Hello friends,

as you can see by my username, my goal was to be fit by the time I turn 25, which is in exactly one week's time.
In all honesty I can say that I HAVE achieved this. I started the Atkins diet successfully about 9 months ago, and since then have lost almost 60lbs and am a few pounds away from my goal weight of 135. When I started I was 198lbs.
Anywho, last time I was on Atkins, I noticed my hair looked a little thinner at the hairline, this is something that bothers me every time I look in the mirror because I have always had a thick head of hair. I'm only 24 so I don't think it could be thinning naturally, or maybe I'm just being paranoid.

I am ready to get into OWL and it scares the heck outta me because I don't want to ruin all the progress I've made...however this hair-loss thing is beginning to scare me because I made the mistake of Google-ing it and now I'm freaking out.

Anyone have advice??? Should I just start adding in more healthy foods like fruits and veggies anyway and see what happens?
I've heard about taking fish oil and vitamin B as well as my daily multi-vitamin. Does that sound good? Also I plan on cutting back on my diet coke intake as the Aspartame can't be helping either.

That's my plan so far...I guess i'm just looking for reassurance when I have a hairloss panic attack at 2am!!

Thanks guys

I doubt any perceived hair loss is specifically from Atkins, but maybe general weight loss and nutrition can cause the thinning and loss. I would definitely re-evaluate your nutritional needs and your ideal body weight. Don't go too low on body weight, or try to lose too fast, so that your body feels like it is starving, and willing to sacrifice hair to maintain a certain weight.

I suggest that you still follow the plan by the book, and don't add any food out of order or before you are ready.

Supplement vitamins, minerals, fish oil, etc, as needed; and definitely eliminate things that you may want to rule out for causing hair loss, such as aspertame.

If you look at a lot of Atkins photos on the site, you will notice that many people have improved hair and skin, so I personally wouldn't worry too much about it.

When I was on optifast, which is a low /cal low carb plan, the docs gave me biotin supplements to prevent hairloss. I don't remember the mg.s but it is a popular supplement, you could google it and see how much to take. I also think its good to eat veggies like the book says, even if I hate them too.

Dr. Michael Eades addresses this issue on his blog.

I tried to find it but couldn't, but it has been posted multiple times.

Hopefully someone will visit the thread who has the link...like...

Black or Nancy LC

What are you eating? I ask because your diet should already be healthy. In other words, what vegetables are you eating? There are a lot of "perceived" vegetables that are actually fruits and allowable on induction for example, squash, zuchini, bell peppers, avocadoes. These vegetables ( fruits ) alone have a high nutrient count. B vitamins are a good duppement to prevent hairloss and red meat supplies a high amount of b vitamins.You can add these vegetables and still remain at induction level carbs if you so wish.

I wanted to add that any hairloss, if it should occur, is temporary.

Here is all I could find:

http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/...ss-and-kimkins/

http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/...ittent-fasting/

(on the second link, hair loss is addressed in some of the comments under the main article)

There might be more references, but I don't follow the Dr. Mike's blog much.

Any secondary research I did with Google seemed to indicate that more nutrient rich foods and supplements, a reduction in artificial sweeteners, and not going too low on calories or fat, seem to help with hair loss.

Also, I believe egg yolks are a rich source of biotin, if you decide you might be lacking that.

There's a search function for the blogs at http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/, just to the right of the screen. Yeah, the good one is the Kimkins article.

Oh thanks to both Nancy and Mac!

as others surely are, I wondering if the rapid weight loss over low carb that caused this. I eat pretty darn low carb, but lost my weight very slowly (not my idea, but my bodies). I am 41 and never had thinning issues.

Of course I would evaluate all your nutrients, and fill in gaps with suppliments or reallocating carbs from anything empty to something nutrient rich.

Just an fyi on supplements...the recommended dosage for biotin is 5000mcg or 5mg and it needs to be taken with chelated zinc for it to be effective. I have also had good luck with silica/horsetail fern, liquid gel calcium (1500mg), and triple strength fish oils. This has significantly helped my hair.