Going InSaNe!!!

[devonaravenhold]

Ok, so I'm having some huge issues here. I started the Atkins diet back on January 2 this year. I went from 226 down to 217.8 as of February 1. Now, here's the kicker, during that time I was loosing a bunch of inches. Yea, I figured that I SHOULD of lost alot of inches in that first week or two...but no. Didn't really at all. On February 14, I'm was up again to 218. And since then, I have been steadilly gaining in pounds. What the **** is going on? I am not doing anything at all differently...I'm following this thing by the book...I feel so lost and yes, clinically depressed at this point. For this past week alone, I'll tell you what the scale has said.

Monday - 219
Tuesday - 219.2
Wednesday - 219.4
Today - 219.6.

This is totaly tripping me out. Completely. I'm in induction, havne't changed a thing in my diet as to when I was loosing to where I am now gaining so much. Anyone...if you can help me on this...please...do. I don't want to give up! But I am so freeking depressed...I'm about to.

[liv]

Re: Going InSaNe!!!

Hang in there.
Can you post a detailed menu? Tell us how much you eat and drink and exactly what items.

[devonaravenhold]

Re: Going InSaNe!!!

Yea, I can do that.

Breakfast
-1 bottle of water
-1 Vit B Complex
-1 Multi Vitimin
-3 scrambled eggs with bacon and one oz of cheese

Snack
-1 bottle of water (just because I get so incredibly thirsty)

Lunch
-Lettuce Salad with grilled chicken, ranch, cucumber, tomato
-1 bottle of water

Snack
-One oz of cheese
-slices of fresh veg with a small bit of ranch, or just salt and pepper

Dinner
-Steak, or chicken
-Broccoli or grean beans, cooked in a bit of left over bacon fat
-one bottle of water

[skinnyskinnyskinny]

Re: Going InSaNe!!!

sounds like you are having a lot of veggies, and ranch isn't allowed on induction either. your water intake seems great though!!!

[Lyssie]

Re: Going InSaNe!!!

By bottle of water do you mean the 16.9oz bottles? If so, you're really only drinking about 68oz of water, which isn't that much...

I'm not sure about any of your stats (m/f, height, etc) so it's a little hard to say.. if you're like, a 6'4" male, it's probably going to be a bit harder than a 5'3" female. Anyway, have you gained back inches? Have you thought about moving up the rungs or are you doing extended induction? Do you exercise (I assume not from the water business)? Have you started drinking anything else?

My honest opinion immediately is that you're not eating enough. That's assuming you don't mean a pound of bacon for breakfast and a whole cow/chicken for dinner since I have no idea what your portions are. I feel like you're also not eating so much the correct percentages of fat (of course, this again depends on how you eat your meats, and if you add oil to your lunch salad).

Ranch is allowed on induction, depending on the ingredients/nutrition info.

[devonaravenhold]

Re: Going InSaNe!!!

sounds like you are having a lot of veggies, and ranch isn't allowed on induction either. your water intake seems great though!!!

I didn't see anything that said that you can't have ranch on induction..that's new to me. I have been reading and rereading the induction chapter of the book...can you tell me where it is that it says that? Maybe there are other things that I'm missing too.

[devonaravenhold]

Re: Going InSaNe!!!

By bottle of water do you mean the 16.9oz bottles? If so, you're really only drinking about 68oz of water, which isn't that much...

I'm not sure about any of your stats (m/f, height, etc) so it's a little hard to say.. if you're like, a 6'4" male, it's probably going to be a bit harder than a 5'3" female. Anyway, have you gained back inches? Have you thought about moving up the rungs or are you doing extended induction? Do you exercise (I assume not from the water business)? Have you started drinking anything else?

My honest opinion immediately is that you're not eating enough. That's assuming you don't mean a pound of bacon for breakfast and a whole cow/chicken for dinner since I have no idea what your portions are. I feel like you're also not eating so much the correct percentages of fat (of course, this again depends on how you eat your meats, and if you add oil to your lunch salad).

Ranch is allowed on induction, depending on the ingredients/nutrition info.

Ok, so Ranch is allowed...that's good. I pay very close attention to all of the labels.

As far as the water goes, I generally drink about 4-5 bottles of .5L each. It's a lot of water really. I do exercise daily. I go walking for 30 mins a day, and do upper body weights daily. I'm having a tough time doing lower body as I have a back injury that stops a bunch of that. I can kind of give you an idea of portions easily.

Breakfast
3 eggs scrambled, 1 bacon slice of bacon sliced up and added to the eggs, 1 oz of shredded cheese
1 .5L of water

Snack
1 .5l of water

Lunch
2 cups of lettuce, 1/2 tomato chopped, 6-8 slices of cucumber quartered, 2 tbs ranch, 1/2 chicken breast sliced and grilled with a small bit of salt, pepper and garlic powder
1 .5l of water

Snack
1 oz of gouda (as an example) or cheddar

Dinner
1 steak or chicken breast(most times can't even finish it)
maybe 1/2 squash and 1/4 onion sauteed in butter
Or 1 cup of chopped broccoli
1 .5L of water

I do my best not to eat past 7:30 PM. Sometimes when cooking my kids dinner, it gets to be a little later than that, but that's my general stop time.

My stats are Female/32 years old/5'3"/used to be a size one before kids...now...not so much. Lol.

Hope this helps, thank you everyone for you assistance and support...I just feel so so so lost!

[Mrs. Hartzell]

Re: Going InSaNe!!!

As far as I understand, you can have ranch...but it has to be no more than 2carbs per serving. I started the same day you did, but I moved into OWL a month after induction and have been steadily losing....many people did the same. You should try moving up the rungs and see if you can jump start your losses again! Today I started the berry rung and am in heaven!

[devonaravenhold]

Re: Going InSaNe!!!

Oh, and last week, yea, I gained like 3/4 of an inch. Seeing as I've been loosing about 6-7 inches a week since the start...this isn't good.

[devonaravenhold]

Re: Going InSaNe!!!

As far as I understand, you can have ranch...but it has to be no more than 2carbs per serving. I started the same day you did, but I moved into OWL a month after induction and have been steadily losing....many people did the same. You should try moving up the rungs and see if you can jump start your losses again! Today I started the berry rung and am in heaven!

Thought that unless I was having sufficient weight loss, that I wasn't supposed to move up yet. My weight loss is standing at 6 lb in a month and a half. I don't think that it's shifting enough to where I should move up yet...do you? -really isn't sure-

[Mrs. Hartzell]

Re: Going InSaNe!!!

I think you should try it....Honestly, I spent 3.5 weeks at a 7lbs loss, once I introduced other foods, I started losing again AND at a steady rate (verses the huge wooshes). I am much happier losing slow and steady (I average a lb to 2 lbs a week), than nothing at all. I relied on my measurements for the most part, which I was losing the entire time. Do not be discouraged by a 3/4 inch....who knows you may have over estimated last time. I would go to OWL and if you are not happy there, go back....you can always go back. It is a very common misconception that you will lose more/faster on extended induction. Your body adjusts, which is why OWL is great bc it shocks your system into needing to do something else.

[devonaravenhold]

Re: Going InSaNe!!!

I think you should try it....Honestly, I spent 3.5 weeks at a 7lbs loss, once I introduced other foods, I started losing again AND at a steady rate (verses the huge wooshes). I am much happier losing slow and steady (I average a lb to 2 lbs a week), than nothing at all. I relied on my measurements for the most part, which I was losing the entire time. Do not be discouraged by a 3/4 inch....who knows you may have over estimated last time. I would go to OWL and if you are not happy there, go back....you can always go back. It is a very common misconception that you will lose more/faster on extended induction. Your body adjusts, which is why OWL is great bc it shocks your system into needing to do something else.

Well, then I may just have to try that. Lord knows that I have to do something. I have heart problems...and they're not getting much better. My doctor put me on Toprol about 2 years back, started me off at 50mg, and now has me up to 100mg twice a day as of 2 weeks ago. But don't tell...I haven't been taking them. When I first started the diet, I stopped taking my meds because I read that they ALL caused weight gain! I couldn't have that fighting me all the way. But I have another huge reason to loose...and only 5 months to get as much of it done as I can. I'm going to visit my bf up in South Dakota. Yea, that's my goal...to loose at least down to 150 by then. I mean, if I can at least get that far...that's much of my journey done. I don't expect to be to my goal weight by then, but as long as I'm under 160, I'm all for it.

Thanks for all of the help!!!!

[Lyssie]

Re: Going InSaNe!!!

You're not doing Induction.

To start from the beginning. .5L of water 4 times a day is only 64oz. That's not very much considering it's the minimum amount that you are to be drinking each day. Most people use the rule where you drink the 64oz plus more depending on how much you're trying to lose (the more you are losing, the more you drink). You should be drinking even more since you are exercising.

About the exercising. If you are walking, are you doing it to a point where you're having your heart rate elevated for 20 minutes of the half an hour? Are you pushing your muscles to exhaustion when you are doing the weights? If you ever want ideas for things you can do without stressing your back, I can give some.

Now for the food (and why you are not doing Induction):

Vegetables should be 2-3c off the first list in the book, and up to 1c off the second list (if you have only had 2c off the first list). This is obviously not the case as you are eating waaay more than this.

In addition, I am almost positive squash (unless you mean zucchini or spaghetti or similar??) is not on the list for either in Induction.

You're not keeping the ratios, or even close as far as I can tell (unless your chicken has the skin on, and I don't think it does and I'm not sure that makes that much of a difference). You should be eating 65% fat, 30% protein and 5% carbs.

I still believe you're not eating enough calories (am not sure about butter amounts, etc). I think breakfast only has about 430, lunch is probably no more than 300, and for dinner, I'm hoping it's somewhere more than 550 or something near that to stay out of starvation mode.

I think you might benefit from keeping a food log for a couple days on one of the sites that will tell you how many calories you're eating (this should be over 1200), and what your ratios are. Either fitday.com or dailyplate.com both offer this for free.

[devonaravenhold]

Re: Going InSaNe!!!

You're not doing Induction.

To start from the beginning. .5L of water 4 times a day is only 64oz. That's not very much considering it's the minimum amount that you are to be drinking each day. Most people use the rule where you drink the 64oz plus more depending on how much you're trying to lose (the more you are losing, the more you drink). You should be drinking even more since you are exercising.

About the exercising. If you are walking, are you doing it to a point where you're having your heart rate elevated for 20 minutes of the half an hour? Are you pushing your muscles to exhaustion when you are doing the weights? If you ever want ideas for things you can do without stressing your back, I can give some.

Now for the food (and why you are not doing Induction):

Vegetables should be 2-3c off the first list in the book, and up to 1c off the second list (if you have only had 2c off the first list). This is obviously not the case as you are eating waaay more than this.

In addition, I am almost positive squash (unless you mean zucchini or spaghetti or similar??) is not on the list for either in Induction.

You're not keeping the ratios, or even close as far as I can tell (unless your chicken has the skin on, and I don't think it does and I'm not sure that makes that much of a difference). You should be eating 65% fat, 30% protein and 5% carbs.

I still believe you're not eating enough calories (am not sure about butter amounts, etc). I think breakfast only has about 430, lunch is probably no more than 300, and for dinner, I'm hoping it's somewhere more than 550 or something near that to stay out of starvation mode.

I think you might benefit from keeping a food log for a couple days on one of the sites that will tell you how many calories you're eating (this should be over 1200), and what your ratios are. Either fitday.com or dailyplate.com both offer this for free.

Ok, a few things real quick, thanks so much for the information. It's all really interesting to hear. One thing that Atkins says is that on this diet, you don't have to count calories. Just carbs, and watch the sugar thing. Which is the main thing that I liked.So I haven't been bothering with that...and from what I've read, didn't have to.

I'll double check the lists and how much I've been eating off of them, and maybe I have been eating a bit more veg than I should...I'll double check it. I've been trying to keep it all equal, but, if I'm going overboard, I'll make that adjustment.

The squash thing, yea, you can have certian types of squash. Not any winter ones. I've been eating yellow squash and zucchini's only. The butter amounts have been a bit high, but that's only when I sautee my veg. And doesn't he say that you are to drink 8 8oz glasses a day? 8x8=64 oz. So I should be right on track. And if I drink one more bottle...I should be ok? Or at least I would assume as it would be over the 64 oz minimum which I have been drinking daily.

A thing about my heart...it's very difficult to see when it is elevated when I've been off of my meds. I have two heart conditions. One is arrythemia the other is tachecardia. My heart beats way too fast for itself most of the time. That's why I was on a beta blocker...to lower it's speed. But that medicine was causing weight gain. So I canceled it. As long as I have a raised breath rate by the time I'm getting home, and my calfs are killing me, for me, I know that I have to stop. Plus I think that a 30 min walk is a good one for someone who has been seditary for a long time. Lol. Concerning the weights, I do 2 reps of 15 on each one that I do. And there are 5 different things that I do. But yea, again on those, my muscles burn like heck when I do them. So I have to stop and rest for a moment, then start on the next group.

I'm going to have to take a better look at the ratios that I'm eating though...wasn't aware of those. Do you maybe have a proper sample meal plan that you can suggest according to the things that I have been eating daily so far that I've listed? That would help a ton. Oh, and no, I don't eat the chicken with the skin, don't think that does matter, but it might...again, I'll look that up. I have the book right here infront of me.

Thanks a ton!

[devonaravenhold]

Re: Going InSaNe!!!

I was just doing my walk and re-reading the rules to induction, to see what all I may of skimmed over or aren't following. On rule #11, it says to drink at least 8 8oz glasses of water a day...I'm doing that. But I can't find where that suggests that I should be drinking alot more than that, ,or that isn't sufficient. Can you point me to where that is? Thanks bunches!