How Does This Menu Look?

[keepinthinner]

On average this is what I eat every day:

B -- 2 eggs fried w/ olive oil or pam (depends) and apporx: 4 - 5 oz of meat, 1 decaf. coffee w/ 1 tbsp cream and 1 splenda.

S -- 1 or 2 String cheese sticks or 16 pepperoni pieces (= a serving).

L -- 1 to 1 1/2 cup baby spinach leaf/approx: 1/2 cup total of cucmber,mushroom and scallions. Meat approx: 6 ozs (tuna or crab meat or canned chicken breast) and 2 - 3 tbsp. Italian dressing (1 carb per serving).

S -- Maybe 1 string cheese stick or 16 pepperoni pieces again. I do not always have this snack as I am not usually hungry.

D -- 1 to 1 1/2 cup broccoli or asparagus and meat (8 - 12 ozs), 1 decaf. Ice Tea and 1 splenda.

S -- 2 med. Celery stalks w/ 1/8th of a package cream cheese (serving size for 1 carb).

64 oz. water daily.

Thats it!!! Please let me know if their would be anything that could trigger a stall. I have not lost for 2 weeks. I'm on extended Induction at this time. Thanks.

[ValidRouge]

Re: How Does This Menu Look?

When did you start? Are you in your 3-4th week?? We frequently see people have a pause in their weightloss around the 3rd-4th weeks. We call it Post Induction Stall Syndrome. There is another whole thread about it...I think it's in the Memorable Posts forum. Basically your body stops to adjust to the initial weight loss. As long as you stick it through, when your body realizes that this is for real, it will begin losing again...and this time it will be fat. Yay!

I'm going to go see if I can find that thread for you.

[ValidRouge]

Re: How Does This Menu Look?

Here it is http://www.atkinsdietbulletinboard.c...ead.php?t=1378

Now, in regards to your menu....I think it looks GREAT! Except that's an OWL rung 1 (veggie rung) menu not extended induction. Nothing wrong with that AT ALL

[keepinthinner]

Re: How Does This Menu Look?

Hi Joy,

Thanks for the reply. I am in week 4 right now.

[keepinthinner]

Re: How Does This Menu Look?

Which is the rung 1? Do you think I should dump some veggies? It all still adds to less than or equal to 20 net carbs. So I call it extended induction.

[keepinthinner]

Re: How Does This Menu Look?

Perhaps like you said it could be "Induction Stall Syndrome". Just wanted to be sure I was not doing something wrong?

[ValidRouge]

Re: How Does This Menu Look?

No! I think you should keep the veggies and perhaps even allow yourself a little more. I paused in week 3-4 myself and when I moved in my 5th week into adding another full cup of the "other veggies" (i.e. spinach, broccoli) I actually started losing again. You only have (according to your signature) 40 lbs to lose, so you need to start adding foods back into your diet right away.

Dr. Atkins described the Ongoing Weight LOSS phase of his diet like a "ladder". You start with induction, and then you climb the ladder adding 5 net carbs of foods in a certain order. We call each of the food levels a "rung" of this ladder he talks about. Here is a whole forum devoted to it http://www.atkinsdietbulletinboard.c...splay.php?f=38

The first "rung" is to add 5 net carbs of vegetables. In My Opinion, no one ever got fat eating vegetables. And, they are soooo good for you for FIBER, vitamins and minerals. Then we add other foods back in 5 net carb increments until you find the level at which you stop losing...then you back off a little bit to start losing again.

I've lost 75 lbs in 7 months, 6 months of that moving up through the "rungs" of this "ladder" and adding all sorts of varieties of food. You eventually get to add back pretty much all food except those made with sugar and white flour. You even can have potatoes, corn, peas, and the like back when you get to the appropriate rung.

[keepinthinner]

Re: How Does This Menu Look?

Joy,

Thanks again for the great reply. This helps a great deal in understanding this process. I read the string you gave me, VERY informative!! I will try to go on and understand this rung process as well. I have read a few posts about it and seen it can be confusing. I really thought that I would wait to begin OWL when I reached 200 lbs. I must admit it will be hard to start eating more when I am at a stand still...

[ValidRouge]

Re: How Does This Menu Look?

I lost so quickly (even adding foods back in) that I never truly made it through all the rungs before I really did hit a real "stall" I've been up and down with the same 5 lbs for MONTHS. So, I can't add new foods because I'm losing so slowly that I can't tell anymore whether I'm stalled because I'm just plain stalled or if it's because of something I'm eating.

So, go ahead and start adding foods right away. It's called ONGOING weight LOSS phase because you WILL STILL LOSE. You aren't guaranteed to lose weight any faster just because you stay on induction. Frankly, we see it all the time that people get bored and fail, when if they'd moved on and started adding foods back in, they would have had success. AND there are tons of threads from people who add foods back in and start losing again, or lose faster.

This whole bulletin board is so informative and supportive, read through all the forums and especially read the posts at the very top that have "Sticky" beside them. They are "stickied" because they make informative points.

[keepinthinner]

Re: How Does This Menu Look?

Thank you so much for your support. I will admit I have to this point, read many of your posts to others questions and I consider your opinion and several others as extreemely valuble. That being said I would like to ask this. Many people whom I spoke to about my "doing atkins" have replied you better be careful because 'they' know people who have done it and when they drop off and eat normal they gain a ton of weight back and FAST. I will say this was a little scary to think "Oh my God, If I go off this WOL will this happen to me" the thought is a little spooky...

[ValidRouge]

Re: How Does This Menu Look?

Thank you!

Yeah, they've been telling me that too. And you know what? In a way, they are right. If I "go off" Atkins and return to the bad eating habits that got me fat in the first place, I'm gonna get fat again. Hey, it happened when I "went off" Weight Watchers years ago, too. If I return to the bad eating habits that got me fat to begin with, I WILL get fat again. Each time I do this, I'm OLDER, my metabolism is more DAMAGED from yo-yo-ing, my body doesn't know what this crazy broad is trying to do to it.

I think of myself as an ADDICT and my drug of choice is junk food. And I'll throw this little plug in here too...(thanks to Brook) low carb junk food is STILL JUNK FOOD. I know that if I start eating that crap again, I'm going be like the crack addict or alcoholic that goes off on a complete binge. The last time it happened, I was on a 3 year binge. And I mean BINGE...I ate DESSERT at LEAST 5 days a week FOR LUNCH. That doesn't count the ice cream, chips and crap I ate at night and on weekends. Does that mean my being on Atkins at one time damaged my body so that when I ate normal I gained weight like crazy? Heck NO...I was shoving cheesecake, icecream, sometimes cheesecake AND icecream into my mouth DAILY. Duh...I got fat, real fat.

THIS time, I know I'm changing my eating habits for the rest of my life. That's why going through the "rungs" are so important. I'm learning what foods I can eat and not gain weight. I'm learning how much of those foods I can eat and not gain weight. Each person is different. I may be able to eat foods that you can't and vice versa. That's what's so great about Atkins, the Ongoing Weight Loss phase allows me to customize my eating plan for something I can live with for the rest of my life...with GREAT health. It's just unfortunate that the general public doesn't understand that Atkins isn't induction (the first two weeks)...we eventually get EVERY food back as long as our individual bodies can handle them EXCEPT for sugar and refined white flour. I can happily live without that for the rest of my life.

[keepinthinner]

Re: How Does This Menu Look?

Makes very good sense to me. I figured they were talking out their @#% as if to imply that Atkins would be soley responsible for HUGE weight gain even if you only ate what they call 'normal' on occassion. It is like any diet that you do for a while and then stop and go back to old habits. Your right, you get FAT again.... Thanks for all your advice Joy.