More sage words from Dr. Atkins in the new edition of DANDR...

Uses and Abuses of Induction

Induction not only jump starts your weight loss, it is also a convenient refuge to which you can retreat whenever you need to get off a weight loss plateau or to get back on the program after a lapse. So, if you’ve fallen off your lifetime maintenance program for whatever reason, you can return to induction, and, like the ignition of an automobile, it will get your engine to turn over and start you down the road again.

If you reached your goal weight before slipping off the wagon for a brief period, you won’t have to do induction for long – just until you get back into lipolysis and the secondary process of ketosis. You’ll know that has happened when you once again experience the ability to be in control your appetite – the feeling that was such a revelation after the first forty-eight hours of induction.

These are perfectly appropriate uses of induction. However, Induction can be abused, and that abuse can ultimately threaten your ability to maintain a healthy weight. First of all, if you retreat into induction every time you stray, you may begin to reinforce a dangerous pattern of behavior. By knowing Induction is there as a refuge, it may keep you from following the guidelines of the stage you are in. For a minor infraction, or even a day of cheating, there is no need to go back to induction. Simply drop down 5 or 10 grams for a couple of days, or go back to the previous phase. It is important that you learn how to eat properly as a way of life. Zigzagging back and forth between Induction and lifetime Maintenance means you have not integrated this new, healthy eating pattern into your life.

Another more serious concern I have is the impact this back-and-forthing can have on your metabolism. (See "The Wrong Way to do Atkins." I have heard people say, “I love doing Atkins because we can cheat on weekends, then go back to induction Monday morning.” While this behavior pattern may work in the short term, it will probably backfire in more ways than one. It’s likely that your metabolism will adapt at a certain point – in a sense, developing a tolerance. People who repeatedly regain weight and then go back to Induction sometimes find that they do not experience the dramatic and easy weight loss they initially enjoyed. Add in the fact that none of us is getting any younger and our metabolisms natural tendency to slow down with passing years. Finally, your body pays a price healthwise if you dramatically switch back and forth from a fat-burning to a glucose-burning metabolism.

If you keep retreating into Induction from Lifetime Maintenance, it becomes a form of yo-yo dieting. I’m not saying you shouldn’t go back to Induction when you need it, I’m simply saying don’t do it regularly, in the belief that it will always work the same for you. You may be in for a nasty surprise.


From the new edition of Dr. Atkins New Diet Revolution, Avon Books paperback edition, January 2002.

Wise words from the Master but slightly troubling nonetheless.

There has always been comfort in the low carb equation:

Carb reduction to level X = ketosis = weight loss

But if

"its likely that your metabolism will adapt at a certain point - in a sense developing a tolerance"

if we Yo Yo Atkins, I would love to know the bio - chemical reasons why.


What is the effect on the body from going from a glucose burning metabolism to fat burning to glucose burning and back again?

This is more of a rhetorical question aimed at the Dr. But if anyone does know the answer you know where to find me.

good questions, rust. I can tell you (and Wa'il and others can verify) that LC did not work as well the "second time" (after a month lapse) for me. I can only assume if I continue to do this, eventually it will not work for me at all as a method of fat loss.

The more general answer is that our body has powerful mechanisms that protect our body fat (or our "set point weight" if you prefer that concept). [It works both ways, too. In a forced-feeding study in a man's prison, it was found that naturally thin men could gain about 5 pounds on a high-calorie diet, but no more. This stayed true even when the calorie intake exceeded 10,000 per day ] What those mechanisms of fat-protection are, not even the most expert obesity researchers know. hormones, enzymes, the sneaky ability of the body to add fat cells only at four times in life (0-3, puberty, pregnancy, and when rebounding weight back after a diet) but never to lose a single one of those fat cells (we only lose fat molecules out of the cells, not the cells themselves). They are pretty sure they know the why--which is an evolutionary biology answer regarding survival and the protect of fat stores. I realize you wanted a more specific answer regarding the precise mechanisms, but I honestly don't think it's out there ...if it is, I haven't run across it in my recent researches.

Karen, very useful post! I gotta convince myself to raise those carbs again!

well apparently this is so true......I have gone on and off atkins several times. And now when I am on I can go a month with no weight loss..i get discouraged because of no weight loss....and get off the diet....feel guilty.....get back on again..... is there no end to this madness...........AND will I eventually start to lose again

After losing about 60 lbs on Weight Watchers in 2001, and then gaining back about 10 or so over the holidays, I decided that I wanted to try something different from WW. I was tired of buying low-fat everything (it's not required, but you use up all your "points" very quickly if you eat full-fat foods) and I was tired of dealing with points.

When I started the plan (around Jan, '01) I ws nursing my daughter full time and WW is one of the few plans that has a nursing program. I was able to eat a lot of points and lose weight, because nursing burns about 500 cals a day. I never completely stopped losing weight on WW if I followed the plan, I just got bored, and wasn't enjoying the meetings that much. Since I didn't really stall, I don't think I'm "metabolically resistant". But induction has not been that dramatic for me. I'm exercising, doing the program properly, in ketosis, and weight loss hasn't been any greater than it would have been on WW. That's kind of disappointing. And no, I'm not losing a tremendous amount of inches, either. And yes, I drink water like a fiend (always did do that.) We'll see what happens when I weigh in this Sunday, but right now, I wouldn't call induction a dramatic weight loss method. It's pleasant to follow, but I don't know if I'll get to my goal weight doing it. And that's a little disappointing.

Here's my very unscientific take on this particular tidbit from Dr A.

"its likely that your metabolism will adapt at a certain point - in a sense developing a tolerance" Seems if ya turn the switch off and on too many times, eventually you burn out the switch.

Seriously though, I think he's refering to homeostasis. It would seem to me that if you factor that in and ,say ,do the weekend carb fest/induction monday your body would adapt. It would come to expect that. Then on the other hand if that was the case, what would be the point of CCLL? am I making sense?

I especially liked this little tidbit really, if only for the fact that it's suppossed to be a WOL not a quick fix.

This is an excellant post. Since I just finished posting a reply to "meat fast", thought I should clarify my postion on it. I do totally agree with the fact that if U continue to run to induction everytime U cheat then U havent learned anything. But at the same time I find that because low-carbing is a WOL I will need lots more time to fine tune it. Im gulity of doing a meat fast at least once every couple weeks, however in the last few months over all, day to day my carb count is way up and yet I still am able to maintain my weight. Like Doctor Atkins says, This is one plan U can personalize to your own needs.

I have a question about induction.

What if you never go far from induction ?

I agree and know its true that each time you cheat and go back on its harder to lose the fat. The first time I was on I lost 40 lbs in about 6 months.. It was awesome.. Then for some stupid reason I quit and gained 20 back. I went back and forth on atkins and didnt lose anything.. then went to low fat for 4 months and went to the gym.. didnt lose anything either. Now since being on atkins started again Jan 3 I have lost about 10 lbs. Not as much as I would have liked but at least it is something.. Now if I can get the scale moving again I'll be sooo happy

But everytime I have been eating low carb I have not gone much over 20 carbs a day, except on special occasions.. so Im wondering if my body has become adapted to this..

so is the back and forth thing aimed at people that eat on the weekends and then LC during the week??? usually i atkins for 4 or 5 months then get off a while.....it seems this time NOTHING is coming off even on induction. Is there a way to correct or jump start this?

there's no way I know to correct it OR the lowered BMR from low-cal dieting. I'm sure the trials that might work for anyone else might not work for the next person. I've tried nearly everything I can think of--upping calories and gritting my teeth through the weight gain, going paleo, a CKD (actually worse in weight gain than anything else I tried), eliminating potential allergen LC foods one at a time, exercising everywhere from 30 to 150 minutes per day, focusing those hours on weights, focusing on cardio, slow cardio, hard cardio; I've had my doc test for T4, T3, DHEA, blah blah blah blah, looking for a mechanistic solution. All I have to show for it is shorter teeth (from the frustrated grinding )

I've concluded that the only "solution" is: accept a slow loss and learn the lesson that diets don't work. They are known to cause worse obesity along with a host of ailments. Treating LC as a diet will also render it ineffective for many people. If you have the genetic predisposition to it (hint you might: childhood onset of obesity), every time you go off, you're consigning yourself to a slower loss and higher final weight. All you can do is permanently change your lifestyle--eating and movement and attitude--and accept the rate of loss and the final weight you balance out to. There's no good data about the long term effects of this "WOE" approach, either--it's possible the body would even adapt to this moderate approach and regain to set point weight eventually. We'll have to be the experimental lab rats for that!

For yo-yo dieters in particular, if you start out at 300 (to choose some random numbers), you may not ever lose below 200--but if you can maintain 200 forever, be able to now physically do what you couldn't, lower your BP and cholesterol, celebrate! If my current weight is the lowest weight I can reach, eating and exercising healthily, I want to take it with grace and cheer. Don't get fixated on not looking like a fitness model. If you had the genetics for that, you'd look like that eating hot fudge sundaes twice a week. (an act that would stall the typical hyperinsulimic forever)

someone here--LC sponge, I think--did it right. One shot, no history of yo-yo dieting, took her 20 months to lose a moderate amount of weight, she's still staying with maintenance. For those of us who have a lifetime of doing it wrong, we may well have to accept more moderate definitions of success.

whenever I post a realistic view, I keep thinking about how unsucessful it would be as a diet book--lol--we want to hear the magic solution exists, and it really may not for all of us.

This makes me laugh ruefully to myself.

I don't have a history of yo-yo dieting, but I have a long history of trying to find the optimum way to eat for balance - physical, mental and spiritual. All of those ways included vast amount of carbs, whether it was big bowls of brown rice, or low fat chocolate sorbet.

The only time I ever lost any weight with one of these endeavors was a flirtation with food combining about 15 years ago. In retrospect, I was starving myself because I had chosen the vegan version! Thank God the addictive pull of carbs made me gain weight again!

So, through low-carbing I've come to see that for all those years I was feeding my addiction, and that's why I never got anywhere with finding the balance. Now I am.

Karen

This is a great thread. Thanks for starting it Karen; I don't have the new edition of Atkins.
I am both horrified by this study and curious to know more. Can you give me a reference to it Razzle?

Depressing thought. So there aren't people who tried low-fat over and over again, saw the light, made the switch and are now living thin, happily ever after? I guess I just assumed they exist.

What you're saying certainly rings true, though. I think my long history with low-fat diets has permanently slowed my metabolism. I've been taking my temperature throughout the day for a week and I never get above 97.5 degrees. I even tried taking a thermogenic twice today to see if it would have any effect. After a thermogenic, a cardio workout and a hot shower I was still below 97 degrees. I think I've been tested for hypothyroidism in the past with negative results.

How about if we don't yo-yo Atkins, if we just stick with it? Can we recover?

Most importantly: Am I making things worse by eating 40 gms. carb one day and 15 the next? Must I make it perfectly even all the time?

Allison

I think as you get further into this WOE, as you fine tune and find out what the optimum way of eating is for you, it will matter less. If only for the reason that you are very comfortable with it and it really is your WOL.

Listening to what you need is the key. Once you get completely past cravings and have a good grasp of them, then you can really listen to what your body is telling you.

I think it's important to "eat by numbers" at first because it's a big part of retraining yourself. You find out about carb counts, hidden carbs, caloric intake and what combinations make you feel physically good. Once you're trained, you don't even think about it. Then, you can just enjoy!

Karen

allison, the citation is in this long (but fascinating) article on the failures of dieting and behavioral therapy as treatments for obesity:

garner article

Above (and always), I'm just theorizing about the slower/more moderate success for some of us in LCing. My theory (which is informed but not expert, so take it with a mixture of half lite salt and half regular ) goes--all these things will make it harder for you to lose and you'll lose more slowly:

yo-yo dieting in the past (lf or atkins--both result in similar problems)
being female
childhood onset of obesity
being over 35 (or so)
hyperinsulinemia by test, symptoms, or gestational diabetes

I have rationales for listing many of these (medline research, Adiposity 101's summaries of research, the article I linked above, and more), but would love to see more data collected and analyzed. I suspect that Atkins does not work at all for some people, but those people drop out and don't hang out on BB's, so it's impossible to quiz them and try to find common characteristics for that group.

Even for us turtles, I think it's worthwhile to hang in there, tho--a size 14 is better than a size 28 any ol' day, and the health benefits are so good, why go back to the old way?

Karen.....

Interesting information there from Atkins. Thanks for posting it.

I really must get that new book!

Marlaine