A friend who had been on Atkins told me that she dropped it because it was so unforgiving of slip-ups... she said that at one point she had a sandwich and wound up gaining two pounds!

Is that possible? If I treat myself to a single non-LC meal, could that one meal alone be responsible for gaining weight?

It really depends on how many times you are going to weigh yourself a day.

Seriously we all gain 2-10 pounds every single day and then lose them. This is due to something called eating and drinking. Just because we eat or drink something does not mean that item becomes weighless. If you eat an 8oz steak you just gained half a pound. If you drink 16 oz of water, you gained a pound and so on.

This is the very reason we tell people to stay off the scale. I am sure you didn't weigh yourself every single day before you started dieting, so why do it now?

It takes on average 3500 calories more than you burn to add one pound of fat to your body. I highly doubt your friend consumed 7000 calories in a single day to gain 2 pounds of fat. More than likely your friend had gained some water weight due to the increase in carbs and they would have lost the 2 pounds over a few days.

Bloomicy,

The whole idea around Atkins and other Low Carb plans is to keeps Carb intakes around 20-30 grams per day. The reason is to put your body into Ketosis, where it burns fat for engery rather than carbs. Now as far as cheating goes, a single meal can take you out of Ketosis, and if you really go wild and consume 7000 calories, yes you could gain two pounds. Now assuming you are human, most of us cheat every so often but usually not to this extent. A one meal deviation might keep you out of ketosis for a few hours, depending on the amount and composition of the meal, and that you get back into LC eating the next meal.

From my view the problem with cheating is that 1) it can produce a habit of cheating 2) it can bring with it guilt and self condemnation which can lead people to give up all together.

Atkins or any other LC plan is not any more unforgiving of slip ups. The real question may be why is your friend cheating in the first place? If they do cheat do they feel guilty? Why?

There are a number of type of people here on this forum ranging from those trying to lose a few pounds, to those like myself trying to make a lifestyle change and lose a few hundred pounds and keep them off.

For me this is not a "Diet". I've done "Diets" and I lose weight and then it comes back. I chose to call this a LifeStyle change because I believe my body handles food and exercise differently than other peoples. To me, there are going to be time when I am unable or chose not to fuel my body using LC foods. You can call this cheating if you like, but it's a decision that I make, that I am in control of making. My goal however, is to try and and make LC food choices when it comes to selecting foods on a consitent basis.

There are other people who lack the ability to control their food choices. These people need addition support, structure, and accountability in there lifes. Some of this we can help provide here, some we can not.

Seems to me your friend might not like the limits that LC puts on their food choices and therefore it might not be the right plan for them. One might question their commitment to the LC plan in the first place? But to say that an simple deviation from an LC plan caused a two pound gain is not very realistic or it must have been one heck of a sandwich.

Regards,
Lux

So it's not like after one cheat you're completely out of ketosis and have to start Induction again? Is it easy to get back into ketosis after a mild cheat?

Thanks!

According to the good Dr Atkins himself, on page 123 of the latest edition of DANDR - Rules of Induction:



I am of the opinion that when you eat off plan, you slow your weight loss.

As for the issue of getting back into ketosis, you are asking your body to shift back and forth between sources of fuel. This is a type of "yo-yo-ing" and certainly not recommended. It is in your own best interests to do your best to avoid "cheats".

JMHO
Marlaine

I think the whole process is very subjective.

In the first place, if I eat allowable foods when I'm hungry I don't have cravings. In fact, I have just about no desire to "cheat" at all on this diet -- this is the kind of food that I loved and craved on low fat, high carb diets.

If you crave bread, I suggest you shell out the money for the low carb Atkins bread or an alternative rather than going for the high carb version. If you crave sweets, I am of the school that says it is far better to give in to diet jello with whipped heavy cream or a Splenda sweetened cream cheesecake, or a mock danish, than to start gorging on sugar. You're still addicted, yeah, but the battle isn't lost and without the wicked sucrose you will eventually find the cravings less and less strong.

An occasional lapse is probably not going to be harmful physically. But don't glamorize it and make it all juicy and forbidden and naughty -- geez, that is what *sex* is for . Get over it, and get on with it. And remember -- it's your long term health you're playing with. We all focus on weight, but the excess weight is just a symptom of a more insidious internal process that will only worsen as we age. If I were just fat, I wouldn't really care. It's the diabetes, hypertension, arthritis, neuropathy, renal failure, stroke, heart attack, peripheral vascular disease and the like that scare me!