Why no irish? a newbie

[gerrycolli]

Hi all,

newbie to the site here thought I'd say hello. From Ireland so the greatest challenge is converting what you guys measure as cups to our metric system.

me

Well im fat, 249lbs of fat and not a happy camper. I did weight watchers a few years ago with my wife equally as overweight and we got within a whisker of goal weight. however my wife became pregnant and we lost the run of our selves. anyways 3 kids later(all under 4 currently) we decided to give the weight loss a go again however we found that the WW was too liberal for our non stop lives and we needed something that said no.

So last week we decided to start the Atkins Diet. now we didnt buy the book but researched it carefully and spoke to one or two we know that did the diet and we got on with it.

a week later and we are both down 8lbs each so a good start on induction. its a lot more lost than we did anytime we tried to get back on the WW wagon. Now im not here to argue the merits of the two systems however Atkins is now working for us because of its restrictions and freedoms.

we hope to get to a reasonable goal weight and tbh the atkins is great because down the road we hope to find ourselves in a position where we could enjoy the odd treat etc but return to the Atkins the following day without guilt. maybe by then we wont need treats as Im finding it incredible easy to say no and even thought we are only a week into it we are finding that we are not very hungry at all llike we used to be.

quick question my wife does not like that many of the veg allowed in the induction stage. any ideas to help her get the stuff into her. Currently we are making a soup of loads of veg and seasoning it carefully. It seems to be working. BTW i can cook anything so suggestions welcome.

Slainte
gerry

[moggsy]

Welcome. You both should definitely try to get a copy of the book, even if it's from the library (where there's usually several). There's also the chance that you can find it in a charity shop or second-hand bookshop.

You sound like you're doing great. Realise that your weight loss may slow, but that doesn't mean you should give up on Atkins or switch to WW. Keep on keeping on.

As far as veg, she doesn't have to eat all the vegetables. Find a couple that she does like and work with them. There's a huge recipe section here with lots of ideas on how to cook veg (or meat and veg, or meat, cheese and veg). My husband is a super taster. That means he tastes "bitter" more than the average person. Vegetables tend to be more bitter, so getting him to eat them was a chore when we first got married (but long before we tried low carb). Now, however, he loves some of them. Most of his exposure to veg was well boiled, mushy veg (usually with a good spoonful of Bisto on top). There's more to veg than that.

Things like moussaka (really easy to make low carb, in fact, high carb moussaka isn't moussaka IMO), omelettes stuffed with things like peppers and mushrooms, kebabs, stirfries (made with our own plan friendly spices and sauces), roasted kale (basically kale tossed with oil and salt and roasted until crispy), cheesy broccoli, cauliflower, or leeks, etc, are some of his favourites. Oh, he used to hate runner beans, but he likes them now because I make them American style with either bacon fat from streaky bacon or liberal amounts of butter as well as lots of ground black pepper and salt. Because he never had them seasoned, he hated them.

If your packaging in Ireland is like here in the UK, remember not to subtract out any fibre. It's already done. There are some books that are more focused on British low carbers which you might find helpful in Ireland like the "Idiot Proof Diet Cookbook". You'd have to double check the ingredients against your current allowed foods as IPD is not the same as Atkins, but there would be plenty of really lovely recipes in there that would be made out of familiar ingredients and geared more towards your palettes rather than some of the American recipes.

Finally, there's a subforum for support for Irish low carbers on these boards. It might not be very active, but the older threads might give you some ideas for meals, tips, advice, etc. And if you posted there, it might draw in more activity there.

Best of luck. I look forward to your future posts.

[JD&Coke]

Howrya Gerry

There's a bit of Irish in everyone! so think of the site as your own ;-)

The book is great and explains what and why things work on this way of eating.

Good luck to you both