Day 1

[bigmike]

hello, just thought i'd introduce myself since I'm starting this today.

Last year in early april I weighed 330 pounds, and got sick of it so I looked around at diets. After looking through many of them, i decided on the subway diet because it was the easiest for me at the time. I'm a college student and didnt want to cook or anything. I've been on it i'd say 40/52 weeks of the year. It's worked out ok, but lately I havent been motivated to do it, and keep falling off after a week on it etc... I blame easter when I ate, been all downhill since then.

I feel I needed a new diet (one that was strict like the subway diet) so I am choosing atkins. I now weight 253 pounds after gaining 10 from my lowest (243 around late march). I hope I can stick to this eating plan, I need to read the book (gotta buy it today).

I do have a few questions though.. i went to buy food for week 1 last night. I noticed that alot of people eat sausage/bacon, but I could not find any with 0 carbs, and alot of them had sugar on the ingriedient list, or dextrose (i remembered ending in ose is bad), so I bought it, but wanted to make sure it was ok before eating. Do you eat the stuff with 1g of carb per serving, or do you guys find bacon/sausage with 0 carbs somewhere? Oh and even the mayo i bought (helmans) had sugar on the list of ingriedients...

thanks

[AtkinsLegit]

hey Mike,
First off I just wanted to congratulate you on such an awesome weight loss so far! Also, definitely a wise decision on your part to adopt the atkins way of life because it's a heck of lot easier to eat the atkins way in the real world than the subway diet. Just like you I'm a college student too, so I know what it's like to try and abide by different diets but than inevitably fall off them because of temptation all around you. With regards to your questions: (although u might want to wait for someone else to respond as well since I'm a newbie) Helmans regular mayo is completely fine, but just make sure you account for the carbs in it when you calculate your carbs for the day (usually the rule of thumb is if dexatrose or something similar is not one of the primary ingredients in the mayo and pretty far down on the list, it's okay to use.) Although it's definitely worth seeing how it affects your body as well to decide whether or not to keep using mayo. With regards to bacon most are cured with some form of nitrates or sugar making it pretty hard to find otherwise...so if you can find the ones with the lowest carb count (like 1 or 2 like you said) you should be fine. Personally I just avoid things like bacon, ham, hot dogs etc. because those meats do tend to have extra carbs in them...but LOTS of people who do atkins eat them and are perfectly fine so in other words I wouldn't worry about it! One last thing I would recommend you checking out is fitday.com it is a website that allows you to calculate your daily carb count, how many calories you're burning, your weight progress, etc.

Well, good luck and can't wait to read your later weight loss posts!

[Delphinium68]

Hi Mike!

Welcome and good luck with Atkins!

[Nicholet]

Welcome

Mike,

Welcome to this site I've been on/off this site now since last Fall. I tried Atkins twice earlier to see what I could get out of it, but never fully committed. This time it's my 3rd and I've successfully been doing this new WOE for almost 2 weeks, cheat free. I've set my mind and goin' for it! So I'm in the same boat as you. I'm the biggest carb junkie out there...I was even so bad to say that when I would go shopping, I'd pick up donuts and tear them open in the car to eat.... No anymore, I'm in control now. Carbs are like a good cigarette, just as addicting. I wish you luck and success!

We can do this!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!! :wave

[Moochiecat]

I'm one of those people who have eaten bacon and sausages and things seem to have gone fine BUT I make sure I eat good quality bacon and sausages.
I found a place that makes their own sausages and we avoid buying anything that has 'honey' or 'maple' in the product description because I know for certain they won't be appropriate.
We don't eat a lot of bacon, and when I do, I drink LOTS of water to combat the salt.

What you can do is buy ground pork (or turkey or beef or mix them up), mix in some spices to suit your taste, and form your own 'sausages' or meatballs or patties, bake them and then freeze them after so you have something on hand all the time, and you know for sure what's in them.

I'd avoid the hotdogs because lord knows what's in them, yanno? and also they're full of salt.

Hellmans mayo is fine or you could make your own if you're culinarily inclined. Recipes are all over the net, and although it's slightly fussy to make, it's not difficult and basically it's just eggs and oil.
I have used Kraft or Hellmans all along.

[Buddrfly]

Welcome

Welcome to the board Mike :wave! Congratulations on your weight loss so far. I know you will do great with this wol/woe :hug

[cruiser gal]

Welome aboard Mike, and good luck. We're all here to help! :wave