Starting my lowcarb diet (atkins)

[warrior]

tommorrow.

Wish me luck!

[Jazzylyn]

Hi Warrior :wave:

Best of luck to you in your weight loss goals! We'll be rooting you on :)

[warrior]

Hi Warrior :wave:

Best of luck to you in your weight loss goals! We'll be rooting you on :)


Thanks for the welcome. I wouldn't consider myself obese or anything and am fairly active when I have time but I need to get my eating habits under control. I want to lose 30 pounds to slim down to 160, so my question is how much will the induction phase shed?
Also how hard will it be? I dont have that much of a craving for sugary stuff albeit I do like eat a lot of vegetables but I still dig meaty products so I decided to jump on low carb. Further, I drink around 3-4 quarts of water everyday, is that enough to wash out the toxins released by ketosis?

But my biggest question is, does atkins help you control your dietary habits? Like say, knowing when to stop eating.

I am doing atkins in conjuction with Hacker's diet (http://www.fourmilab.ch/hackdiet/www/tableofcontents1_6.html). It explains how healthy people have their 'biological eat watch' in tune while overweight and obese folks don't. I reckon the fat and protein intake should give more satiated feel than normal carbo stuff. Also how does atkins diet factor in the complex carbohydrate products?

[Jazzylyn]

Hmm..OK...When I started induction I lost about 10 lbs after the intial 2 weeks. Some people lose more, some lose less. I think it's highly individual, has to do alot whether you are male or females as well. (My dh lost 20 lbs during induction and has now lost 52 lbs total and myself only 35 total) While I'm happy with my weight loss, I'd like to lose faster..LOL..(who doesn't).

Anyway, I don't know of any way to foretell how much you will lose during induction. You can stay on induction much longer than 2 weeks. I still keep my carbs at or below 20 per day. Much more than that and I stall. Drinking LOTS of water helps and I see you are doing that.

I didn't find induction to be be hard at all. I had no cravings for sugary stuff, and I still don't crave them. My appetite is supressed because I'm not having the Highs and lows of the high carb world. My anxiety is virtually non-existent since starting this WOE. I feel MUCH better and I plan on continuing this forever. I dont miss anything! I do believe that Atkins does decrease your appetite without making you feel hungry. I haven't even once felt hungry with this WOE. If I want a snack, I grab a piece of Cabot cheddar cheese or a hard boiled egg. I find that I never over-eat anymore as well.

I haven't yet looked at the Hackers diet that you speak of, but I will go read about it. Hope I've helped you a little bit :) There are others on this forum who have tons more knowledge than me..lol

[warrior]

Hmm..OK...When I started induction I lost about 10 lbs after the intial 2 weeks. Some people lose more, some lose less. I think it's highly individual, has to do alot whether you are male or females as well. (My dh lost 20 lbs during induction and has now lost 52 lbs total and myself only 35 total) While I'm happy with my weight loss, I'd like to lose faster..LOL..(who doesn't).

Anyway, I don't know of any way to foretell how much you will lose during induction. You can stay on induction much longer than 2 weeks. I still keep my carbs at or below 20 per day. Much more than that and I stall. Drinking LOTS of water helps and I see you are doing that.

I didn't find induction to be be hard at all. I had no cravings for sugary stuff, and I still don't crave them. My appetite is supressed because I'm not having the Highs and lows of the high carb world. My anxiety is virtually non-existent since starting this WOE. I feel MUCH better and I plan on continuing this forever. I dont miss anything! I do believe that Atkins does decrease your appetite without making you feel hungry. I haven't even once felt hungry with this WOE. If I want a snack, I grab a piece of Cabot cheddar cheese or a hard boiled egg. I find that I never over-eat anymore as well.

I haven't yet looked at the Hackers diet that you speak of, but I will go read about it. Hope I've helped you a little bit :) There are others on this forum who have tons more knowledge than me..lol

The thing I realize why western societies are getting fatter is the limitless availability of refined products, simple carbs, transgenic fatty stuff etc. I dont consider carbs themselves to be an unhealthy thing in fact most of the world sustains on it or rather complex carbs and fiber, the ones you get from harvested plants. So I was looking for how low carb folks here viewed complex carbs.

Hacker's diet is an excellent book, I must warn you it's not a low carb book but it is extremely handy in terms of referencing and tracking your weight progress. The guy who wrote it has excellent tools to keep track of those. Plus it has few concepts here and there that will surely help anybody wanting to lose weight regardless they pursue low carb or low fat diet. I think reason people lose weight on low carb is still the fact that you're burning more than you eat. Since, fatty foods give you a more "fuller" feeling unlike carb products so the end result is that it's a lot more easier to lose weight while in low carbs.

Further I am bit worried about Cholestoral levels, how do you folks deal with it? I mostly plan to eat white meat while induction and olive oil.

[Cara73]

Hello and welcome to the forum :wave:

I'm sure you'll find this forum very informative and supportive.

You wondered about cholesterol. They say, the reason your cholesterol drops while you are doing LC is because while your body is in ketosis, it is burning fat, therefore your cholesterol drops. It uses that fat as it's fuel source.

Best of luck to you :)

[black57]

Ketones are by-products of burned off fats. Lipolysis seems to be a gentler name for a word, ketosis that gets so much disrespect. Ketosis is a normal body function. Since ketones are by-products of fats, drinking water will wash those away and that will increasing to furthering your weightloss.

[black57]

Cholesterol drops because by reducing your carbohydrates you are normalizing insulin levels. When this happens the pancreas makes glucagon. This is insulin's partner hormone which has many jobs. One is to tell the liver to slow down production of cholesterol. This is where excess cholesterol comes from, not from fatty foods. Cholesterol levels will be higher in individuals that have higher insulin levels and no glucagon production.They will be lower in individuals with normal insulin. Insulin levels, of course, are lowered when we eat low carb foods.

BTW, my total cholesterol is 148. :agree:

[warrior]

I am kind of still behind on the principle here. If you eat too much protein/fat, wouldn't the body store those? My guess here is that body doesn't have a mechanism of storing protein/fat directly and all the fat you gain is indeed due to excess carbs that gets coverted to fat. Is that correct? I know low carb works but I need a real scientific study to see how the process works. Anybody?

[black57]

It seems to me, JMO, that insulin is being forgotten. It plays a major part is how the body hangs on to fat. Insulin is needed to "shove" glucose into the cells of our living bodies. The more resistant our cells are, the harder insulin has to work at doing this job. Unfortunately, insulin has other jobs to do. This is why it is important that insulin stays balanced. When insulin is balanced the pancreas will produce another hormone, glucagon. That is the fat attacker, so to speak. Glucagon acts as a enhancer to fat burnng/lipolysis/ketosis. It sends messages to the liver and tells it to slow production of cholesterol. High cholesterol is caused by the liver overproducing it, not from eating saturated or other fatty foods. Glucagon also helps lower blood pressure by helping the fine muscle walls of the arteries to relax.Therefore, high insulin causes high cholesterol. Do you follow me? In turn,High insulin levels are lowered by living a low carb lifestyle.

Also, the body tends to store what it doesn't have. For example, if water consumption is low the body will hang on to water. But, increased water intake will enable the body to release excess water. Likewise, if there is a healthy intake of fat the body will more than likely not hang on to it. Carbs burn easlier than fat so the body will burn carbs first, and store excess fats. Therefore consuming too many carbs will just keep the body from using fats for fuel.

[black57]

Warrior, I researched my information from Protein Power by Drs. Mary and Michael Eades and I looked up this information on other medical publications. I told myself that if this information were true, I should be able to have exemplary cholesterol and glucose results when I have my blood work, which was just what happened. My total cholesterol is 148 ( 200 or less is normal )

HDL=77 ( should be greater than 40 )
LDL = 59 ( should be less than 100 )
glucose= 98 ( 69-140 )

[warrior]

Great stuff, I will be sure to check out the "Protein Power" stuff. It seems pretty informative. Thanks for all the advice so far.

[LilaCotton]

So I was looking for how low carb folks here viewed complex carbs.

Everyone on Atkins has to view carbs a little differently, as each person ultimately has their own personal Critical Carb Level (CCL). However, complex carbohydrates are the types of carbs everyone should be eating, whether they follow a low-carb plan or higher-carb. These are the ones that break down much more slowly in the bloodstream and ultimately produce less insulin. Ultimately, how many carbs one ends up eating on maintenance will depend on their CCL, and those carbs should be coming from low-glycemic foods.

As an example of CCL, if I increase my carb level to between 40 and 50 net carbs per day, my weight loss stops. My husband, on the other hand, can eat in the neighborhood of 100 or more carbs a day before his weight loss stops. I will never be able to consume as many carbs and keep my weight under control once I reach my goal. There are things that can influence CCL, though, with the main thing being exercise. The more muscle mass a person has and the more exercise they do, the better the carbs are metabolized.

It sounds like with your eating habits you won't have a hard time at all on a low-carb or controlled carb lifestyle. It suits me to a tee because I've always been a meat and veggie eater with a little fruit thrown in for good measure. LC allows me to eat my utmost favorite foods, including fats and nuts. I notice ever once in a while I get a craving for either french fries or tater tots--always have done this, and mainly when I was on lower-fat diets. The truth is, I never was craving the potato--simply the fat.

I've not had much in the line of sweet cravings. Granted, I usually eat a little something almost every day that has some artificial sweetener in it, but that doesn't seem to have an affect for me as far as cravings go. I just happen to love a few berries with Splenda and half-and-half. ;) As for desserty-type foods, we save those for special occasions, which happen about once a month it seems. Today being Father's Day, we made cheesecake, one of our favorites.