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I sometimes find it hard to identify with or understand what other people are reporting as their diet experiences. I don't crave carbs, I never did. It's always been meat that I can eat way, way too much of. I took to Atkins like the proverbial duck to water, and while I did lose significant weight on it, I'd be doing it faster and better if I didn't have as insidious a meat/fat craving as other people report sugar/carb cravings. Limiting my portions can be extremely difficult.
I did Atkins for nearly two years and never got tired of meat with a bit of veg on the side. I switched over to a bodybuilder's diet for awhile, and I had no problems with the carbs as they didn't trigger cravings. Neither did what I was eating for protein (steamed chicken breasts, water pack tuna and whey protein mostly). My food sucked a lot and I hated the diet, but it did what it needed to do at the time.
Now that my schedule doesn't allow for regular lifting, I'm back on Atkins for the second time around. I am finding that if I'm not careful, I'll eat a big hunk of meat and ignore everything else because I could care less if it's there or not. I zero in on whatever meat is on the plate, snarf it down, look for more, and then maybe think about the veggies.
Now when I cook some low carb specialties to tempt the boyfriend who's doing Atkins for his first time around, those are tasty enough to earn a bit of voluntary room on my plate. But when he's not around, it's a handful of raw veggies and a chunk of meat, and that suits me fine. I watch other people eat bread and sweets and I really don't care. Give me more meat please. Lots of meat. Lots and lots of meat. Hot and sizzling with fat on the outside, half raw and blue on the inside, juicy and delicious, with a flavorful sprinkling of sea salt and a grind of fresh black pepper. A crisply roasted duck, its skin just barely seared to crackling and the breast pink and rare on the inside, with just a few leaves of arugula or watercress, will do very nicely. I need nothing else to be perfectly content.
Anyhow you see my problem. Atkins works very well indeed for most people because they have a limited appetite for meat and fat. It still works well even for me, but it would probably work even better if I was more scrupulous about eating my minimum portions of vegetables. But this meat craving makes life on Atkins both extremely pleasant and a bit frustrating, because portion control is significantly more difficult for me on Atkins than it is on a diet that doesn't feed my meat and fat cravings enough to kick them into high gear.
Anyone else have issues with hardcore meat and fat craving, or am I alone here? It isn't at all hard for me to stick to the diet. I literally don't desire anything but meat with plenty of fat on it. A bit of crisp salad is nice for a change of texture, and the bitterness of greens like arugula and watercress make a wonderful taste complement to fatty meat. But it's not even all that necessary to my palate when there's meat and plenty of it. Gourmet food does tempt me for taste value, but meat and fat is a primal, fundamental physical craving.
I already know what advice I'm going to give myself - exercise better portion control and eat my veggies first, not as an afterthought. What I want to know is if anyone else is a primary "meat craver" who has very little interest in carbs but far too much interest in meat.
I did Atkins for nearly two years and never got tired of meat with a bit of veg on the side. I switched over to a bodybuilder's diet for awhile, and I had no problems with the carbs as they didn't trigger cravings. Neither did what I was eating for protein (steamed chicken breasts, water pack tuna and whey protein mostly). My food sucked a lot and I hated the diet, but it did what it needed to do at the time.
Now that my schedule doesn't allow for regular lifting, I'm back on Atkins for the second time around. I am finding that if I'm not careful, I'll eat a big hunk of meat and ignore everything else because I could care less if it's there or not. I zero in on whatever meat is on the plate, snarf it down, look for more, and then maybe think about the veggies.
Now when I cook some low carb specialties to tempt the boyfriend who's doing Atkins for his first time around, those are tasty enough to earn a bit of voluntary room on my plate. But when he's not around, it's a handful of raw veggies and a chunk of meat, and that suits me fine. I watch other people eat bread and sweets and I really don't care. Give me more meat please. Lots of meat. Lots and lots of meat. Hot and sizzling with fat on the outside, half raw and blue on the inside, juicy and delicious, with a flavorful sprinkling of sea salt and a grind of fresh black pepper. A crisply roasted duck, its skin just barely seared to crackling and the breast pink and rare on the inside, with just a few leaves of arugula or watercress, will do very nicely. I need nothing else to be perfectly content.
Anyhow you see my problem. Atkins works very well indeed for most people because they have a limited appetite for meat and fat. It still works well even for me, but it would probably work even better if I was more scrupulous about eating my minimum portions of vegetables. But this meat craving makes life on Atkins both extremely pleasant and a bit frustrating, because portion control is significantly more difficult for me on Atkins than it is on a diet that doesn't feed my meat and fat cravings enough to kick them into high gear.
Anyone else have issues with hardcore meat and fat craving, or am I alone here? It isn't at all hard for me to stick to the diet. I literally don't desire anything but meat with plenty of fat on it. A bit of crisp salad is nice for a change of texture, and the bitterness of greens like arugula and watercress make a wonderful taste complement to fatty meat. But it's not even all that necessary to my palate when there's meat and plenty of it. Gourmet food does tempt me for taste value, but meat and fat is a primal, fundamental physical craving.
I already know what advice I'm going to give myself - exercise better portion control and eat my veggies first, not as an afterthought. What I want to know is if anyone else is a primary "meat craver" who has very little interest in carbs but far too much interest in meat.
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