calories

[lintonan]

For those of you who have been doing the Atkins Diet successfully is it true you don't count calories? I haven't been counting the calories but I am sure they are higher than I would expect but I am staying in the less than 20 grams of carbs a day. I have only been doing this for a week and have lost 3 pounds one day and then none the next.. I am a bit discouraged. I also excercise a lot so am still hungry...

Please advise...

anne in CA :wave:

[LittleAnne]

Hi Anne

Welcome to this forum. Low carbing can be quite confusing when you start.

With regard to calories there is no reason to count them, but you should not have to many or to few! If you are feeling hungry, the chances are that you are not eating enough. The general guide is that you should eat between 10 and 12 times your current weight in calories, so that is around 1800 calories for you.

Make sure you are not eating to few calories, probably under 1400, as you will then send the starvation message to your metabolism and you will not lose weight as your body slows your metabolism down. Eating much more than 2,000 a day, regularly will also stop you losing weight as you will supply all your bodies energy requirements from the food you eat. So it is a bit of a delicate balance.

You do not have to much to lose and a general guide is 10% during induction, so those 3 pounds are about that.

Just keep going and those other pounds will follow. You might like to plug your food into Fitday (http://fitday.com) to get some idea of the calorie content.