taking a day off, ok?

[grovemonkey]

Re: taking a day off, ok?

For the overwhelming majority of us, we CAN NOT control ourselves when eating carbage... we wouldn't be here in the first place if we could.

I started doing the atkin's diet not because I couldn't control what I ate but because it seemed like the fastest way to produce weightloss result without having to starve myself.

Self control is a subjective idea that's relative to the individual's likes and dislikes, environment, upbringing and culture. This is especially true when it comes to food and eating.

Also, the Atkin's diet goes against almost every aspect of today's modern society on all levels. Some might say that doing the Atkin's requires an unrealistic level of self control that only few are capable of actually possessing. Just something to ponder.

[Lady_Hawke]

Re: taking a day off, ok?

What did you decide to do Poizon? There are alot of good posts here with some really good advice....but it all comes down to you

[sallyseachange]

Re: taking a day off, ok?

...
Also, the Atkin's diet goes against almost every aspect of today's modern society on all levels.

Can you expand on that, pls?

[kate58]

Re: taking a day off, ok?

Some might say that doing the Atkin's requires an unrealistic level of self control that only few are capable of actually possessing.

I think that is true of many diets, but Atkins isn't one of them. Maybe it varies from person to person, but compared to eating low-calorie or low-fat, this is a gazillion times easier to stick with for me.

[cgdat136]

Re: taking a day off, ok?

boy....you guys are all so tough LOL

if you could better define what you mean when you say 'day off', then i could come down with a definitive answer.

and what is the occassion, are you spending the day with friends and family.....or would this be just be a planned 'cheat day' where you will be doing little more than going to work, then coming home and watching survivor and/or american idol.

and sometimes, if you absolutely have to........make a deal with yourself prior to that day. for instance: i have made a deal with myself, that everytime i post a message here on the bulletin board ( something i enjoy doing ) then i have to do 8 pushups ( something i could easily forget to do ).

whichever your decision, it is of primary importance to remain here with all of us.....like that poem "footprints", if you are aware of it, when you look down in the sand and see just one set of footprints....well, those were the times that we had to carry you - and we will!!

[grovemonkey]

Re: taking a day off, ok?

Can you expand on that, pls?

Today's modern society, let's say within industrialized societies, have never embraced this way of eating as a healthy way to exist. From a dietary standpoint, no societies think that a low-carb diet is the standard for what is a healthy lifestyle.

Also, if you choose to adopt this way of eating you'll be facing a society that has been built around an entirly different dietary model, especially the minute you leave the US. The original poster stated she/he wasn't from the US and it's true that it's hard to be on atkin's if you are not living in the US. In that sense, you are driving against the powerful forces that exist within our modern societies.

Expect to be not be accepted and also to be bombarded with carb rich foods when you go to the store, gas station, vending machine, ball park, mall, etc. I continual tell my wife that I hate going to convenience stores here in Japan, they are just carb pushing stores. Cookies, cakes, soda, chips, garbage. In other words, constant temptation.

If this world was built around a low-carb model, sweets would be sugar free, all of them. The actual sections in a store with carbs would pale in comparison to the sections in a store with low-carb, fat and protein rich foods. That wasn't the case when I went home the last time and it certainly isn't the case here in Tokyo.

Hope that sheds light on my idea.

[PaulaMM]

Re: taking a day off, ok?

Speaking as someone who is currently in Maintenance... I don't, for the life of me, understand why anyone would want to cheat. It feeds the mentality that this is a "diet", and not a way of living. Atkins is not just a diet... it is about changing your whole lifestyle.

There are way too many alternatives to eating garbage. Get a little creative, and find things that will satisfy your urge that are legal. I agree that feeling deprived can lead to straying from the plan. But, there really is NO reason to feel deprived! Put a little energy into finding a legal way to do things... celebrate the magnificent foods that we CAN have.

Why do you want to give your power away to food? NOTHING EXTERNAL TO YOU HAS ANY POWER OVER YOU!

Mitzie, I wanted so much to rep you for the above quote but I couldn't. Obviously, I had repped you sometime before falling off the wagon months ago. (which coincidentally, started off as "just" one little ol' cheat day.)

[kate58]

Re: taking a day off, ok?

"Also, if you choose to adopt this way of eating you'll be facing a society that has been built around an entirly different dietary model, especially the minute you leave the US"

I agree with you that no matter where you go the preponderance of high carb foods is a problem you have to deal with every day, but I have to say that I think it's a major generalisation to say that it's more difficult outside the USA. I really don't think that is the case at all, in fact if anything the opposite is true.

Convenience stores are carb pushers everywhere - I don't think your description is peculiar to Japan, it sounds very like the local ones here in Ireland, and very like the ones I have visited in the USA.

Any time I have visited the USA I have been shocked by the prevalance of sugar in things that just don't contain them to any appreciable degree here. And that was pre-Atkins - I've not been back since I started eating this way. One major one is bread - most store bought bread in the US tastes like cake to me. Another is coleslaw - I can still not believe that sugar is considered part of the standard recipe for coleslaw. Finding bacon without sugar is a challange.

Another issue is that the frequency of eating in fast food restaurants (and eating out or 'on the hoof' generally), eating ready-meals, eating snack foods and using 'product food' instead of raw food cooked from scratch at home is much higher in the USA than elsewhere, though it's growing fast everywhere. But nowhere is there anybody forcing you in the door or forcing you to buy.

It is also common practice among global food manufacturers to alter products aimed at the US market to make them sweeter, it's considered essential to their success. For example Danone Activia Strawberry Yogurt here has 12g of sugar per 100g, in the USA it has 15g, 25% higher. This sort of slight but significant increase is commonly applied. The cereal isles in US supermarkets are a real shocker - so much sugery stuff!! - much worse than here. Avoiding hidden sugar - and especially high fructose corn syrup - is much harder in the USA.

Then there is portion size - portions in the USA in restaurants, fast-food places and places where you buy sandwiches etc are generally HUGE compared with what would be served here. For example In McDonalds UK/Ireland medium sized milk shakes are smaller than a USA small size and there are no servings like the 21 or 32oz servings even available, a portion of fries contains about 10-15% bigger and even though the Big Mac looks much the same, it has an extra 50 or so calories in it - no idea where they came from!!

All of that makes switching to low carb harder rather than easier I would imagine.

One thing that does help greatly is the endless tolerance and friendliness of service staff in the USA, especially in restaurants, for people on a diet or eating plan. They don't look at you like you are peculiar if you want to alter what you order from the standard menu item - the customer is always right. I was in a restaurant at lunchtime here recently and asked for a 'steak sandwich' without the bread but with extra salad. The waiter looked at me like I was mad, then a supervisor came over to ask if I "really meant it -no bread at all!!!"

Plus you do have some foods available that we don't - like low-carb baking mixes and stuff like that. And Jicama - which I am LONGING to taste but which nobody has ever heard of!!

[grovemonkey]

Re: taking a day off, ok?

Some day Japan will get pork rinds and I will finally be happy.

[woodym]

Re: taking a day off, ok?

Some day Japan will get pork rinds and I will finally be happy.

When pigs fry!

[sadie147]

Re: taking a day off, ok?

When pigs fry!

ok now THAT was funny

I don't find it any more difficult to low carb here than for those in the US, and as Kate pointed out the US can sometime be fare more difficult due to portion sizes, hidden sugars etc (yes we also have them here). Our convenience stores etc have teh same products that they do inteh states. I was in teh US 2 weeks ago and I never saw a 'low carb' section at the convenience stores?

I think you just need to prepare, bring your own snacks etc. in order to be successful in any country...

[sallyseachange]

Re: taking a day off, ok?

Today's modern society, let's say within industrialized societies, have never embraced this way of eating as a healthy way to exist. From a dietary standpoint, no societies think that a low-carb diet is the standard for what is a healthy lifestyle.

Also, if you choose to adopt this way of eating you'll be facing a society that has been built around an entirly different dietary model, especially the minute you leave the US. The original poster stated she/he wasn't from the US and it's true that it's hard to be on atkin's if you are not living in the US. In that sense, you are driving against the powerful forces that exist within our modern societies.

Expect to be not be accepted and also to be bombarded with carb rich foods when you go to the store, gas station, vending machine, ball park, mall, etc. I continual tell my wife that I hate going to convenience stores here in Japan, they are just carb pushing stores. Cookies, cakes, soda, chips, garbage. In other words, constant temptation.

If this world was built around a low-carb model, sweets would be sugar free, all of them. The actual sections in a store with carbs would pale in comparison to the sections in a store with low-carb, fat and protein rich foods. That wasn't the case when I went home the last time and it certainly isn't the case here in Tokyo.

Hope that sheds light on my idea.

Thanks Grovemonkey for shedding the light. I was interested to see where you were coming from with this.

Have to agree with Kate though... I don't believe doing Atkins is more difficult outside of the USA, at least in many places. I live in Italy for instance, and one would think it would be a real horror story here to do Atkins, what with Italians' love of pasta, pizza and pane. Well, although comparatively it might not be the easiest of places, it's actually surprisingly simple as we have wonderful fruit and veggies, foods are less processed than in the US and generally speaking portions are much smaller.

My feeling is that the only thing that goes a little way towards making Atkins (or low carbing) easier in the US is the abundance and availability of specialised low carb prepared foods, if that is, you choose to eat them. As many of us here choose not to, even that is a questionable "bonus".

I'm sure though that what you say is true of Japan, as you clearly have experience of that country.

Interesting discussion.

[mitzimarie]

Re: taking a day off, ok?

Also, the Atkin's diet goes against almost every aspect of today's modern society on all levels. Some might say that doing the Atkin's requires an unrealistic level of self control that only few are capable of actually possessing. Just something to ponder.

LOL... OK, I've pondered it, and it sounds to me like rationalizaton to justify cheating.

My doctor is 100% pro-Atkins... while there are many health professionals who are stilled tied into the archaic way of low-fat thinking, not all of them are.

I find doing Atkins easy. And, I don't plan to eat a single thing off-plan during Thanksgiving or Christmas... and I don't feel deprived at all.

Your perception creates your reality... it you think it's "abnormal" or "unrealistic", then it is... for YOU! Not for me.

It's been an interesting discussion, but I will bow out now. Shall we just agree to disagree?

By the way - with the exception of Splenda, I don't use low-carb products. So, the unavailability of those kinds of products would not affect me in the least.

* Edited to add... I forgot that I have recently begun to have an Atkins shake in the mornings, to up my protein. If I couldn't have those, though, it certainly would not rock my world... I would just find something else.

[Sera]

Re: taking a day off, ok?

Here in holland I found it hard to live low carb in the beginning...in fact I started low carbing (not atkins) last year already but with the food choices i found i had at the time I really only lost some weight and then got back to how i ate before.
now i absolutely dont say this happened because low carb products are missing in the stores here but i believe if i had had some food choices you guys in the US have, I might have felt it possible to keep eating low carb.
this year when i started low carbing again i was ready to give up as my losses slowed down and then stopped but i happened to find this forum and got some recipes and ideas from here and other sites.
i have become more ressourceful in finding and getting what i want when it comes to low carb foods but it has not been easy and it took a lot of strength to keep going in the beginning.

I guess in the US you just have the 2 extremes, the sugary stuff all over the place and then the low carb stuff if you actually bother to look for it.
here i just see one extreme and thats the sugar in everything you look at (apart from fresh foods of course).
if i were a diabetic (having to eat that way without making the choice) in this country, I'd be in ****.

[ValidRouge]

Re: taking a day off, ok?

I don't use low carb products either. And, if there happens to be a low carb section of a store, it is intermingled with other "diet" products--low fat, etc. Usually, the only thing that they contain is protein bars and shakes, which I wouldn't touch with a 10 foot pole. I have a hard time finding low carb "products" to begin with. Even our health food stores rarely have true low carb products. You almost always have to order them online. Still, I do not find a need to use them. I'd rather have a pure food that I make myself rather than something manufactured. Those products contain all kinds of ingredients that I cannot pronounce, let alone know if it is going to adversely affect me.

I also do not plan cheats into my WOE. It's not okay, for me. Now, does that mean I haven't done it? No. Does it mean because I did it, I excuse my own behavior? Absolutely Not. Nor does it mean I advocate anyone else doing it. Over the last 2 years, I've seen THOUSANDS of people come across this board who plan cheats, or are always cheating and finding their own justification for it. They don't make it to goal. They come back over and over and over and continue to try to make this plan work THEIR way, with their cheats. It didn't work the first time, second, or ... tenth and it's never going to work long term.

I hear people all the time telling me that I have this "amazing" self control. They are constantly telling me how they don't have that control, blah blah. Let me tell you, I don't have any more self control than anyone else. If I truly had that much self control, I could just "do" portion control and eat whatever I want. I'm here to tell you, I DO NOT have self control or willpower or whatever you want to call it. What I do is avoid at most cost the very foods that TRIGGER the cravings and food addiction behaviors in me. As long as I stay away from those foods, I'm perfectly fine and don't have to need self control. The minute I start dabbling in cheats or in carby foods, the gloves are off and it's battle time with my food addiction. Let me tell you, it's UGLY. It's emotionally ugly, it's physically ugly, and definitely psychologically ugly. I will participate in behavior (gluttony) that is physically damaging (makes me sick) and turns me into a person I don't want to be anymore. So, daily I remind myself of these facts so that I stay sane and slim and healthy.

I'll also be perfectly blunt and frank with those of you planning cheats or justifying cheats. It may royally piss a few of you off. But I purposely read these types of threads, watching the behaviors, the justifications, the bargaining going on with foods and use it as further PROOF why I shouldn't behave that way. I use these threads to reinforce my commitment to myself. I see the justification for cheating, failing, and make a commitment to myself to not do like you do.