Hello Low Carbers,

I started the Atkin's diet here one month ago and would love to find some fellow low carbers in Germany.

I signed up because I saw a post from a woman who asked the same thing in 2003---If there was anyone in Germany following Atkins.

I have had success, with bumps here and there. Hard to find products without sugar, and absolutely no chance of finding many of the products listed in the book--i.e. sugar-free jello, no cal choc., pig skins, etc.

It's the 1st of Dec. and my husband bought me a calendar, like every year, where you open the door and have a big piece of chocolate that you eat every day until Christmas arrives. Very nice gesture, but not so great doing Atkins.

My friends want me to go with them and drink Gluehwine, so would just love to have someone to talk to because everyone I have talked to---even at Reform houses---tell me how unhealthy Atkins is and how it will destroy my kidneys. Know it won't because have seen with my own eyes how successful folks are on this unconventional diet.

Would also like to have some American friends, if there's anyone out there who's interested. You're just a flight away...

Need your support and hopefully can give you mine as well.

Sincerely,

Robin

Hi, Robin

and welcome to this forum.

Where are you in Germany? I take it you are American?

German lowcarber here; I don't write much - in fact haven't written anything than my introduction-thread -, but if you want me to, I'll try to be helpful.

I'm not much of a role model, because after five years of lowcarbing I'm still overweight. But that is in part because I've got other health problems, and losing weight is not a priority at the moment.

Maybe I can answer your first questions. (By the way: How is your German? Can you read the labels on food?) There is sugar-free jello (you mean that stuff that is just flavoured gelatin?). It is called "Götterspeise", and you just have to get the variety that is not "instant" (=added sugar), but the normal stuff which says that you have to add sugar. Add sweetener instead, and bingo! It comes from "Dr. Oetker" oder from "Ruf" (available at Rewe).

Pig skins are called "Schweinekrusten". I get mine at Rewe too. They are fried in their own lard (as opposed to sunflower oil, which is no good in terms of omega 3 vs. omega 6).

As for sugarfree chocolate, I haven't found any so far. If you like dark chocolate, there are several brands with 85 to 99 per cent cocoa. I know you Americans have Lindt too, but there is also Aldi's house brand which is a lot cheaper. The brand is "Moser Roth".

Christmas season is of course very diffucult. Normally I have no problems with feeling deprived, but now I find myself loitering in the sweets sections of supermarkets, feeling like a small child that is not going to get a christmas present this year!

Much luck to you! By the way, I am in Cologne.

Greetings,

Bess

P.S.: If you read German, there are some lowcarb forums I could give you the addresses of.

Hello Bess,

So happy that you answered!

I live in Talheim, a small village in Heilbronn. I'm about 40 k. from Stuttgart.

Yea, I speak and read German, but find it much easier in English. I have looked all over for Götterspeise with no sugar and not instant--Kaufland, Edeka, Bio Supermarkets, etc, but haven't looked at Rewe. Thanks so much. Also saw you could order it on the internet, but couldn'T find it. Ordered pig skins from ebay. They came from Belgium.

Anyway, I am happy you're not perfect, Bess. Neither am I. Have been struggling with my weight for a very long time. But am so happy I don't feel hungry on Atkins and can make some good tasting recipes. I typically quit every diet after a couple of months--have mostly done weight watchers---but hope I can stay on this one and become somewhat healthy. Have a fear of getting diabetes like my mother.

I found the Ketosis forum in German. That's where I got the info. about Götterspeise, but would love all the info. you have that you think is worthwhile.

Maybe we could even meet up or you could come here and visit and we could support one another? Or..at least telephone and give one another a little help.

Again, thanks for answering. Look forward to hearing from you again.

Robin

Hello Robin,

thanks for your answer. So, Heilbronn? That's quite far away from here. (I know that we Germans have a different idea about what's "far" than you Americans. In Europe everything is so small, versus living in a country that spans a whole continent.)

Do you mean "Ketoforum"? That was the first forum I found too, although I never registered. I find that nowadays there is mainly gossip going on there, but their recipe section is good.

The German "low carb" that I favor is "Logi". It is a lot like Atkins or Southbeach Phase four. They have a food pyramid that is easy to follow, and they allow a lot more stuff, i.e. you can have bread or other "treats" sparingly and in moderation. Weightloss is slower, but it is much more sustainable long-term than strict Atkins. (You said you find it difficult to follow a diet for more than a few months.) There are several books by the founder of the diet, Nicolai Worm, and they have a forum that gets a lot of traffic and has an absolutely great recipe section. Just google "Logi-Methode" (their homepage) or "Logi-Forum".

Re: Glühwein. If you allow yourself some wine and are just afraid of the sugar in it, why don't you invite your friends to your home? They won't even notice you are low carb when you heat the wine and spices and leave each guest to sweeten it according to "their own taste". Even non-lowcarbers often detest the cheap, oversweetened stuff that is sold on christmas markets and will consider you a gourmet when you make it yourself with some half-decent wine. (Aldi's has a Rioja that is quite okay at 1,99 € a bottle. The spices are called "Glühwein-Gewürz", and at this time of the year you get them in any supermarket, in the wine section.)

Why don't you make a journal, so we can go on chatting there? And of course all your future new friends from the forum will visit you there.

So much for today. I'll write to you again tomorrow, but now I have to go (freelancer with a deadline looming ).

Best regards

Bess

hello and welcome to the forum!

Hi there!

Someone else in Germany!!! Also not too far from Stuttgart, either!!!

I would also recommend you open a journal and then we can compare notes about where to get stuff and what resources there are which would be more specific to Germany.

Must dash, but nice to meet you!!!

amanda

Have to go figure out how to start a journal so we can chat.
Great info, Bess. Also, glad to read from you, Amanda.
Have so many questions, but will not write a book here. Will do it in my journal, if I can figure it out!!
But quickly, have any of you found sugar-free peanut butter or sugar-free jelly?

Hi Robin,

nice to hear back from you. Hope you're doing fine.

Re: Journal. I haven't got one myself, but I think you have to go to the section "Journals / Bootcamp" and klick the button "new thread" on the upper left. Just like you must have started your thread here. If I'm wrong, please correct me, forum experts!

Don't know about peanut butter; we never have anything peanut-y in the house as my daughter is allergic to them.

By jelly, do you mean what we call "Marmelade" (fruit spread)? I don't know any commercial product, but you can make it yourself with frozen fruit / no sugar added (berries are the lowest in carbs) and powdered gelatin. Keeps a few days in the fridge. But if you are on Atkins, watch the carbs anyway with fruit.

Have a nice afternoon, will talk to you later.

Regards,

Bess

Edit: There is a sticky about "how to start a journal" in the Journal/Bootcamp section that tells you exactly what to do.

Hi and welcome HollySan! I'm an American living in Canada, so I know a little bit about what it's like to live outside your own country & comfort zone. My husband is a French Quebecer, and I spent my first 9 months in Canada in Quebec being surrounded by French, a language that I never could learn back in college but that I am *slowly* learning now. I did take German in college, and my father grew up there. My grandfather was stationed there in the US army and was fluent in German... mostly still is. So, I grew up learning a little German, which made it easier for me to learn than French, but I took it a long time ago so it's far now lol. I have been there on a visit, my parents and I took a trip to Europe back in 2007 and we spent much of our time in Germany, cruising around in a rental car. We visited all over except the northeastern part, so we did go through Stuttgart as well as Cologne. It's such a beautiful country and we had a lovely time! Anyway, just wanted to wish you well on your journey, I know it must be difficult there around Christmas time. It certainly is here; we'll be spending the holiday with my husband's family and the big Christmas tradition in Quebec is called a tourtière, which is a spiced beef pie, usually eaten with ketchup. It's so delicious but totally illegal for my low-carb plan lol. But I'm not the one cooking, nor the only one eating, so I guess I'll just have to try to get around it by eating the inside and leaving the crust, and not using any ketchup. :/ However, I do plan on having a glass or two of wine.

Hello Bess and the woman from Canada,

Just wanted to let you know, Bess, that I ventured to Rewe and found no products! I live in a very small town. The town I went to is called Lauffen am Neckar. Very beautiful, but nothing in the Rewe store I could find. The Goetterspeise had 16 carbs although it said to add sugar.
No pork rinds. Am going to have to make everything myself, I guess. Have made marmelade from the fruit in my garden. Will just have to do it next year with Stevia.

Also, will go look at the Logi site to see if I can cure my frustration. However, have cured it a bit by buying a bottle of red wine!!

I wish you well, too, in the French part of Canada. They eat loads of fat and drink loads of red wine and almost all slim. How is that? I'm so jealous.

My husband and my friends are also not fat, and they eat fat and drink beer and wine....and loads and loads of carbos. Soo..am feeling sorry for myself at the moment. While I was in REWE looking for pork rinds, my favorite salt and vinegar chips popped out at me and I was ready to grab a bag. Thank goodness the wine, which is lower in carbs, was close by. I dodged a bullet, but will go read the Logi site and see if I can find something where I can lose...and also find the products.

By the way, every piece of meat had sugar in it. What's up with that? Does the meat at the butcher also have sugar? It was supposedly fresh.

Anyway, I wish you all a nice weekend and wished we could meet up and have a powwow. You can stay upstairs in our old house.

About everyone in Quebec being thin - I know, right! I felt like a fat blob living there, almost no one there is overweight lol. They eat sooo much cheese it's insane and also drink lots of wine. But they're also much more active than Americans and most other Canadians, and that's one thing I noticed about Europe too - lots of cheese, wine, beer, schnitzel... but they also seem to do a lot less driving than Americans and a lot more walking and biking. Also, in Europe I noticed the food is not at all greasy, even at McDonalds, and the soda there tastes horrible, so I had no desire to drink it while I was there, even though I am a soda addict. In Canada the soda tastes the same as in the US, and you can get most of the same products, but their standards on food are much better - fast food meat is 100% beef or chicken, unlike the US, which uses all kinds of fillers. Not that it's good for you, just think it's a little better than the US lol... but I digress.

Before coming to Canada I was an avid beer-drinker, being from a German family and all, but since living in Quebec I find I have fallen in love with red wine - we drank it often at my mother-in-law's. And I am a firm believer that it's good for the heart, so I refuse to cut it completely out of my diet, especially since I have cut out beer. Does that mean I'll never have beer again? Perish the thought! But I will wait to have any until I reach my goal weight, and then I will limit my consumption.

My husband and I would really like to move back to Quebec, and I think we'll live a much healthier lifestyle than we were before. When I moved up here I kind of used pasta as the "go-to" food when I wanted to cook, I think that's where a lot of my weight gain came from. Since we started our low carb lifestyle, I've learned to cook all sorts of healthy meals that don't require rice or pasta, so we're able to eat delicious meals at home.

Hello HollySan,

sorry to hear that you are so frustrated about the choices at your supermarkets!

Re: The Götterspeise (is this turning into a jello-thread?). The non-instant version has 16 carbs per 100 g IF prepared according to the instructions, with sugar! But if you use a non-caloric sweetener, there is just the gelatin which has, I think, no carbs and about 8 g protein per 100 gs of gelatin. Sure sign for non-instant: there are two small packages inside the box, not one bigger envelope.

If you really want to know what's in it (there must be lots of chemicals in the Götterspeise stuff, judging by the color and artificial taste) you could also try to make desserts with pure powdered gelatin ("Gelatine gemahlen") and fruit juice (careful on Atkins) or things like very strong fruit tea, coffee and cream etc ... (Atkins-legal, although I don't know if in phase I)

Ermmm ... You do know the red wine isn't helping your weight loss any?

Pure, plain meat only has traces of carbs. Any normal raw meat you buy at the butcher's or pre-packaged in the supermarket has no carbs, except offal like liver which has got some carbs "naturally", by itself. Careful though with anything prepared in a marinade or so. Frozen poultry often does have stuff injected. Just read the labels. Consumer protection organizations in Germany fought for very strict laws about labellig, so you can rely more or less on them. And if it says "1 g carbs per 100 g" or so I think you can neglect it.

Bonjour, Luna in Canada! When I was young I wanted to emigrate to Canada, and I find Quebec quite fascinating. Good luck to you too!

Cheers,

Bess

Thank you very much! Yes, Quebec is beautiful. Of course, I prefer Europe, especially Germany, but until I can get back there, Quebec is a lovely place to live and not too different from Europe.

Btw, I have drank 1 glass of red wine on average 3 or 4 times/week and I like my weight loss so far... perhaps I would have lost more without it, perhaps not, but it seems pretty average so far, about 4 lbs./week. But everyone's body is different, everyone loses differently and everyone handles things differently. But do make sure if you're going to include it, that a) it's DRY wine, and b) that you have just a little bit! Never consume more than one 5 oz glass in a day, don't expect it's something you can have all the time, and if you start to stall, just cut it out and see what happens. These are the rules I live by, so far I haven't stalled but if I do, that'll be the first thing to go. I've done lots of research and most places say it's ok in small quantities but it must be dry wine, because dry wine has the smallest amount of natural sugars.

Hello Bess and Luna,

Are you on Atkins Luna?

Soo..that is the right Götterspeise. I thought it had no carbs and when I saw it had 16, I thought I don't want to eat jiggly desert for 16 carbs. However, there are loads of different ice-cream recipes and I wanted to do a low-carb raspberry and lemon one with Götterspeise, but....just ended up using real raspberries. Won't get so hung up on their exact ingredients, but was sooo looking forward to a fast, carb-free sweet treat. Think in the states you can get sugar-free and carb free jello, if you're having a sugar craving, but really not sure.

Am finding recipes and dishes, but just disappointed that I'm losing so slowly. Also, love to snack on the wonderful sausage and cheese here. Probably not the best choice for a snack---but makes me happy....along with celery and cream cheese.

As for red wine, would rather have a glass with dinner than desert sometimes. Just helps me feel like I have a little fun with other folks, instead of always just drinking water.

Anyway, won't write a book. Am gonna keep on keeping on, but jealous Luna that you have averaged 4 pounds a week? Would you mind telling me what you're eating.

I have typically bacon and eggs for breakfast, yesterday I made a low-carb goulash for both my husband and myself, and the cauliflower fake mashed potatoes with cream cheese. For dinner I had just sausage and cheese, but then had a craving for something sweet and made one of those mims....with no sugar...and put peanut butter on it.
Have only lost 5 kilos in more than a month. My poo is also green. Not sure if I'm doing something wrong? Take loads of vitamins, so that could be it.
Anyway, thank you both, Bess and Luna, for the info and support.
By the way, Luna, you're more than welcome to come here and stay upstairs. We have an empty apartment up there. I love having company. My husband not so much. You, too, Bess.
Would be great to compare notes and be able to talk about our experiences, recipes, what works and what doesn't work...etc.
Hope you're having a nice 2nd Advent.
Robin

Hi HollySan,

I'm not on Atkins per se, I've sort of developed my own plan. I was going to buy an Atkins or similar book that would work for my husband and I, but we went looking in Quebec where my hubby's family lives and I wasn't able to find any of these books there - low carb doesn't seem to be popular in Quebec, they love their bread and pasta there lol. We were going to look when we came back home (a medium-sized town just over the Ontario border), but we realized we were doing pretty well on our own. However, if we do run into a snag I will definitely go book shopping.

I usually post my day's meals on my journal, but just to give you an idea I try to keep my saturated fat low and my trans fat non-existent. I tend to get most of my fat from olive oil, mayo, cream sauce I make at home (very low carb and very tasty!), butter, and medium-chain triglycerides, which I have in the form of an oil as well as a virgin coconut oil. I add these to 3 of my meals per day (often I have small snacks to keep me going - I try to eat small amounts throughout the day to boost my metabolism). The reason is that medium-chain triglycerides are a very fast-burning fat, so I get my fat intake and, according to what I've read about it, often it takes fat with it that you already have stored. I get the green poo thing too, I chalk that up to eating so many veggies.

And I agree with you about having red wine and having fun socially, just remember to keep yourself in check. Wine, even the dry kind, does contain at least trace amounts of sugar and that can stall your progress. It's very hard around the holidays when you are surrounded by friends and family who want to partake in the Christmas "spirits." But not everyone metabolizes alcohol in the same way. Also, just remember that this and the food are what cause people to pack on the pounds during the holidays. The two most common New Year's Resolutions in the states are to quit smoking and to lose weight/get in shape. The second one usually has a lot to do with how we spend the holidays. So my advice is just to keep those things in mind.

As far as not losing as fast as you like, I say - don't rush it! It may be the wine, it may be too many saturated or trans fats, or it may just be your metabolism. Everyone's body is different, and everyone loses weight at different speeds. Sometimes it's related to our age or our hormone levels, whether or not we've had kids, or sometimes maybe your body is just stubborn. Remember the important thing is you are losing, and that's always a better sign than gaining. Don't compare yourself to others' loss because they are them, and you are you. You will get there at your own pace. I know it's frustrating, but try to be patient and be proud of the weight you've lost. I think a lot of diet failures come from our expectations being too high and then getting discouraged when we don't see the results we expected. I think you have to accept every pound loss as a victory. Keep at it and be strong, and you will get there.