Me? I ADORE this entire low carb thing. I've lost weight easily, and inches even more easily, but that has become a mere 'side effect' when I put it beside the fact that on Atkins I have never felt better (after 5 years of ill health Atkins has miraculously cleared everything up within 8 weeks), I am bursting with energy and optimism and, I am sincerely sorry it doesn't work for everyone, but for me ... it has been brilliant.

I am a fairly positive person, and a fairly calm one, I'm happy with what I've achieved, and my doctor is even happier. My weight loss has slowed a bit now from my intial splurge, but that' fine with me. I don't expect miracles, but for me Atkins has been one of the most unexpected and most glorious of gifts in my life. I owe this man big time.

Well let's see its taken me 10 years to gain 100lbs.
Its taken 5 months to lose 26lbs.

Any loss, whether slow or not is better than a gain. I'm not starving, I'm not suffering. I got rid of my acid reflux, I sleep better, I excersize more, I eat more veggies and fresh foods. This is nearly an unconscious way of life for me now.... I rarely think about it. I'm very happy to be able to eat as I'd like and still lose weight! I've found a substitute for nearly everything I was missing. More and more low carb foods are coming on the market every day. There's a reason for that.

I think the losers out weigh the NOT losers...and if you look closely at the majority of people who aren't losing...they are doing it wrong and probably cheating If they are in a true stall then it will pass....i stalled twice for over a month but still lost 50lbs very easily..eating way more food..way more calories...and exercising lightly...

Sorry you couldn't stick with it...but the problem is you...not low carb unfortunately

Wow I just realised. . .i used to have that too. . .don't remember when it left! . . .used to be both feet so the limping was more like hop ow! hop ow! hop! OW! redawn

OMG, I completely forgot about waking up hobbling to the bathroom with achey feet! It HAS disappeared, so completely, actually, that I forgot all about it until I read your post.

Another reason to convince me...Atkins ROCKS!

Me too! I also had the cracking, painful feet in the morning. Another thing I don't miss the the constant heartburn! It also feels great to easily skip up a flight of stairs instead of pulling myself up by the handrail, step by step, and gasping for breath at the top! Thank God for this forum and all of the support everyone has given me!

With me it was my hands... I'd wake up with stiff achy hands... looked like bent claws. I was convinced it was early arthritis and that I'd have to live with it... no more!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

With me it was the knees. I'd wake up with them so stiff and achy that I'd limp around most of the morning. I thought it was arthritis, too. I was taking Aleve for pain on a daily basis, as well as glucosamine and chondroitin supplements.

Within a month of low carbing, my knees no longer hurt and the pain has not returned even once. I no longer take either pain killers or supplements for arthritis.

some of the people in my family that are on low carbs diets are not loosing much weight either but somehow they are losing some INCHES . i notice that in myself too. i have only lost 6 pounds but some how i am fitting into a jean skirt that wastoo small for me. it is amazing how only a few pounds can take off the inches. try to think of that and remember that 4 sticks of butter is equal to one pound, so if someone loses 2 pounds then it is like they lost 8 sticks of butter off their body

I agree this diet does not work I am not losing I exercise my butt off and only 1 inch down and after 3 weeks I'm ready to start screaming and running back to WW. All I read here is HELP I'm stalled and Help I'm not losing.

Kayla...I took another peek at your Fitday journal and note that you're still keeping your calorie levels well below 1,250 and with the added exercise, your body could very well be going into "starvation mode" and hanging on to what it's got for dear life. If you're not getting enough calories to sustain your basal metabolism, your body responds by lowering your metabolism because it thinks that a famine has begun and it's trying to protect you from starvation. Logically, it might seem that it would make you lose faster, but it's really counterproductive.
If you're exercising a lot, you would also need more carbs than what you're currently getting too..well below 20 grams each day; Dr. Atkins doesn't recommend strenuous exercise while at induction levels of carbs. Try to get at least 20 grams by adding more veggies. If you put butter on those extra veggies, it will also help you get your calorie level up where it should be as well.
Last...not all ways of eating are for everyone. If you're more comfortable with WW and think you can get enough protein on that to keep you from losing lean body mass as you lose weight (also counterproductive because less lean body mass means less calories needed to sustain your weight and you will also look flabbier even at a good weight), there's nothing wrong with using that approach. For myself, I was always way too hungry on WW to stick with it and it did nothing for keeping my cravings at bay.

Here's a link to a list of possibilities to check as well: http://www.lowcarb.org/plateaus.html

Low Carbing is a WoE that I have found that I can stick to. I am not hungry 24/7. I eat foods that I like. I eat real foods: cheese, eggs, cream, meats, veggies, etc. I don't eat the processed cardboard junk. It has worked very well for me. It may not be everyone's cup of tea.

There may have been ways for me to lose weight faster in the short term, but I have stuck with this without it seeming like a visit to Haydes domain.

Lots of good comments on this thread.

To me, it makes sense that some people might not lose much on a regimen designed to target a metabolic problem of insulin resistance and hyperinsulinemia - not everybody has this dysfunction I think?
For those of us who do though, I think this is the ideal approach, and makes sense biochemically and we see the results.
The first time I started Atkins I went exactly by the book - lost 50 lbs the first three months (that's a 50 lbs it took several years to put on), and then another 25-30 over the next 4-5 months or so. I consider that to be a fast loss of weight actually. It's no wonder really that my body wanted to plateau for awhile (unfortunate that I was impatient and drifted away from my eating plan then).

I think LisaN's point about overdoing it on calorie and even carb restriction has a lot of merit too. Isn't this what basically happens to us with yo-yoing? The body gets so few calories it begins to think starvation has set in and holds tightly to whatever it can and even begins to override loss mechanisms and tries to go back to storing fat! This is one thing that has stalled me before, the intense suppression of appetite making it difficult to actually make myself eat enough in order to keep loss going at a reasonable rate!

Restarting this time, I didn't do an induction (my initial time, I lost 17 lbs in the 2 week induction), but just started back to OWL eating level and have still lost 32 lbs from Feb 1, and that's been with some major cheating like having company for a week in April and eating whatever was going!

All that said, I do think low carb may not be the correct, or perhaps the most successful, method for people who don't have the insulin resistance abnomality underlying their obesity.

My symptoms b4 May 15, 2003:
1) Urine smelling sickly sweet (for about 2-3 months beforehand)
2) Brain fuzzy (it took me 2-3 months to remember that sickly sweet smelling urine is indicative of diabetis or pre-diabetic state)
3) REAL BAD heartburn, probably GERD, after EVERY meal without taking pepsid, moderately severe even with 2 pepsids or 3 zantacs, usually requiring the consumption of 4-5 "extra strength" TUMS, and 1 or more tsps of baking soda ~2 hours after EVERY meal. This has been occuring with increasing severity since age 20 or so, possibly earlier--I'm 50 now--b4 pepsid came on the open market, I was going through 2 bottles of TUMS per week!
4) Unrelenting heartburn no matter how many pepsids I took if the meal included lettuce, bananas, or cucumbers (or bread or onions to a lesser degree). Even the smell of lettuce or cukes was enough to trigger a headache.
5) 255 lbs. Had taken to wearing women's hip-hugger pants because they didn't cause my waist to hurt (because they ride much lower than the waist!

My symptoms now:
1) Urine no longer smelling sickly sweet.
2) (subjective I know) Brain seems alot more clear-headed.
3) (actually happened by end of first week to my complete surprise) No more heartburn! The last time I took a pepsid was about 2 weeks ago.
4) About 2 weeks ago, I tried an experiment--I ate a small lettuce salad for the first time in at least 5 years--no heartburn at all.
5) (actually happened by end of first week) ~230 lbs. Yeah I stalled, but then I also increased my carb intake to about 50-60 grams a day--mostly cannned fruit and honey roasted peanuts--noticed they caused my wt to creep up to ~237, quit, now back to ~230. Have lost at least 3 inches off my waist, though.

Even if I lose no more weight (God Forbid), I will never go back to hi-carb diet--as a matter of simple survival. I figure I've had my 50 years of sugar consumption--I ought to be greatful for that--the vast majority of the world's population finds a Hershey Bar (or it's equiv) to be an almost unheard-of luxury.

Give up the fixation on the the Almighty Pound, and instead concentrate on how you look and feel about yourself, and you will probably find that you are indeed experiencing success on Atkins.

Two final notes: Most non-Atkins diet experts consider 1 lb a week to be the maximum safe weight loss over time, so why do you feel 3 lbs in a month loss to be so agravating? After all, WW would not recommend much more than that as a maximum.
B4 I tried Atkins, I had stabilized my weight gain at about 245 using 3 capsules of Guggul-Bolic per day--that is until I ran out. Then my weight shot up to 255 in less than a month. Whether the wt stability was due to the purported metabolic increase of Guggul, or whether it was due to the fact that that number of capsule probably doubled my daily intake of fiber, I know not, however.

i was on atkins about eight years ago and found the monotony of the diet tidious. on neanderthin, i can eat fruit which i find very helpful. i love fruit and just a handful of berries can make a huge difference. protein power allows for the dryer wines (in fact, eades suggests that red wine, in particular, inhibits insulin production, possibly accounting for the 'french paradox'). while i haven't lost any real weight yet, i have lost an inch around my waist. more importantly, i have lost sleep apnea attacks, GERDs symptoms and i have seen rapid strength increases in a previously slow to stagnant weight training program. at the age of 46, my metabolism is not going to be the same as it was when i was 15 (i'd give my left testicle for that), so i probably need more than diet to get rid of this thing (beer gut). if you are in your glory years as well, if you are not already, you may want to consider a weight training program, a serious one.