Hi all....

I have been reading many journals, threads, posts of people that have started Atkins and have already set their own rules (or adopted rules they have seen on the forum).

All I want to say is that Atkins has been proven to work for so many people as is and why (unless you have tried it for months and lost nothing) is everyone second guessing the diet and rewriting it.

The premise is to be able to enjoy eating again without guilt or needless obsessing on calories or ratios.

We only count carbs.
We eat when we are hungry and stop when our body says we are full.
It is a simple and beautiful way to eat until healthy and satisfied every day!

I understand why we doubt the rules of this plan from the start (we were taught so rigidly the opposite) but it really does work. And it is such a shame that we don't trust our bodies to be able to handle this freedom.

All I know is it works and I believe whole heartedly in the process. It does take a while because the body has natural stalls but it so works!

Thanks all for reading my little rant...

I agree. Too many folks come up with variations before they have given the real plan a chance to work. Also too many who don't really know what the plan is and are skipping the veggies, water and exercise and are introducting all kinds of synthetic food-like substances during induction. (Showing my biases here, huh?) Thanks for listening to MY rant.

Cindy

I'm with you Cindy... not against you...

Lisa, I've read a couple of your posts, and you seem to get frustrated with people who don't look at this plan as a WOL, and now with those who experiment with Atkins as a way to find their comfort zone. When I first started I didn't look at this as being my WOL, just as a diet plan that may or may not take. It took.. and I decided on my own to make this my WOL. It's a personal choice.. and although we feel very strongly about, it may not be for everyone. On the same note... what's wrong with experimenting? Journals are posted for advice... if you feel they are straying, say so. Be someone's mentor. But at the same time, respect that others will try different things as they strive to find what works for them as an individual. Atkins advice isn't written in stone... he himself has added and taken away allowable foods in the pursuit of perfecting this WOL.

Hey, people love to investigate, play around with the rules, explore their own new caves and valleys, discover their own truth.

It is how we are made - to try new things - maybe crack your skull bungee-jumping, maybe split an atom.

And maybe, devise or improve a great eating way of life.

Atkin's is a solid base to build on, and growing firmer with every pound lost and every study vindicating it.

But hey, YMMV - everyone's a bit different - some can handle sugar alcohols, some can't. Some love Nutrasweet, others hate it. Some experience cravings worse than others.

Let the flowers bloom in every shade - monochrome is boring, IMHO.

I understand what you are saying Rose and GotBeer and perhaps you have challenged me on something I need to work on here...

This thread was really aimed at new people that I feel are eating unhealthy or cutting calories unrealistically (because they are complaining that they are still hungry and not losing fast enough).

If you start something new and tested and healthy. Then actually give it a try. If you find it doesn't work for you or you crave other things... THEN modify to suit yourself or your lifestyle.

But to create your own rules and then say it doesn't work is to not really have tried it at all.

Do you understand what I mean???

True enough - failure is NOT FUN, and taking the blame for one's own failure is worst of all.

The friend who got me into Atkin's just fell off of it. He was 270 and I 280 when I started - but he stalled as I was dropping. I was eating outrageously - a pound of bacon w/ 4 eggs, etc, and still losing. He decided to eat less to try to catch me, and totally sabotaged himself.

I tried to tell him, "Dude, you need MORE cheese sauce, not less." but he just couldn't buy into it.

Anyway, he is now on a more traditional calorie-restricted diet. And I know he's going to hate it as much as I love Atkins.

Poor b~st~rd. I am grateful to him, though, for he pointed me in the right direction, even if he couldn't make it work for himself.

I think I'm qualified to put in my two cents...I've been on this woe for 18 months now...I tweek it, I count calories, I try to make the diet fit me so I can stay on it...it has worked I'm down 50 lbs and still going...I think this is a matter of respecting that not everybody is cut from the same cloth. I admire people that stray from the straight and narrow, I actually come here looking for different takes on this diet (it does get old after a while)

I say thumbs up to the newbies and oldies that are creative enough to make this woe something that they can stick with. After all the time I've been on this diet I would think that I would have lost far more than I have, I'm somewhat dissapointed that I have not. Since coming here I find that I'm not the only one (actually before coming here I had no idea how little I have been losing) I have to watch my calories because I'm not one of those people that can eat 2200 calories and still lose, no matter what plan I'm on...since I've come here I've been told to cut back on my protein, it is too high, and I keep my carbs under 20...but does that make me any less an Atkins dieter than anybody else here...nope...just different.

The wonderful thing about America is that we can all be different and feel safe about being so...newbies please don't let this discourage you...keep on keeping on.

Gail

Lisa.. absolutely! I think in cases like that, people hope for something to work... convince themselves it's allowable, then fall of their chairs when it doesn't work. I might even have been guilty of the same!! I guess the main point here is to experiment, but to keep an open mind. Don't place blame, just be ready to write-off the failed attempts to a learning experience, and move on. Above all.. try and keep informed by using the propper resources. You know the saying... If something sounds to good to be true.....

I do understand, Lisa...I was not saying the Atkins diet was not working...only that I was frustrated by my own body's apparent genius at holding on to weight, LOL!

My calories may seem too low -perhaps they are - but please understand that I have a thyroid problem (borderline hypothyroid at 2.95 - if I were 3.04 I would be given medications, but my thyroid is just half a speck not sluggish enough - but certainly I have all the symptoms such as sluggish metabolism, etc.)

A person who has thyroid problems - especially if not corrected by medications - is not going to burn as many calories each day as part of basal metabolism as a person with a healthy thyroid.

That is a proven fact! And most endocrinologists say that any reading above 2 on the TSH indicates hypothyroidism. Since I am nearly 3, that is certainly above 2, LOL!

When I look back on my life, the only times I have been able to keep my weight in the healthy range was by either cutting my calories to below 1,000 a day or by upping my exercise (running 5 to 6 miles per day for instance as well as other excercises.) If I ran 5-6 miles per day, I found that I could eat as much as 1,600 calories per day without gaining weight. For most of my teen years and 20's and 30's, I limited myself to one meal per day. The one meal was a generous one, and I usually allowed myself some candy, plus I had a couple of cokes during the day, but the total number of calories was still pretty low.

(Edited to add: There have been times when I pigged out, gained weight like mad and then lost it by...running 5-6 miles and "fasting" on nothing but diet Cokes. No food. For two weeks at a time - then I would have to eat again for a few days because I would become too weak.)

My mother always ate only one meal per day, although even still she struggled with her weight. She had borderline hypothyroidism most of her life (like I do now) and when her numbers finally got "bad" enough the docs gave her medicine. Amazing! She stopped sleeping all day long and dropped the 50 lbs. she struggled with all her life, within one year, with no effort.

Hey, life with a sick thyroid isn't fun, what can I say? But it's not QUITE sick enough for the Army docs to let me have medicine.

I am thinking of going to a civilian doc - just read a post yesterday by a lady in the thyroid section of this site, whose doc was very alarmed by her reading of 2.09 or something (remember, mine is 2.95 - quite a bit worse) and wanted to put her on meds right away for hypothyroidism.

Why is her doc treating her and my doc is not treating me, although my numbers indicate a worse hypothyroid situation?

Well...Army docs do NOT do anything they are not FORCED to do, let's put it that way.

I might just pay the money out of my own pocket to go see a civilian doc, just to get the help my thyroid (and metabolism) desperately needs.

Anyway, that is the main reason I distrust that the plan of eating until you are full will work for me.

I have no doubt that for a person with a healthy thyroid, this plan will work beautifully.

But I think for those of us with untreated hypothyroidism, any weight loss is an especial uphill battle.

In fact, in his book, Dr. Atkins talks about how difficult hypothyroid patients find it to lose weight, even on his diet, until their thyroid problems are addressed and they are brought to the healthy TSH level of about 1.0.

I am eating more today, and will continue to eat more like 1,200 to 1,500 calories per day as an experiment, but I have good reason given my hypothyroidism to believe that eating 800 to 1,000 calories might actually be too high a number for me.

Didn't mean to piss you off so badly.

Leora

(Edited to add - you know, actually, although I did not intentionally piss you off, I do not really care that I did - I consider it more YOUR problem than mine. You do not know the details of my situation, and different bodies certainly do have different basal metabolisms. )

I'm new here too. I understand the diet and am staying with it. It has only been less than 2 weeks and am still craving pasta. I'm wondering, when you get down to your desired weight and achieve your goal, do you still never eat pasta. That is really the only thing that is posing a problem for me right now. I was a LC once before a couple of years ago but fell off the wagon. I wasn't a true believer. This time I'm a bit more determined and have seen results on others. Any thoughts on how to reach my desired weight and still, occasionally be able to eat pasta.

There is good news for pasta lovers coming, I think.

As the popularity of LC diets expands, I expect to see more and more LC products appear. LC pasta can't be that far away.

Also there is always spaghetti squash, and the wonderful deep-dish pizza recipe in the "recipes" section of this forum, among others.

Bear in mind, though, this is a way of eating for life - occasional cheats aside. Consider alcoholics: many (some say all) can never be allowed to drink again. Likewise for carboholics - eating pasta has got to handled warily, if at all.

Personally, I find al fredo sauce works even better on grilled, spicy Italian sausage than it does on tasteless, fattening noodles.

Leora,

I'm sorry that you are so upset, but may I remind you that it is not necessary to go the extra mile to ridicule someone. It is absolutely appropriate for Lisa to share her thoughts. I'm sorry if they don't agree with yours. Your first post made your point diplomatically. Next time, maybe you should leave it at that instead of personally attacking people.

I think we need a referee.

Leora, I think it is horrible that you feel you need to defend yourself...this is a board that everybody should be welcome at. There are several of us that tweek the diet, and actually Lisa does also, she does not eat 20g of carbs EVERYDAY, nor does she keep her fat/protein ratio EXACTLY at what Dr. Atkins states, nobody does...I don't think this was a personal attack, it could not have been I felt the sting of it also but decided to ignore it and post anyways...

Do what you need to do in order to make this diet work for you, don't leave the site because you feel offended by one, everybody deserves a bad day and we are safe people for others to attack because there is no personal connect. Take everything with a grain of salt and know you have many here that support and welcome you.

Gail