Hi my name is Rosemary Grant I live in Scotland and I am married with two grown up children and a new grandson Connor. I started teh diet three weeks ago on Monday and I have never felt hungry the only thing I miss is fruit i like fresh orange juice and apples and bananas I miss that a lot. i eat salad every day plus some cooked veg at evning meal I have lost ½ stone and I am very pleased. My only concern is cholestrol I never used to eat butter or much hard cheese or full crem milk so I have changed my diet dramatically in that sense and it worries me. look forward to hearing from anyone Uk Rose

Hi Rosemary

Great to have you abroad the forum from another UK member.

I have commented about your cholesterol concerns in your other post in the UK forum.

This site is great for information, advise, support and motivation. Pop in to some of the journals to see what people get up to and leave them a message.

I started Atkins over a year ago and am still loving it. With so many pounds to loose, and probably high insulin resistance, the pounds are coming off slowly. However, the are still coming off and on any other diet things would have ceased long before now. It really is a great way of life. Mayonnaise, avocados, olive oil, cream, butter - things that were not a part of my life for many years. Remember that as you are using fat for your energy source then it is true that 'fat is your friend' or 'eat fat to get slim'.

Here is the comment from Uffe Ravnskov

The idea that too much animal fat and a high cholesterol is dangerous to your heart and vessels is nothing but a myth. Here are some astonishing and frightening facts.

The site is here and his book is well worth buying

http://www.ravnskov.nu/cholesterol.htm

Here is another quote from a review of the book from the same site.

"The truth, were it known, would send pharmaceutical stocks plunging. In most studies, the increased risk is present only above a level of cholesterol that includes just a small percentage of the total population. [These are the approximately 1% of people with a genetic defect called familial hypercholesteremia.] And women can stop worrying immediately because high cholesterol is not a risk factor for the female sex. Few comments have been made on this peculiar fact in all the vast literature on cholesterol. When it is mentioned at all, it is said that female sex hormones protect against heart attacks."

"In fact, it seems more dangerous for women to have low cholesterol than high. Dr. Bernard Forette and a team of French researchers from Paris found that old women with very high cholesterol live the longest. The death rate was more than 5 times higher for women who had very low cholesterol. In their report, the French doctors warned against cholesterol lowering in elderly women. But they could as well have warned against cholesterol lowering in any woman, or, to be more precise, in anyone at all."

Hi Rosemary,

Glad that you are enjoying the plan. I am now nearing the end of my second week of induction. I still find it strange when I go into the supermarket and don't head for the low fat spreads but to the butter and cheese counter. It sort of goes against everything we've been told over the past I don't know how many years doesn't it? Having read about the Atkins plan I can see how it works, I only wish I'd found it a bit sooner and isn't it great to be able to have bacon and eggs for breakfast and not feel guilty

I wish you every success. Keep in touch.