Need some advice from experienced folks

[sugarfreeone]

Hello all,

Well, I am in a dilemma and I need some help from someone who has perhaps been in my shoes.....Advice please?

I am at the exact same weight that I was a month ago. No losses at all....not even inches.... I am also feeling a little bit frustrated and paranoid about moving up the OWL ladder...although I am trying to do it slowly...it is like pulling teeth for me....and I keep finding myself reverting back to induction eating habits out of fear.

I am considering switching to the South Beach diet now because I am having trouble following the structure of the OWL ladder...it confuses me and I am getting really frustrated. I know I can skip rungs if I don't want to add in certain foods, but I don't find myself wanting to deal with all of the rungs and the orders and counting the carbs etc... It is getting really old for me.

South Beach just seems less complicated. I know it is different because I have researched it quite a bit. Can anyone give me their advice on this? Will I lose on SBD also...or will I suddenly gain having been on Atkins since December?

I know there is NO way I could ever go back to eating three servings of grains as the SBD phase 2 suggests....I don't even really want bread....But there are other things I do want to add back into my diet...like legumes and milk.....Isn't there anything I can do to make this process easier?? I also do not like the idea of cutting out the fat the way SBD does because I know this will inhibit the fat burning process.

I am sorry to sound like a raving wierdo, but I am just in a state of frustration here. OWL has not been an easy transition for me and I am really feeling upset with no changes for a whole month

Oh geesh I just need a bit of guidance if anyone experienced can help me. :raving

Thanks,
Kat

[Laurenfra]

I am sure someone will come along that knows SB better but I believe they have something just like OWL rungs. Many of us have found they lost better as they begun OWL. Ask questions we will help you make sence of it

[DebbietheHugBug]

Kat, what rung are you on? I checked your fitday but you haven't made any entries the last few days.

I tried SB before I came to Atkins. I did SB for 2 weeks and GAINED 5 lbs. It is more confusing than Atkins, in my opinion.

Why don't you post a normal days menu and see if there is something hidden. Are you exercising? Are you drinking lakes of water? Are you taking supplements?

Help us help you before you give up!

[sugarfreeone]

Hi Deb,

I know it sounds like I am about to throw in the towel, but honestly I am not. I will not give up, I am just so frustrated. SB just looks easier to me, because you just have food lists to choose off of. ...but I have not made up my mind about SBD yet so I am still eating the atkins way

I drink perrier and water all day long and unfortunately I struggle with remembering to take my supplements

I added more veggies at rung 1 and skipped rung 2 (more cheese) because I am sick of cheese. I feel like I cheesed myself to death on induction... I moved to rung 3 and skipped rung 4 because fruit scares me right now. I skipped rung 5 because I don't usually drink. I skipped rung 6,7,8 because I am afraid of adding those foods. I have had 1 slice of whole wheat bread one time this week (with tuna salad) since it falls into the whole grains rung 9 and I was guessing that this is where I must be if I eliminated the other rungs.......See the whole thing just scares me and flips me out....go figure. Also, where is yogurt on the ladder...rung 2? Page 148 in DANDR has no reference to milk or dairy.
See this is so confusing to me. :anger

Truthfully I never see myself adding in alot of fruit other than the berries and maybe apples or melons. The thought of a sweet banana makes me want to yak....(sorry)

How can I just stop all of this freaking out!
Kat

[2big4mysize]

woah rung 2 is not just more cheese, it is fresh dairy. that is where you can add yogurt ansd the carb countdown dairy too. it is fresh cheese like cottage ricotta and stuff like that you just said you want milk and beans and you skipped the low carb milk rung.
why skip rung 6 if you want beans?
Youa re not making a lot of sense there.

the rungs are in the order they are because of the glycemic effects you get from them. the lower the rung the less likely the foods are to give you problems. SInce you have been stalled out for a month you can back down your toital net carbs 5 net carbs and see what happens as Dr Atkins advises in the chapter on stalls in DANDR. then back it down 5 more if nothing happens. but in your case I'd back down the rungs back to the last one you lost on and go from there since you jumps to the top.

Take your time and go slow remember to only eat enough food to satify your hunger at the time you are eating and that as we ad the new carbs we slightly lower the fats levle. we don't just keep on adding and adding more food to our total foods eatten.

Happy low carbing.

[sugarfreeone]

Ohhh....Well I guess I was a little confused about rung 2 because the book just says cheese....fresh and aged.

Also, the reason I started skipping more rungs was because when the weight stopped moving as well as no inches lost I started getting more and more paranoid ..... Although it makes no sense to have skipped legumes and added in whole grains...now that I think about it....

:confused

[tabekat]

I empathise


i empathize with you. :hug

you are definately not alone when it comes to being somewhat confused about how to owl. i struggle with it too. it seems pretty complicated to me.

for one thing, i don't want to be getting on the scale every week to see if i gained or lost. i'm very wary of the scale.

for another, there just doesn't seem to be as much information flying around the forum that tells you how to owl, like there is in induction.

Is weight gain always an indication you can't tolerate a certain food? i thought weight fluctuation was somwhat normal on atkins. how do you know the difference?

[not2late]

Take a deep breath in....now let it out.

As 2Big said, Rung 2 is where you can add other dairy, including fresh cheese. Low carb milk, yogurt, more cream (if you want), low carb ice cream, are all fair game during Rung 2.

Berries, fruit and legumes: if they are the only things you can see adding on in your diet for life, why skip over them now? There's no need to be scared of carbs---especially carbs from natural sources! I'm not picking on you personally, but I think it's really strange that folks don't think twice about eating 25 grams worth of malitol in a processed low carb bar, but are scared to death of a 1/2 cup of strawberries!

When the scale stops moving, did you also stop losing inches? If not, then you keep on going ahead. Remember from Induction: a plateau is 4 consecutive weeks without loss of pounds or inches. If both stopped, don't panic. There's 2 things you have to do.

1. If you were adding 5 nets to find your CCLL, drop back by 5 net carbs and see if your weight loss picks up. for example, you were up to 35 net carbs and still losing weight. When you added another 5, to make 40 nets, you stopped losing weight. Drop back to 35 and see if your loss picks up. If it does, congrats you found your CCLL. If your loss doesn't pick up or you weren't adding on additional carbs to find your CCLL, then

2. See if any food you added coincided with the weight loss stoppage. If it did, then drop that food from your diet for a week. Re-evaluate and see if your weight loss picks up. If it does, then you know that food doesn't do you body good and you should drop it from your diet, if you want to continue losing weight. If you've added a number of new foods at one time, then you'll have to drop them all to see what it does to your weight loss. Then if you want, add them in one at a time to see what it does to your body.

And also remember you only add/eat 5 net carbs of a food. A slice of whole wheat bread has at the very least 9 or 10 net carbs---those are Pre-Maintenance carb amounts!

Read through the stickies at the top of the forum, because there's alot of information there about how to do OWL.

Again, if you all don't understand anything, please ask questions here. The only reason why the Induction forums have "alot" of information is because the posters there keep asking questions----and as you have seen, Induction is pretty straightforward to follow.

[not2late]

Re: I empathise

i empathize with you. :hug

you are definately not alone when it comes to being somewhat confused about how to owl. i struggle with it too. it seems pretty complicated to me.

for one thing, i don't want to be getting on the scale every week to see if i gained or lost. i'm very wary of the scale.

for another, there just doesn't seem to be as much information flying around the forum that tells you how to owl, like there is in induction.

Is weight gain always an indication you can't tolerate a certain food? i thought weight fluctuation was somwhat normal on atkins. how do you know the difference?

Tabekat, weight gain or stoppage is an indication of your CCLL. There are 2 things you have to do during OWL: find your CCLL and see what foods you can re-introduce. These are two separate things that can be related to each other. That's why I recommend to use Rung 1 to find your CCLL.

As you add 5 net carbs to your menu weekly, you'll come to a point where you'll stop losing weight. The following week return to the prior carb level and see how you do. If your loss resumes, congrats you've found your CCLL.

As for the foods you re-introduce, weight gain isn't the only way to see if the food affects you. The Blood Sugar Symptoms test in Chapter 12 or 13 is the more immediate tool for seeing if a food doesn't agree with you. Within minutes/hours or a day, you'll be able to determine the effect of a food by answering those questions in that test.

As for weight fluctuation, yes, it does fluctuate---daily. That's why the weighing and measuring, on OWL takes place once a week. If you do weigh and measure daily, at the week's end, you need to average those numbers to see if there is a net gain/loss in comparison to last week's net gain/loss.

[ann mayes]

I am also having a hard time on OWL.

It was such a breeze on induction. 80 pounds gone.

Everytime I add 5 of anything the weight goes up. I can't even get off rung 1. When I drop back down to induction level the weight starts back down.

I can eat induction food for the rest of my life but I don't understand why I can't add to it like everyone is talking about.

When I started OWL all I added was more ( 1 c.) brocoli for 2 weeks. no weight change. Then I added 1/4 c. walnuts weight went up so I ran back to induction.

So now I am in a pattern of every week I try a new food from the list and even if I stay off the scale I can feel my clothes getting tight. Panic sets in and I run for the comfort of induction.

[not2late]

I am also having a hard time on OWL.

It was such a breeze on induction. 80 pounds gone.

Everytime I add 5 of anything the weight goes up. I can't even get off rung 1. When I drop back down to induction level the weight starts back down.

I can eat induction food for the rest of my life but I don't understand why I can't add to it like everyone is talking about.

When I started OWL all I added was more ( 1 c.) brocoli for 2 weeks. no weight change. Then I added 1/4 c. walnuts weight went up so I ran back to induction.

So now I am in a pattern of every week I try a new food from the list and even if I stay off the scale I can feel my clothes getting tight. Panic sets in and I run for the comfort of induction.

Some questions for you...

1. What's your degree of metabolic resistance to weight loss? On Day 15 of Induction, you should have determined that using your 14 day loss results and the charts in Chapter 12. People with a high degree of metabolic resistance aren't necessarily "slow losers", but they are people who need to keep their carb levels between 15-20 net carbs in order to lose weight.

2. How many carbs were you eating during Induction?

3. How did you add the broccoli? Was broccoli a "new" food for you? Did you take the Blood Sugar Symptom Test in Chapter 12 to see if the broccoli destabilized your blood sugar? We had a member here who noticed that broccoli set off cravings for them. 2Big's craving nemesis was celery. I found that I can't eat a tomatoes and eggplant cooked together.

4. Did you try out any other veggie to see if it was the broccoli or the carb level?

5. Why do you keep running back to Induction? Were you still in ketosis? If you were in ketosis, there is NO REASON to run back to induction. If you do keep running back and forth, you are essentially abusing Induction as what Dr. Atkins wrote in the Maintenance chapter.

6. Are you exercising?

[ann mayes]

1. 20 pounds if I remember right.

2.10-15

3. I ate broccoli a lot and just added more.

4. I also tried adding more celery and geen peppers because I love them and was putting it in everthing.

5.I keep running back to induction because it is safe.

6. I have upped my exercise and now do 5 miles a day from couch potato.

[not2late]

1. 20 pounds if I remember right.

So you have low degree of metabolic resistance. According to the charts your predicted CCLL is 40-60 net carbs daily.

2.10-15

So you if you added 5 net carbs of broccoli, that would still have you eating at or below 20 net carbs.

3. I ate broccoli a lot and just added more

.
How many net carbs of broccoli did you add? Did you add those additional net carbs according to the OWL rules?

4. I also tried adding more celery and geen peppers because I love them and was putting it in everthing.

Again, how many net carbs of these things did you add and did you follow the OWL Rules?

5.I keep running back to induction because it is safe.

It might be safe, but if you were adding only 5 net carbs of veggies to your Induction carb average, you were still eating between 15-20 net carbs---still within the Induction carb range. With your 20 pound loss during the first 14 days of Induction, you have low metabolic resistance.

By the way, the first 14 days of Induction is counted from Day 1 to 14. Restarts don't count toward that 14 day results. If you fell off on day 5 and restarted Induction the next day, those first 5 days still count.

6. I have upped my exercise and now do 5 miles a day from couch potato.

When you increase muscle mass, your CCLL might increase too. So you can possibly have a higher CCLL than the 40-60 predicted from the Chapter 12 charts.

[sugarfreeone]

Hmmm....the wheat bread I added according to the fiber and nutrition information had only 5 net carbs...it was a small piece from a very small loaf...I think it was Sara Lee Whole grain extra fiber bread.....

I am having a really hard time with the carb counting but I am trying to use fitday now to see if that will help me figure out what is going on.....

but I have a confession to make I was so upset last night and frustrated I went out and had a big brownie from startbucks :no ......Ah :censor because I felt like what was the difference, nothing is happening anyway for over a month. No inches, no pounds...........Today I am slapping myself in the head and am getting back on track...... :smackhead

That was the first and only time I have ever cheated like that.....and it was an emotional eating thing. I was frustrated and angry because I felt like :bang

What a dumb way to revert back into old habits.....Oh well......
Guess I'll just count it as a lesson learned and try to move on.

:eating Kat

[not2late]

Hmmm....the wheat bread I added according to the fiber and nutrition information had only 5 net carbs...it was a small piece from a very small loaf...I think it was Sara Lee Whole grain extra fiber bread.....

I looked up that brand http://www.earthgrainsbread.com/.
The Whole Grain bread has 19 total carbs, 5 fiber carbs per slice. The net carbs are 14. Plus the ingredients contain high fructose corn syrup, brown sugar, etc.

I am having a really hard time with the carb counting but I am trying to use fitday now to see if that will help me figure out what is going on.....

but I have a confession to make I was so upset last night and frustrated I went out and had a big brownie from startbucks :no ......Ah :censor because I felt like what was the difference, nothing is happening anyway for over a month. No inches, no pounds...........Today I am slapping myself in the head and am getting back on track...... :smackhead

That was the first and only time I have ever cheated like that.....and it was an emotional eating thing. I was frustrated and angry because I felt like :bang

What a dumb way to revert back into old habits.....Oh well......
Guess I'll just count it as a lesson learned and try to move on.

:eating Kat

Yes, you will have to be more careful counting your carbs and figuring out the net carbs on products.

Get back on the wagon today.