because of no change in exercise level, again not emphasized back then.]

There was an epiphany point back then: I knew "something" was bothering me, and when I figured it out, I laughed out loud: I was missing the eating experience of a bad habit from early childhood onward: "noshing" of rye bread. Chewing bread, crunching down the crispy crust, etc., the feeling of fullness quickly achieved [drink water after eating lots of bread and you aren't hungry for some hours].

So, here I was, no apetite and a good feeling of fullness, good ketosis levels, but craving for something to chew and taste!

Looking back, it was a good thing I gave everything up all at once. I'm sure I never would have gotten as far as I did by some sort of piece-meal item-reduction plan. I'm sure I would just remove one carb abuse and double-up on any number of the others.

Confessions of a child and teenage carber:

Eating 6 slices of rye bread before lunch... AND same also before dinner! AND sometimes after dinner! [Unless potato chips, popcorn, or pretzels were available!]

My family bought round-style chocolate seven-layer cake from the local bakery. They also had the more-common rectangular kind [only has chocolate icing on the edge or corner pieces, other than all pieces have a bit on top]. But the round one comes with a dried maraschino cherry on top [guess who "stole" it as it came into the house?]. More importantly, the round kind has a thicker, harder chocolate "crust" layer over the entire cake, which means any cut always has more chocolate on top than any analogous cut of the rectangular kind [which makes what I did more palatable to other family members I "stole" from]. More importantly, the entire cylindrical side is also heavily covered with even more, etc.

So, the "norm" would be to cut wedge-shaped slices, so one gets a "share" consisting of the portion of chocolate on the top and cylindrical section on the wedge's side.

But, no, that's not what I did! Instead, I turned the wedge into a large "W" shape, thus I got the wedge and several "chords" [geometrically speaking] which had not much but the sections taken from the cylinder of adjacent "wedge"-shaped pieces now devoid of any cylindrical chocolate edge. [The ultimate "steal": Take the entire cylinder from the entire cake and a small wedge!]

Camp carb capers:

Kids do strange things at camp. There I learned to eat breakfast cereals like Rice Krispies, which had not yet become "frosted" as in later years. But we made up for it:

Start with some cereal, Rice Krispies or corn flakes; unimportant [minor ingredient]. Add some milk [need some liquid].

Now the important stuff: Picking up the restaurant-style sugar dispenser, add sugar until it no longer dissolves in the milk; all cereal now floats to the top. Continue adding sugar until a small pile emerges at the center of the bowl visable from the outside. 95% carbs breakfast!

And then there's drinking chocolate syrup, direct from one of those puring containers, right into the mouth. Always fill mouth as much as possible and swallow all at once; repeat, often several times.

And yet, despite all of this, lose weight due to extreme exercise value of scheduled activities. But summer camp is one thing; the other things were done the rest of the year at home!

cjl [decades removed from this!]

[foxgluvs]

Kind of as a quick aside - do you know how much weight the general population would lose if they just cut out soda? I'm totally floored by the amount of full calorie soda that some people drink

There is up to 16 (yes really!!) teaspoons of sugar in ONE can of regular soda!!! :eek:

[Bakerchic]

As far as weightloss goes, the 360 always got the job done. I was one of those sloth’s that changed their habits seemingly overnight. I went from a 186 pounds to a 135 in four and a half months. I connected the act of eating food with massochism. Self-inflicted harm. If it harmed me in the past, it would always harm me. It worked well for weightloss. Maintenance, nada... I was psychologically terrified and ambushed, trying to please both sides of my extreme behavior with bingeing and restriction. In the end, I halfway bottomed out, landing comfortably at 160. Now I'm doing things slower. For me, even the Atkins induction seems like a godsend, I read it, thinking, "I can have that much." Now I don't even do Atkins, but kinda follow a paleo type plan. It seems to be working, and I'm finally a little comfortable. It doesn't mean I don't err, but I am now learning how to rebound. It's nice. So, I think easing into dieting slowly is best psychologically. However, I still have my taboo foods and rules, and I don't think I will ever be able to reacquaint myself with certain foods that set off a binge. One rule I have observed though is that if I’m going to have a ‘bad’ food, I eat it at a restaurant, and I can thank Lyle McDonald for that tip in his E-book The Rapid Fat Loss Handbook. I’m going to be simple, but it all comes down to trial and error. Once people know how to do it, they will always know how to do it, but doing it and staying that way is very, very, hard!! The thing about maintenance is priorities. If your priority is to maintain optimal health and fitness, you will be more likely IMO to stay on track. And the ones who maintain seem to keep a concerned eye on their weight. They know exactly when they may be slacking and will cut back. They’re very aware of negative behavior patterns. How they got to maintenance may not be the major factor, maybe it‘s more about awareness and a sense of self. I think one of my biggest motivators is being aware that chicken and steak isn’t going to put weight on me. And now I am more aware of foods that cause certain problems and ones that don’t. So I’m discovering a lot. So in the end, I’m dieting backwards, starting at nothing, and adding more each day. From food phobia to food awareness, it’s exciting and I think I’ll have maintenance nailed when I get there!

[teresa35]

Atkins is NOT cold turkey - you are just switching to healthier carb choices.

[runnr]

I don't agree with that. Maybe if someone is eating a whole foods diet already and is just switching their carb-y fruits and veggies for low glycemic ones

But I would say most people are - cold turkey -cutting out pop, sugar, refined flours, and processed foods. Thats cold turkey if I've ever heard of it. Atkins doesn't tell you to remove these slowly - you are to quit, in one fell swoop

[AuntJoyce]

Your level of effort should match the severity of your problem. If you have only a few pounds to lose and are healthy, then maybe the “change one thing” plan would work. But if you are severely overweight, have high blood pressure, diabetes and/or cholesterol then you need a lifestyle intervention. The cold turkey approach means you have to clean out your cupboards so you are not tempted. Some people do better with a clear list of allowed foods so they do not have to make decisions. Also, we underestimate the amounts we eat and may even forget what we ate! So we may think we are cutting back, but are only fooling ourselves. That’s why a food journal can be a valuable tool.

And speaking of cake, do you guys ever cut a slice and then realize it is crooked so you have to make another little slice to even it up? You have to do that several times! Same with ice cream. You don’t want it lopsided in the carton, so you have to keep scooping it out so it is level.

[Angelasher]

.
People who don't need to lose weight are less likely to be very insulin resistant... they don't need induction to get into fat-burning mode because they're already there. In their case moderating their carb intake would be preventative. Whereas people who are very insulin resistant (thus obese) may need to keep carbs at induction levels to remain in fat burning mode. Makes perfect sense to me.
Wyv

I think that there are many variables and one would be the composition of your body not just weight. Particularly as you age. I may not have a lot of weight to lose but over the years my percentage of body fat had increased dramatically. I am not obese, and with my previous high carb intake I was not in fat burning mode. I may have been active enough and eating in such in such a way along with genetics that I was only 20 lbs over weight. However induction was needed to start the fat burning process which will reduce my body fat.

[Wyvrn]

I may not have a lot of weight to lose but over the years my percentage of body fat had increased dramatically. I am not obese....The way I use the word "obese" is the dictionary definition "excessively fat". You could certainly be excessively fat without having an excess of "weight". Low muscle mass and/or being small boned would allow for that.

Wyv