Help! I have been following the Atkins diet for 8 days now and I have GAINED weight. I have had no fruit, bread, pasta, etc., and I have gained? Has this happened to anyone else?

Hi KAZ, welcome aboard!

Don't be alarmed, there are many factors that may cause this and it can be a good result of muscle gain due to exercise and adequate protein intake. Have you taken measurements of your body? Have you started a new activity when your started the diet that you weren't doing before?

Wa'il

Hi Tamarian, thanks for your reply...I need support!

I have not been doing anything differently other than cutting out all carbs...I feel like I have lost weight, so when I got on the scale this morning I was so disappointed...I have never tried this before and I have heard so many success stories. I am doing the Atkins 14 day induction and really feel deprived...I miss my orange juice in the morning. Have you had good luck with the lo carb experience?

Hi KAZ,

If you feel deprived, you might be something wrong. Please share more details as to what you eat in a typical day. Some products have hidden carbs, Do you undereat?

How about posting a journal entry in our journal/bootcamp forum? You'll get lots of tips and feedback on your daily routine.

If you haven't taken measurements yet, it's never late. They often provide motivation, and they indicate fat loss more accurately than the scale.

Keep us posted!

Wa'il

Hi again, I'll try the board that you mentioned, but just to let you know, I typically have turkey or roast beef with lettuce and cheddar cheese for breakfast, a chef's salad with vinegar for lunch, and steak, chicken or fish for dinner with a salad of lettuce, tomato and cheese. I have been snacking on lunch meats like corned beef and liverwurst and cheese and have had a few glasses of dry white wine on occaison these past nine days. (I also had a rum drink this weekend) Do you see anything I am doing wrong that would cause a gain?

Thanks so much for your help!

Two things. First, I can spot a lot of "hidden carbs" in what you've listed here. I can tell you from personal experience, that by carefully logging every bite, then looking up the actual carb counts -- or using an online food journal such as Fitday.com (there are others, that's just the one I use) -- Even on days when I've only eaten meats and cheeses, and had my coffee + cream, the bottom line has been 18 to 20 carb grams in a day.

Deli-style lunch meats - the roast beef and turkey breast - have carbs. Some dextrose is used in the processing. Unless you're actually roasting the meats yourself at home, without additives. Liverwurst is rather carby. Cheese has carbs, up to 1 gram per ounce. Tomatoes are carby too, 4.2 for half a cup. One problem in the USA, is that foods that have less than 0.5 carbs per serving, can be labelled "zero" carbs. Or, 1.5 can be labelled 1, 2.5 becomes 2 .. and so on. Those 1/2 grams can add up! Especially the cheese and cream ... we think there's zero carbs, so we end up having way more than just one serving ... ..

It really helps to have a good and ACCURATE food counts resource. Corrine Netzer's "Complete Book of Food Counts" is excellent, and handy since you don't have to be on the computer to use it. The USDA nutrient database is also great, you just type in the food name, and away you go .. http://www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/cgi-bin/nut_search.pl

The wine is likely inhibiting fat loss. How this happens -- if you are in ketosis, by consuming a very low carb diet -- the liver is making ketones from the burning of FAT. This is wonderful and desirable. However, the liver also can make ketones from ALCOHOL. In fact, it's easier to make ketones from alcohol than from fatty acids, so the liver will use the alcohol in PREFERENCE ... which means FAT-burning gets put on hold, until the alcohol is used up. So, while distilled spirits and bone-dry wine contribute little or no carbohydrates, and do not inhibit ketosis, they can and WILL stop fat-burning.

Your best bet for a successful Induction is to go cold-turkey ... follow the food lists exactly as outlined in Atkins New Diet Revolution for the full 2 weeks. So, eat plenty of sugar-free protein, two small green salads or a salad and one cup serving of a cooked lowcarb veggie such as asparagus, cauliflower or spinach ... and account for every single carb you consume, including dairy cheese and cream. And maybe hold off having the wine or rum until Induction is over, and your body is full-swing into fat-burning mode ..

One other thought ... in Protein Power, the Eades suggest that some folks may experience a gain at the beginning, if they've been eating the typical highcarb, lowFAT, lowMEAT diet with lots of pasta and bread .... Once you finally start feeding your body an adequate amount of quality protein, your muscles will gain a bit ... but it's NOT fat gain. And increased muscle means increased metabolism, means increased fat-burning. That's why it's so important to use the tape measure, as Wa'il stated.

Doreen

Thanks so much, Doreen. I was really getting down, but now I feel better knowing what I need to do to get rid of this weight. I am so glad I found this board...the book is good, but people offering you moral support and information that I need is much better!

I've also found my scales can be diabolically unreliable. I gave making sense of my old spring loaded scales and bought a digital. It can vary by up to 3 lbs from day to day. I assume that partly has to do with fluid retention differences from weighing to weighing. I find that the overall weighing over a week (or even a month for me as I'm a slow loser) is more indicative of what's really going on. Usually induction shows a distinct loss by the end of the 2 weeks, but other members will point out, we are pretty individual in the way our bodies respond to the diet. I'd guess that in another week, you'll probably be showing a loss. As I've discovered in the 4 months I've been doing this, patience really is a virtue. I'm losing verry slowly, but the trend is downward rather than the ascending weightgain that I've managed to interrupt by doing this WOE.

I forgot to answer this part Yes, I'm 125 lbs lighter than I was before.

Wa'il

One thing I forgot to mention is that I stopped taking Prozac (10mg) when I started this diet 11 days ago. I am now afraid to get on the scale, but I'm wondering if maybe this was the cause for weight gain???

Yes, some drugs are potential stallers for sure. They effect people differently too.

Wa'il