Atkins Morning Start Breakfast Bars

[rc21839]

Granted they are not on the acceptable foods list, but theyre listed on the Atkins website as being acceptable during induction...phase 1. Any thoughts?

http://atkins.com/shop/products/Atkins_Morning_Start_Breakfast_Bars.html

[hulagrl1120]

they are on the site because the company wants to make money and that's how they do it...we don't recommend them here because they tend to create stalls and cravings. Dr. Atkins said convenience foods were to be used in more emergency type situations not as a daily supplement to real food.

[ksiushka]

Hi!
I have tried the bars before, and I think people here are right about not using them (to my defence I try to eat them only when there is absolutely nothing else for breakfast, and I stretch it over a couple of hours), but after I read some of the posts here, I'm not eating them anymore!

[ztachick]

hula girl is right-
its made for money-
and most 'I think' are really good-
so its easy to go overboard-- not to mention they stall some people and can cause cravings.

[Elizellen]

As well as the possibility they might stall you (which Atkins do state on their website) you would need to check the list of ingredients to ensure you are not eating something not on the list of acceptable foods for the stage of Atkins you are on.
For example here is the list for their Apple Crisp Bars

Ingredients:
Soy nuggets (isolated soy protein, tapioca starch and salt), cocoa butter, protein blend (calcium caseinate, hydrolyzed collagen), polydextrose (fiber), glycerine, dry roasted soybeans, roasted almonds, sunflower oil, dried apple pieces, natural and artificial flavor, cellulose, maltitol, dicalcium phosphate, soy lecithin, spice, sucralose (Splenda brand non-nutritive sweetener), malic acid.

How could anyone say this was OK for induction with the items I have emboldened in it? - not to mention the sugar alcohols!

[kiani]

one for the Breakfast Bars

Well I for one LOVE THE BARS! It's a very good bar to have when you are on the run.

I am on week 1 of Induction and I've eaten 4 of these bars already! I still managed to loose 11lbs this week! Woo hoo!

I think the bars are fine during Induction...as long as you control your intake (if sugar alchols do stall you). I had 3 on Wednesday because I was rushing around with my baby and I didn't want to go to a restaurant to spend a ton of money on a meat dish somewhere.

The bar holds on it's own as a meal supplement! Make sure you drink your water though! It helps to keep you full!

[Moochiecat]

On this board we advocate avoiding all frankenfoods for at least the first two weeks.

Induction is a time to cleanse yourself of all the processed foods, sugars, caffiene etc that you used to eat and to foster a new way of looking at food. We urge people to learn to eat real, fresh, natural foods. With a little bit of planning ahead, you can have something quick and easy to eat at all times, and you don't have to worry about what affect these fresh foods are going to have on your body.

This is an interesting article related to Dr Atkins and frankenfoods:

The patients who stayed, however, were extremely loyal to both atkins and his low-carb diet. But they had one major complaint: In a fast-paced world where everything was low in fat or high in carbohydrates or both, it was difficult to find something that they could eat on the run while still remaining on the low-carb program. They had no time to prepare their own snacks. Perhaps something like the low-fat energy bars sold in convenience stores would be great, only low-carb instead.

Atkins hesistated, and for a good reason. One of the things he constantly stressed with his patients was that they should eat foods that were as close to their natural state as possible, and for him, any kind of energy bar was as good as poison since it was clearly a processed food...

But his patients continued to beg him for something---"you sell the vitamins and other supplements, why not energy bars?" they reasoned--and so, with great reluctance, he gave in and developed not only an energy bar but also a low-carb shake that would make it easier for patients to keep to their Atkins programs.

"As long as you only use it for emergencies," he reminded them.

****

The energy bars and shakes were a necessary evil, there only because he thought his patients were too lazy to prepare the real kind of unprocessed foods that were the mainstay of his diet.

---Excerpted from:
Dr. Robert Atkins: The True Story of The Man Behind the War on Carbohydrates Lisa Rogak. Chamberlian Bros. 2005. Ch. 6

[Sarah1341]

Personally, I think the bars, shakes, etc., would become something of a trigger food that caused me to over eat and choose those in place of the healthier, veggie carbs.
Good luck, hope you are able to make the right decision for yourself! :wave

[Moochiecat]

The whole topic of the bars and shakes has been debated to death..lol (not that it shouldn't be...it's good that it's brought up a lot! :yes ) but what it comes down to is that I know for sure what a boiled egg, or some cheese, or a turkey rollup with pickle and cream cheese in it will do for my body...but I'm not sure what effect a frankenfood, and all it contains, will do for me other than possibly trigger me to crave things I shouldn't have.

And personally I don't want this weight on me any longer than it has to be, so it's worth a few minutes in the evening to prepare something to eat 'on the run' the next day.

[kiani]

I concur with that Dr. Atkins Article. I bought the breakfast bars because I was on the run and I didn't trust how restuarants in town prepared their meats. What if they put sugar in it? OH GAWD! And the nearest TGI Fridays was crosstown. I don't have a car, and taking the subway or bus in NYC with a huge diaper bag, stroller and rambuntious Toddler is a nightmare I don't want to deal with.

So I walked into GNC and bought them.

I my case was a 'bonafide' emergency.

I have to say that you can get addicted to eating them because it's so easy to just open the package and eat the bar with your decaf coffee and glass of water. If you indulge in it , be careful.

I got so paranoid after I ate those first 3 on that one day that I had to test my pee for ketones. I was sure I'd messed up. But I was still in ketosis. I should say that ithe stick resulted in only traces as opposed to the deep purple I've been getting the last couple of days.

[ttdriver]

PSEUDO FOOD marketed to make $$ for the company who couldn't care less whether you lose weight eating it or not.

Seems to me it was convenience foods that made me fat in the first place. Give me real food anyday ...

Betty

[Peterlock]

I have to agree that the bars and the shakes and the never ending "low carb" substitutes are an accident waiting to happen.

If you eat them and have lost weight that's one thing, but how much more might you have lost without them? When you hit a two, three or four month stall will you still support your use of the bars even though they may be the very reason for future problems?

For me, these are important issues, for decades people lost and kept weight off by doing a pure and clean Induction and following Dr.Atkins WOE as he laid it out, step by step and phase by phase.

The long term repercussions of these food substitutes isn't known, there's not a shred of data that demonstrates they help people to succeed on Atkins. In fact it's just the opposite. I see case after case of folks (myself included) who "fall off the wagon" as a direct result of eating these foods.

Why take the risk?

Peter ha

[Lady_Hawke]

I had some the other day....I had a hankering for something sweet and I did not want to give in to ice cream and fall off the wagon yet again, so I had the Atkins bar and stayed on the wagon and am glad I did! :joy

[ttdriver]

If you eat them and have lost weight that's one thing, but how much more might you have lost without them?

:yes :yes :yes

My thought exactly!

Betty

[not2late]

The stalling and stopping weight loss feature of these products is concerning enough and that's why we don't recommend using them. But it's up to everyone to make their decision about them. If you use them and have no problems with weight loss, portion control and developing healthy food attitudes that will enable you to keep the weight off once you lose it, good for you.

However, if brownies, cookies, cakes, sweet beverages (like ice cream sodas, smoothies, etc.) and other similar things helped get you fat in the first place, then I suggest you do alot of soulsearching before deciding to use their low carb counterparts.

Low carb junk food is still junk food. We have many repeat Atkineers who have fallen off the wagon by overeating these products, afterall the products are low carb so it's okay to eat them on a low carb diet right? Well, remember all those low fat and non-fat cookies, pies, cakes, chips, etc.? How many people lost weight eating them? How many people ate double or triple servings of them because they were low fat?