Newbie with MANY questions!

**CalvinFish** · August 19, 2005, 03:52 PM

Re: Newbie with MANY questions!

Tammy,

First, are there concerns with breast feeding and the diet you are on? It might be good to check with a doctor on that.

Second, yes, you are doing pleanty wrong if you want to be doing Atkins. The first and most glaring to me is the amount of water. That needs to go way up. You also need to ditch the diet soda. It have aspertame which is not allowed in induction.

You MUST excersize!! This is a major part of Atkins!! Find something you can do and do it. It may be a few laps around the store to start with, but you must increase your exercize.

Croutons are right out!!

It must be thrilling to be loosing weight, but you are not doing Atkins. Have you read the book? We are 'by the book' here.

Dave

**Finelly** · August 19, 2005, 04:03 PM

Re: Newbie with MANY questions!

First off, I'd like to invite you to come over to the Second Time Around forum on this board. It's full of people doing Atkins again.

Now, let's look at your daily menu. People who are on Atkins AND people who are breastfeeding need to eat more than twice per day. If you are doing both, then you should be trying to eat every 3 hours or so. Not a full meal, but something with protein and fat. Two meals a day violates all of the rules of Atkins and I don't know WHAT it is doing to your milk.

It's not clear to me if you are eating enough fat. Do you use fitday.com? If not, it's a good idea to start. It's free, it calculates your percentages, calories, etc, and it's something we can all look at when we are evaluating the woe.

You also are eating wayyyyy too much sweetener. You are allowed 3 servings of splenda per day. That's it. The jello, coffee, and soda are going faaaar over that. It can stall you. My advice is to stick with one cup of coffee with sweetener and the jello if you like to have dessert. Ditch the soda.

You need to be drinking 64 oz of water MINIMUM per day. To that, you add 8 oz for every 25 lbs you want to lose. In addition, since you are breastfeeding, you should be drinking an additional 16 oz or so. The water will cleanse your system, allow the fat to be metabolized out of your body, keep you strong and healthy, and produce milk.

As for exercise, it is non-negotiable according to Dr. Atkins. I will be honest here and tell you that the first time I did Atkins, I lost 40 lbs and 3 clothing sizes and only exercised maybe 5 times. So it can be done. HOWEVER.......that doesn't make it right. Furthermore, the second time around on Atkins is different. You may not lose as fast. You need the exercise to increase your metabolism and build the muscles. You need it to prevent flabbiness and loose skin.

I suggest that you consider all of the advice you are getting, re-read the DANDR book, and set up a fitday account. If exercise is simply not going to happen right now, at least get the other parts of this way of eating going correctly!

Congrats on the new baby!

**Moochiecat** · August 19, 2005, 04:07 PM

Re: Newbie with MANY questions!

Howdy!

I hope I don't come across as being harsh in this reply, Tammy, but yes, you are doing quite a few things incorrectly.

I did all this without exercising. Do you think I will lose weight faster if I exercise? When I say I don;t exercise I really mean it. I live in Saudi Arabia and it's way too hot to walk around. I have a treadmill but I am so lazy.

You will lose body fat faster if you exercise, yes, but the scale may not reflect that.
Muscle weighs more than fat, so if you are exercising you would be losing body fat, but the muscle mass you would be building may make it seem that you aren't losing. Did that make sense? Another way to explain it is that your body fat % would go down as your muscle mass increases, and that the loss of fat wouldn't necessarily be reflected by the scale. That's why we stress to focus more on how your clothes fit and comparing measurements rather than fret over the numbers on the scale.

Execise will tone your body. I didn't exercise for a long time when I first started Atkins, shame on me, and everything was hanging and sagging and now, while I ain't no bathing beauty, things are firmer and tightening up.
I don't want to look like a deflated balloon.
If I could turn back time I would have exercised from Day 1!!

I am still on the induction phase. I find that I am too scared to increase my carbs. I range between 15 and 23 carbs per day.

There's no need to be scared as long as you are following the directions that DANDR gives us about how and when to add the new foods in. OWL means Ongoing Weight Loss, and lots of people lose the bulk of their weight in OWL. It's also a critical time to learn how to eat again, and to discover what the different foods will do to you.

I am losing tons of inches. My clothes are getting really loose, especially around my shoulders waist and butt. My biggest problem is my stomach. I have an "apron" of fat that just hangs. Does anyone know of any good exercises that can help me with my stomach?

Yep, I have an apron too. Walking, running, cardio etc are all good for that. Situps and ab exercises are good too: they'll tighten your stomach muscles, but the skin will shrink when it's good and ready and it can take a while.

I also should mention that I did not stick to the allowable foods. However, I never ate more than the above mentioned carbs.

If you choose to follow a plan of your own making and not stick to the allowable foods then you aren't doing Atkins. That's fine if that's what you choose to do, but nobody here can tell you how good/bad a plan this is, because it's something you are making up as you go along. A better forum to bring this up in would be the "Low Carb other than Atkins" forum, as there are other people who do their own thing in there.

I will give you an example of what I usually eat.

Breakfast
2 eggs /3 slices of bacon or sausage/1/2 of a small tomato/ 2 mushrooms

That's a good breakfast!

Dinner
2cups of romaine lettuce
2 hard boiled eggs
1 small can of tuna or 3 strips of bacon
10 croutons (3 carbs)
1 oz cheddar
2 mushrooms
1 Tbs. sliced black olives
1 Tbs onion
2 Tbs dressing (1 carb)
I mix all together for my salad.

Seeing as this is the 14 Day Induction forum I need to point out that the croutons are not allowed during Induction but other than that the salad is fine.

I usually eat one of the following

1 whole roasted chicken breast OR
2 beef burgers topped with a slice of tomato and spaghetti sauce (sauce is 5 carbs) OR
I coat the chicken breast with grated parmasean cheese and deep fry it I then pour spaghetti sauce over it.

Again, because this is the Induction forum, I have to point out that the spaghetti sauce probably has a fair amount of sugar in it and it'd be better to make your own out of fresh tomatos.

I only have 2 meals a day.I usually drink 2 or 3 diet cokes per day.
I also might drink coffee with Splenda and a TB of whipping cream (1carb)
I also will eat sugar free jello with cream in the evenings. I also eat 1 piece of chocolate made from Nutrasweet (1 carb) after breakfast and 2 chocolates after dinner (2 carbs) I drink between 2 and 4 glasses of water a day.

Once more, since this is the Induction forum, I'm giving advice based on the rules of Induction and the Acceptable Foods list as found in DANDR.
You need to eat at LEAST every six hours. Starting on page 48 of DANDR it explains the ups and downs of blood sugar. The aim of Atkins is to keep your blood sugar level and eating 2 meals a day is just not sufficient to achieve this. Break your meals up into at least 3, or even 4 or 5 smaller meals a day....but at least spread it out to 3.

Diet coke is not allowed because it is sweetened with aspartame, and Dr. Atkins advises us to avoid it. Sugar free jello also contains aspartame.
It also contains caffiene, and again, we are told to avoid caffiene because it can stall weight loss in some people.

Are the ingredients to the chocolate on the Acceptable foods list? Probably not, so that should be avoided. There are many Induction friendly treats you could make if you want to feed your sweet tooth, but we suggest a person face the sugar monster and get rid of it, rather than give it artificial sweeteners.
Give this a read:http://www.atkinsdietbulletinboard.c...ead.php?t=5922

Decaf coffee is ok to have, but you need to count the carbs.

Your water intake is less than half of what it should be. You need to be drinking at LEAST 64 ounces (8 cups) of water a day, plus 8 ounces for every 25 pounds you need to lose.

The choice is yours....to either to Atkins as it's laid out in Dr. Atkin's New Diet Revolution, version 2002, and follow a plan that is proven to be effective. You'll learn how to eat nutritionally and responsibly for a lifetime, and you may just throw that sugar demon out and be done with cravings for sweet things altogether.
OR
you can continue to follow a plan of your own making but none of us here can predict what results you'll get from it. Will you develope eating habits that will last you a lifetime? I don't know, it all depends on you.

**ttdriver** · August 19, 2005, 04:28 PM

Re: Newbie with MANY questions!

Do you think I will lose weight faster if I exercise? When I say I don;t exercise I really mean it. I live in Saudi Arabia and it's way too hot to walk around. I have a treadmill but I am so lazy.

Look at my pic. I will be 50 years old in 4 months. I've been exercising steadily for nearly 4 years. I live in Tampa, FL where it is BRUTALLY HOT. And yet, I run 30-35 miles a week year round.

Stop making excuses and start making progress.

Betty

**Brook** · August 19, 2005, 05:14 PM

Re: Newbie with MANY questions!

Are you breastfeeding? If you are....

With breastfeeding your main priority should be in eating to keep you BOTH healthy. If you eliminate the processed foods from your diet and eat in a pre-maintenance/maintenance manner you gaurantee the health of both you and your baby. Eating lots of veggies, low glycemic fruits, and some whole grains will be beneficial to the quality of your breast milk which can only ensure the health of your peanut

Doctors will tell you that no weight loss plan is really appropriate while you're nursing - but that clean eating is important, and that included Dr. Atkins. He suggested the maintenance phase. The truth is, following pre-maintenance or maintenance, you'd likely drop a fair amount of weight anyway.

Now, that said, I did nurse while on the induction phase of Atkins - but I was comfort nursing at that time and not her primary source of nutrition/food anymore. I would be sure to double check with the pediatrician and your OBGYN to make sure that they don't have any issues with you being in ketosis and nursing. This is one of those things where your baby is way better off with you being safe than him being sorry.

Moochie hit the nail on the head with everything you can/should improve with your diet and Finelly had some great suggestions too.

I'm betting you've made a vast improvement from what you were eating to what you are eating now, and you should be commended for making the effort, but you've got quite a ways to go before you're following Atkins. I'd strongly suggest re-reading the book and tweaking everything down so that you can guarantee your success and your health.

Congratulations & I wish you success!
~Brook

**Enchantedraisin** · August 19, 2005, 06:00 PM

Re: Newbie with MANY questions!

I just have to say you cannot "spot reduce." You cannot simply get rid of that stomach.. you must exercise and lose fat all over your body.

You may be losing a pretty good amount right now, but if you do not exercise... this loss will begin to stop.

Also with your stomach.. I have seen that before. The "apron" you call it that sorta hangs. I think that can be from having a child, or being overweight for a long period of time. Most of it may not even be fat.. it might be just loose skin. I have watched many plastic surgery shows on this and people have the same problem.

As you get older, your skin loses its memory... and if you had been overweight for a long time... your skin "thinks" it should be a certain way. When you lose the fat underneath, your skin may stay the same. Now I'm not saying that crunches and exercising won't do you any good, I certainly believe it will benefit you and it will begin to look firmer... but I have heard for SOME people (maybe it's not you) that no matter how many crunches they do or how much weight they loose, this flap of extra skin does not go away. In that case, the only way for it to go away is to have surgery and have it removed which is called a "tummy tuck." Probably runs for under 4000 bucks. It'd be worth it for me totally.. I'd do it. But go ahead and see if you can lose it on your own.. you might be able to.

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