What is your reason for doing Atkins?

[Hudson]

Re: What is your reason for doing Atkins?

1. The fear of death. High blood pressure, shortness of breath, chest tightness, skin problems - very rapid destructive path to a short life.

2. To prove that this Atkins thing is a crock.

And these two motivations will not ever go away. My health is unimaginably better. I am a total convert. For many people like myself low carb is just the only way to live. As the years go by I find it easier though my diet is nothing like I thought an "Atkins diet" would be. I may actually enjoy food more now than before Atkins. I really have a hard time coming up with any good reason to go back to the sugar.

[VGrace]

Re: What is your reason for doing Atkins?

I am just tierd of always struggling with my weight. Always being the chubby girl. I have seen Atkins work. Some of my family did it. I chose to do it cause of all the food I can eat,the natural appetitie supressant,I know this WOE works. And it working for me! I am so glad for Dr. Atkins.

[albs75]

Re: What is your reason for doing Atkins?

Funny you should post this today. While organizing my family photo's from our summer vacation I was confronted with the fact that there is only one picture of me with my daughter (the only picture of me). This has been the theme for all of the three years of her life. There is virtually no visual record of how close we are. This seems hightly symbolic...

I have to lose this weight and regain my sense of self. I have to do it for my daugher as well as myself.

[BirdDawg]

Re: What is your reason for doing Atkins?

I'm doing it for me this (second) time. The first time was for a wedding...and I did look better, felt better...had too much wine and that was that. Two years later, I'm noticing tiny little red marks on new parts of my body (stretch marks) and I will NOT stand for it. I feel like crap, look like crap, and my self esteem is in the toilet. Clothes don't fit. The driver's seat in my car has developed a squeak...and I would like to make sure it isn't my fault. *Sigh*

So...here we go...for good. To HEALTH! *cheers*

[shari_dawn]

Re: What is your reason for doing Atkins?

I'm doing this diet because early next year I plan on becoming a surrogate mother for a couple. I want to get healthy and lose my own baby weight and get started on a new WOE before I even get inseminated. My hope is that I can stick the the lifetime maintenance plan through the pregnancy and go back on the induction portion after I deliver for them and before I go on to become a surrogate again. The mistake I made whenI was preggers for my own children is that I felt I was eating for two. Unfortunately I was eating for two adults, and I never exercised. This time I plan to exercise right up until I deliver.

[H-bomb]

Re: What is your reason for doing Atkins?

I applaud everyone's honesty. So many of these reasons resonate with me, and yet, I've done diddily to lose weight...until now. I have PCOS and my odds of conceiving a child are not stellar. I waint to increase my odds of conceiving and of carrying a healthy baby to term. My desire to be a parent is what is driving me right now.

[Lillywight]

Re: What is your reason for doing Atkins?

I'm doing it for me. I'm a manager in a Fortune 100 Company and thought of as a strong, business woman -- but, in reality, my self-confidence needs a boost! I'm also involved in a long-distance relationship and although my weight has never been mentioned, I can't wait to show up for my next visit a few pounds down!!! (He has no idea I am "dieting"!)

[LishJustLish]

Re: What is your reason for doing Atkins?

Wonderful, inspiring answers here. All reasons, great or small, for starting Atkins are significant and important.

I'm 45 years old and my 7 year old daughter still sleeps with me (that's a whole other thread issue!). Last spring, I was stepping on my scale-that-weighs-up-to-400lbs with dread, thinking that any day now, it would register "Err" and I'd have to find a new, larger capacity scale to keep up with my ever-growing morbid fascination with my weight.

What really got me to stop and think was this: My great fear that my daughter would wake up one morning and find her mommy dead in bed with her. This is a shocking statement, I know, but it slapped me to my senses. I still cry a little when I think about what I was doing to myself, and how it was impacting my life and my relationships with the people I love.

It was this thought that got me motivated to find my old New Diet Revolution book and re-read it. It was this thought that made me have a good long talk with myself about my out-of-control sugar addiction. It was that thought that made me start walking again. I started induction on April 16, 2007 at the weight of 388.3, and I've lost 62.4 lbs as of a week ago. It is a long journey to my goal weight of 158, but I will make it, because I have my daughter telling me that she's proud of me, and that's all the motivation I need!

[sincub]

Re: What is your reason for doing Atkins?

I've always been overweight. Diabetes, high blood pressure and heart disease runs in my family, and I don't want to succumb to those like other family members have - I want to get healthy.

At the same time, I want to be happy day-to-day. Every time I've tried a low calorie or low fat diet, I spend most of my time hungry, looking forward to when I can eat again and trying to fool myself into thinking low fat substitutes for real food are acceptable. I'm never hungry now. If I am, the snacks and meals I eat are actually honest-to-goodness FILLING. To feel satisfyingly sated every day and still be losing weight and doing something good for myself is amazing.

Of course, I also want to look good. I'd settle for being able to walk into a store and find something in my size that isn't in the big girls' department. I followed this WOE for a year awhile back and reached that goal, but I let myself down and started eating junk again. This time, it's going to stick.

[mystic]

Re: What is your reason for doing Atkins?

Wow, what a thread of wisdom here. The guys need to post more pictures of themselves! I find beauty in all shapes and colors and sizes, but it's always so fun to see before and after pictures and how beautiful you all are. Really attractive people!

I digress.

My reason for doing Atkins is that I was convinced it worked after reading the book.

My reason for committing to this change in body is a bit more complex. Over the last 18 months, I've gone through a very mental and spiritual metamorphasis. I can't even describe it. Body is the other piece of "body, mind and spirit" so it's no surprise to me that "body" is now a part of this journey I'm on. All three are coming together in a way I never foresaw!

My weight problem served a purpose in my life. It illustrated things and confined me in ways that never would have occurred had I not been overweight. Through those trials, much wisdom was gained. I'm grateful for that, but there no longer is a need for those experiences. My perspectives inspired the mental transformation. My beliefs inspired the spiritual transformation and my habits inspired the physical transformation. They're all three beginning to work in harmony.

That is why I am here with you all today. Life is grand.

[emmyn74]

Re: What is your reason for doing Atkins?

There are a few things that drove me to lose the weight. I found out that I have pcos and that it can be lessened by going on a low carb diet. Also I want to be able to play more with my daughter and not be tried all of the time like I was getting at 310 pounds. Also on my honeymoon (march 007) I felt so bad because I weighed so much that my dress had to be made bigger than they carried in the store and there were weight restrictions on some things that my husband wanted to do so we couldn't 'do them. I am so tired of being overweight and am bound and determined to lose the weight this time.

I plan to stay on the plan for the rest of my life because I will NEVER want to get back to the way I am right now. I am trying to get my sister to go on the plan with me because she weighs almost 500 pounds and can't even walk from her car to her apartment without being out of breath. I just don't want to ever look the way she does. I know that sounds mean but I see what it is like and that is the path that I too was heading down.
I hope to be able to go on a second honeymoon with my husband and do ANYTHING that we want to do. I can't wait and that is what is driving me the most to lose the weight.

[hopejoy]

Re: What is your reason for doing Atkins?

Hi,
I just found this thread! It's really good! so inspiring.
For me, finding out I had type 2 diabetes was what did it for me. My uncle died very slowly after losing his feet, some fingers, his kidneys, his vision and then having a stroke... but hung on another 2 years. I never want to do that to my family. Also my grandmother had diabetes and someone stepped on her foot in high heels at church and she lost her foot too! later she had a stroke and was bedridden for 2 years before her death!
So! diabetes was really scarey to me!!! I started last May and by August I was no longer diabetic, but want to have a large cushion of safety (meaning more wt loss) just to be on the safe side.
The benefits I'm experiencing are wonderful, new smaller clothes, lots of possitive comments everyday, son's respect (he's an athlete) hubby's attention, someone called me a trophy wife the other day (!!!!) that cracked me up.
anyways, Thank God I found Atkins because I couldn't lose wt any other way!!!! I was scared I was trapped in the fat forever! I eat more and better now than I ever did! Food is yummy and satisfying.
liz

[garwil]

Re: What is your reason for doing Atkins?

I wanna be fit and healthy for the rest of my life. Being overweight makes me depressed, and working out makes the depression seem insignificant. Eating good, healthy food makes me feel good, even first thing in the morning!

I wanna be able to play sports. I wanna be able to play sports with my kids (when I have some). I wanna be able to play sports with my grandkids (when my kids that I don't have yet have kids)!

I restarted today. It's gonna rock!

[apple]

Re: What is your reason for doing Atkins?

1,000,000 reasons why I should be doing Atkins and 1 of them happens to be because I'm worth it. Okay, so that's a Clariol commercial for hair color, but it's true.

[cavgirl]

Re: What is your reason for doing Atkins?

I am getting married in over 2 months and i have tried everything to get the weight down and nothing seems to work for me. I am very unhappy with my weight and i know that the scales are going very slow at the moment but i have more energy and love the food that i am eating!