How do you know how many calories you should eat to continue a steady weight loss. What are too many calories for weight loss on Atkins?
I am trying to stick to my induction program as closely as possible for the fastest weight loss. I am not sure if I am eating too many or too few calories.
I have stalled and not lost any weight in about two weeks, last week I went for a few stressful days with only (2) Advantage bars a day and (2) Dbl Cheese Burgers wrapped in Letuce. I didnt lose a pound, in fact I regained a few, how is that possible?

Hi Stephen - you've lost 27 pounds!!!! Good for you. If you haven't lost any in the last couple of weeks it may be that your body is going through an adjustment period. You don't lose fat cells, you simply lose the fat that was in those cells. Well, those silly cells don't want to shrink so they fight you by filling up with water. You fight them by drinking more water. They lose - you lose (actually you win). It may take a little while so please be patient.

As for how many calories to consume, well I've seen it said in different posts that you should consume 10-12x your current weight.

Do you use fitday.com? It's really fascinating (some folks do find it a bit tedious, but I don't). When you join fitday you fill in different things like your current weight, how active you are, etc. and it tells you how many calories you use for your base amount (your current size), your lifestyle, and another number that is your activities for the day. Of course, you have to fill in your daily activities - it's easy - just click then adjust the minutes. Your daily caloric intake should be somewhere between your basal rate (mine is 1466) and my total rate (today it was 2418 - haven't filled in any activities yet). My current weight is 176 x 10 = 1760 or 176 x 12 = 2112 should be my approximate caloric intake. You can see it falls somewhere in between my two numbers.

Since that is now as clear as mud to you, have fun.

Good luck to you. I think you're doing great so far.

shortstuff

PS - do you think you might not be eating enough and your body is fighting to keep every calorie you put in it? Just something for you to think about.

Hi Stephen:
The old rule of thumb is that you should consume about 500 fewer calories than your body is using per day for sustainable weight loss. If you believe that, then the key is to figure out how much your body is using. There are plenty of metabolism calculators/estimators on the web, which will get you started, but remember that most of those calcuations are going to be based on a low-fat/high-carb diet. A low-carb diet has probably shifted your metabolism to burning fat, which uses more energy (calories), so the typical metabolism estimate may be lower than what your body is actually using.

If you really want to get to the bottom of the calorie question you may have to experiment and keep careful track of not just calories, but the percentages of fat, protein, carbs and fiber that your are consuming, then compare your results over time to see how your body is reacting.

I have seen people recommend calories in the range of 10-12 times your CURRENT body weight and also 10-12 times your TARGET weight. That can be a big difference. I have no idea which is correct, but, all other things being equal, you'll lose faster at 2000-2500 calories than you will at 4,000-4,500 calories. Somewhere in between is probably the answer.

Keep searching, and you'll probably find something more concrete to go by.

Good luck.

*using an imaginary megaphone* Step away from the bars...put the bar down...walk backwards towards me...that's it...keep going.

Ok...*ahem* bars can stall. If you are stalling or gaining, try giving those up first *Step away from the bars...* Increase your water, whole foods, less processed will most likely restart your losing engine.

I wish you all the best!

-Michele

Stephen596

Congrats on your success so far!

This sounds strange but you may not be eating enough calories! The general rule is 10-12x your current weight so you should be eating at the least around 4500 calories a day.

I would also suggest using FitDay.com it's great at tracking cal, fat, protein and carbs. You should make sure that you are eating 70% fat, 25% protein and 5% carbs to continue to lose. A lot of people consume too much protein and get stuck!

Make sure you are eating enough veggies! I usually have a chicken caesar salad (about 2-3 cups romaine lettuce) with a low carb high fat dressing on it for lunch just about everyday. I also have one cup of steamed broccoli or cali (high fiber) with my dinner. Veggies are the key and they are great to add to a high fat/protein meal. Veggies will make Atkins work I sware by it! If you need to add more calories, cream cheese is a great high calorie high fat snack! Just be careful not to overdo it because you should only have about 3-4 oz of cheese a day. Cheese can stall you if you have too much!

My last word of advise is get rid of the bars! They ruined me! I did great on the Atkins lifestyle and then discovered the bars and they actually had me craving sugar and high carb food and completely threw me off of Atkins for a month so I am just starting out again! The bars are the devil and they really do have more carb content than the label says! I haven't read one good thing on this forum about the bars other than they taste great!

Hope I could help and stick with it you are doing great!

Thanks for all the helpful ideas. I know the bars arent good but sometimes they are the only thing between me and eating nothing

Hi Steve,

I have been on Atkin's for three weeks so I am not an expert. I lost 4.5 pounds the first week and since then only 1 pound in the past two weeks. Apparently sometimes these stalls are for no apparent reason. I am going to try to not get discouraged and I hope that you will do the same. I just finished reading low carb living. The authors have suggested that some of the low carb bars are not as low carb as they claim. I have been eating some low carb atkins choclate bars that are very good and claim to be 2 grams of carbs. Maybe this is the reason for my slow weight loss???? Hang in there you should be proud of yourself for the progress that you have made thus far.