I'm doing well on the diet and haven't cheated at all. For New Years I really want to enjoy some pizza. Has anyone had any since starting Atkins? If so, what were the effects?
Thanks

If you're really hankerin' for pizza, try the recipe section. I hear there's are some super recipes in there!

Now, in answer to your question. Yes, I did have some pizza the other evening at Pizza Hut. We ordered one of the Thin 'n Crispy crust meat lover's, which has about 20 carbs per slice (I ate two slices) and one-trip salad bar. Was it worth it? Well, it was good, but all in all I think I could do just as well if not better taste-wise with home-made on an LC crust, or with a cheese crust.

Repercussions are hard for me to gauge. At this point I had somewhere along the line gained about 3 or 4 pounds during the preceeding weeks (got lax on those there scales). The morning after the pizza I weighed 217, so I didn't see where it even did a whole lot to my body with water weight. The day after I got right back on plan and have been perservering since (and am also down the original increase plus two more).

Some people, however, end up falling off the wagon completely. I personally think if you're going to have a detour (I hesitate to use the word 'cheat' because in essense a cheat is an unethical shortcut to a goal), I truly think a planned detour is better than a spontaneous one because you're psyched up that if you take your little detour you know you're going to go right back on plan per usual.

If you so desperatly want pizza, why not ust eat the toppings and leave the crust.
The toppings are the good tasting bits anyway.

I have cheated with Pizza twice. I have been on Atkins for 1 year now and have lost 75 pounds. Both times I ate pizza I only had 2 pieces even through I wanted all of it. After eating it I only stopped lossing weight for about 3 days. I checked the carb count on the pizza and for 2 pieces it was like 75 carbs(ouch!). Any way hope this helps.

You don't have to cheat to have pizza, just make it low carb! I bought some LC crust mix and made pizza at home a few times, it was great. I was gonna make some this weekend. Was nice and crispy and tasted close enough to real pizza to me.

OMG!! This is too funny. I did Atkins 3 years ago with my friend and we both lost a wad of weight. He lost over 100lbs which was amazing. We both were competing at one point and the best part is that we would email each other with what foods we could eat or what combos were better and so forth (amazing to do this with a friend). Anyhow we reached a point, both of us that we could not lose any more weight or at least it had slowed down considerably. What did we do?? We went to the local fast food place and had a HUGE burger well done with cheese and bacon. No fries and a diet cola. We both thought we would explode but whadda ya know... we both some how stated losing weight again. From that point on we both strongly believe in "shocking" the system. Now here's the thing, you cannot shock the system every week if not that's not shocking LOL. And essentially the only thing that was bad was the bread. But a month later we had an amazing pizza and had like 3 slices each. Again, it was like a month after and it got us moving again.

Please note we were both doing an hour of cardio a day so that always has something to do with it. Anyhow just my two cents worth... I would say go for the pizza and hope it "shocks" you into losing more LOL

Take care

Friday is my no cook day. Every Friday we have pizza. Sometimes we order in but most of the time we get the local grocery store to make one. Yes, they make pizza to order and pile way more toppings on than any other place! I just eat the toppings & never feel like I have cheated. I'm sure some of the sauces have sugar in them but it has not seemed to have been a problem for me.

Yes I have cheated with pizza 2 times in the last few months.

(But the last time I thought about getting pizza, I decided to have the Atkins Fettucini Alfredo with hamburger and heavy cream and a couple of eggs. It actually satisfied me and I was glad that I did not get the pizza!)


Dominos pizza to be exact and got two Large pepperoni pizzas. Ate them both over a two day period.

Seemed to gain about 2 pounds (weigh myself maybe once a week) which I was able to lose in about a week of phase 2. I was fairly active during that time and worked about 50 hours that week.

I was at a plateau anyway. That was 2 weeks ago.

My view is that you can take a break as long as you are aware that you may not lose for a few days or may even gain a couple of pounds. I think Atkins says this in his book somewhere or maybe its on the web site. And as long as you are disciplined and have a plan of when the "break" will end and you will be back on induction or at least phase 2 for maybe a week I see nothing wrong for most people. Just my opinion of course! It should never be more than a meal or 2 if at all possible. To me holidays are an example of why we are doing this - the ability to feast every once in a while. As was said before, it may be a good shock to the system. Likewise, a total fast (except for water) for a meal or two might be good every once in a while.

Also don't take a "break" like this and not get some good exercise.

Last week I was dieing for pizza. I wound up making the Pizza Quiche from the recipe section, and it did the trick. Tasty and filling.

--nw

You need to move to the south. Traditional new year's day foods are collards and fresh black eyed peas with hog jowls. Supposedly one will make a penny for every black eyed pea eaten, but given inflation, I mostly stick to the hog jowls and greens these days.

On New Year's Eve, we have whole lobsters with melted butter. Fine stuff, and far better than pizza. Albeit, pricier. The friends we celebrate with always buy the lobsters, and I bring all the side dishes, salads, and appetizers, etc. I expect we get the best end of the deal. But this way we can keep it all lc.

Pizza for New Year's? Yuck....

Kay

DH and I have thin crust pizza about twice a month. We are on maintenance and it doesn't effect our weight at all. We started when we were almost at goal and had no trouble with our weight loss slowing then either. I do have to watch the beer though. Once I'm on my second beer it's a lot easier to eat that third or even fourth piece of pizza.

Try to find a pizza place that makes NY style thin crust pizza. Until you've had really thin, thin crust you can't imagine what it's like. The pizza is so thin that you can't eat the toppings off because even they are thin. There is next to no crust around the edges and every bite crunches (if the pizza is made right). We figure about 12 - 15 carbs a slice without eating the little hard edge. Well worth the higher carbs once in awhile.

Everyone is so different on this woe. It takes time to find what works for you as an individual in terms of what foods cause stalls/gains and what foods you really want and how they impact each other.

To answer your question. The effect having pizza has on us - it makes us full and happy (but that could be the beer again!).

The holiday countdown is upon us now! Take a deep breath and ENJOY! It really is the most wonderful time of the year.



Barb

OMG! It's so funny to hear someone else think about ringing in the new year with PIZZA. I was thinking earlier today... "if i'm allowing myself to cheat only a handful of times per year, one of them has got to be pizza. And I'm really dying for some lately... so maybe on New Year's Eve...hmmm" This just totally clinched it for me. I am doing pizza on Dec. 31! Heheh... No regrets.

Pizza was the one thing I craved most of all when I went on Atkins. It had always been my favorite food. I planned to have some on Holloween after being on the diet only three weeks. It slowed me down for a few of days but no weight gain. Most striking was that I didn't really enjoy very much. Partly because I felt guilty but mostly because I realized my tastes had changed since I had gone LC. It just was'nt worth it. I have not had a desire to go off the diet since.

My advice would be to have the pizza, but only if you are completely confident it won't throw you off the diet. If you think you will use the occasion to rationalize eating more HC foods then you should definately go the LC pizza route.

I've done Pizza a couple of times, I usually limit myself to two slices (which generally fills me up anyway). I've not seen any BIG gains, or even stalls from it. As long as you are sure you won't over do it, you should be fine.

I also have bought the LC pizza crust mix and made homemade pizza that way. It was also good. And was fun for me and the kiddo to make together.

AND I've made the deep dish pizza quiche... THAT is AWESOME!!! We have it once every month or two.

So, you have lots of options. The two times I've done "real" pizza have been times I was not feeling well or were run ragged and just didn't want to cook and had a friend over who offered to go get pizza. I've never "planned" to cheat with pizza, but I've not regretted it either.

I broke down several weeks ago....when I wasn't losing anything and went to the movies, had buttered popcorn, came home and ate 1/2 pizza with 1/2 bottle of wine. Talk about cheating! Next day, I lost 2 pounds. I say, go for it! Just jump back to LC the next day.