Hello. My name is Lauren Shepherd and I am a reporter for Time Magazine and a fellow Atkins dieter. We are working on a story about low-carb products--how much they help you when you're on the diet, whether you can still lose weight if you eat them and how they taste. If anyone is willing to talk about it with me, that would be great. Feel free to call me at 804-649-6513 or reply to this post. Thanks so much and good luck on the diet!

Just spoke to Lauren on the phone - she is legit as far as I can tell and knows quite a bit about our various low-carb diets. She is both easy to talk to and a very efficient interviewer. I urge those interested in contributing to her article to call her soon.

I limit myself to mostly to some low-carb protein bars I like, usually about 1/week, when I've failed to take some good food with me somewhere. Occasionally, I'll have a low-carb chocolate treat.

I make sparing use of processed low-carb products. For one thing, mimicking my prior diet with low-carb analog foods keeps me in the high-carb mindset of needing those products to begin with. In addition, to my way of thinking, one of the objectives of eating LC is to eat more naturally, as well as eat fewer carbs. Furthermore, low-carb specialty foods are a poor nutritional bang for the buck. Since I have only 40-70 g. of carbs to eat each day, I need all of them to be chock full of vitamins and minerals (as well as the co-factors required for absorption). Low-carb tortillas and spaghetti don't measure up. Lastly, low-carb specialty foods are more expensive than standard groceries. My grocery bill has already gone up, due to my increased protein and high-quality fat intake. I can't afford much on top of that.

I was on Atkins before and lost weight - several years ago. At that time there were not all the low carb products and I lost a lot of weight real fast. I started Atkins again the last of May and I have lost 20lbs. but I started using the low carb products and I believe it stalled me. I love the Atkins shakes and the Atkins chocolate - all of them but I quit losing weight once I ate them so I quit all the low carb products this past week and have lost 2 more pounds so I am assuming the low carb products is what was doing it. I just miss the shakes and candy!

We're all very opinionated. you've come to the right place.

I've tried a LOT of products that range from to As far as the Atkins brand.. I'm almost to the point of not using, since they get more and more expensive, and less and less in the quality and quantity department. Soon, I'm expecting a postage-stamp size "food" bar for $3.99... Keto is my favorite brand at this time, but living in the middle of nowhere, my selection is fairly limited without paying the sometimes outrageous shipping some online companies charge.

I think, also, that a lot of companies are underreporting the real amount of carbs in their products. (My "grassy knoll" doughnut theory )
It's the newest bandwagon for the marketers to jump on. I remember when the low-fat craze hit, and products that never HAD fat started screaming "LOW FAT" on the label... now it seems to be a race to churn out low carb/ high protein "foods" ... and while a few are genuinely what they claim, I suspect that a few shortcuts are being taken. I'd be interested in seeing a test comparing stated carb counts vs. actual carb counts.

Here in Europe, low-carb does not have the media exposure it has in the US yet, we are still in the lowfat - phase . And therefore the industry has almost no LC-products on the market. All we have got is diet coke and some other sugar free sodas and there are some speciality stores, mostly in the UK, who sell various LC-brands, but they are expensive as hell.
I do concur with wendy40 , all these LC-products, be it bars, candies or pasta, throw be out of ketosis and give me the same sides "normal" carb foods do, especially sugar cravings. And most of these LC products taste like shit anyway (like most lowfat-foods also btw).
After trying a lot of them I stick to all the food which is low- to zero-carb by design: meat, sausages, cheese, fish and small piceces of assorted fruits. Plain Water, coffee and diet coke is what i drink.
LC gives me so much benefits - less need for sleep, more endurance in the gym and on the job, superior sexual performance , heightned mood, ... - that i can live with sometimes eating the same things for days in a row.

if you are interested how one, who was a fat sloth for 30 years of his life, can look after 1 year of running Aktins see: http://www.atkins-at.com/forum/album_cat.php?cat_id=1

The Book which I read to learn about Dr. Atkins diet (Dr. Atkins diet revolution) was published in 2000. In that edition Dr. Atkins has been telling us to count "total carbohydrate". The allowed amount for induction was still 20 grams.

Later, Dr. atkins came up with the "net carbs" idea which eliminates fibers and sugar alcohol from the count. Now almost all the new "Lo carb" products either contain a large amount of fibers, sugar alcohol or both.

Although the analysis for eliminating those two items from the count make sense, every time I try any of these new products I don't just stall, I stay off ketosis for a period of time.

If I base my count on "total carbohydrates" I find that the results are exactly as expected. Maybe one day someone will find the reason for us.

Sam

They are ALL very expensive--for instance $5.50 for a package of Banana Nut Muffin & Bread Mix which has either 6 servings if you make the standard size muffins or 13 servings if you make the bread which is a very small loaf and slice it thin. That is compared to less than half that amount for a regular banana nut mix. I have tried the Atkins Cranberry Muffin & Bread Mix, the Banana Nut Muffn & Bread Mix, the Pancake Mix and the Morning Start Cereal. The mixes are OK but lack the texture of regular mixes. The same is true with the Morning Start Cereal. It tastes like you are eating a non-food product with flavoring. I have also tried the Atkins powdered shake mix and it was horrible. I had to spit it out. The Atkin's bake mix is also just OK. I used to buy a lot of low fat products before I started Atkins and they too were lacking in the texture department. But the main thing that stops me from buying more Atkins food products are the fact that they have zero or almost zero vitamins in them. I thought that was what eating was all about---getting the nutrients our body needs. If Atkins or any other foods have no vitamins and nutrients in them, then why eat them? The lack of vitamins, unappealing texture and the high cost make Atkins products a poor choice for meals in my opinion.

There is one thing I have come to realize while low-carbing. High-carb processed are just a cheap form of filler. That's why they are so predominant in our diets. Potatoes, bread, rice, pasta are all inexpensive fillers that help round out a meal. It's no coincidence that it's the basis for most fast food. It's cheap to make and to store and fills you up. Unfortunately it's also rather poor in nutrients compared to good proteins and vegetables.

One of the great advantages in low-carbing is that you eliminates this filler-food that effectively displaces more nutritious food from your diet. I personally believe that it's one of the reason low-carb effectively improves your health as well as lower your weight.

So if you replace all the high-carb food you eat with a low-carb equivalent you are negating a huge benefit of the diet.

This is the reason I refuse to jump on the low-carb product bandwagon or at least keeping it to a minimum

Hi Lauren,
The thing that concerns me is that they will start making lots LC products like they did low fat stuff and lots of people will just use them and gain weight. Then they will say LCing doesn't work when, if done right, it does work very well. Maybe we just need to boycott LC products.

i have lost 50 lbs on the atkins diet and i have never felt better or been happier with the way i look! i have used all kinds of different low carb products, and they haven't slowed me down a bit! i don't replace any meals with any one bar or product, but i use them sparingly as treats when the cravings do occur--which is not all that often!

Although I did the first several months without any LC products, I for one like and use a lot of the LC products showing up up at my supermarket. I like Mexican food, and it's great to be able to eat tacos or fajitas again. (I even have a little Mexican restaraunt near me that will make my tacos with my LC tortillas.) I was overjoyed to find Keto's LC tortilla chips because I love chips and salsa. Most of the products are probably wise to avoid if you're still trying to lose significant amounts of weight because many do contain carbs, but if you're in maintenance it sure makes it easier to stick with it long term.

I just noticed that the first post was back in July. Does anyone know if Time did an article on LC products?

Here's a link to the article as it was posted here.

http://forum.lowcarber.org/showthread.php?t=129734