Why do people on induction use things like fitday, or count %

[Torchwood]

I see alot of people on here using fitday while on induction. I don't see anywhere in the Book where you are suppose to be worring about ratios for induction. You are suppose to eat you serving of veggies, don't eat the off-limit food, no more than 20 carbs, and eat till your satisfied.

The problem with this web site is that too many people are giving advice contrary to the Book.

[sallyseachange]

Re: Why do people on induction use things like fitday, or count %

I think that pretty much, the advice you get here on ADBB is by the book. It's inevitable that some people do Atkins "their own way" (which usually isn't doing Atkins) and post their thoughts.
The Mod team do their best to set the course straight and to my mind, they do a pretty good job.

I do agree with you about the percentages though, in induction. These are a guideline only and were not stressed at all in DANDR.

The thing is, if you eat to plan... to satisfy your hunger only (no more, no less) and keep within the induction levels of carbs, plus have the correct amount of veggies... your percentages will most likely be pretty well those advised (at least in an American/Brit diet... I live in Italy and my fat consumption is a bit higher due to the way they prepare foods with lots of olive oil here. No prob.).

My advice to people would be to not stress the percentages. Unless they are wildly off, consistently, they shouldn't be a problem.

[Elizellen]

Re: Why do people on induction use things like fitday, or count %

Yes - though the percentages are not mentioned in DANDR there was an analysis of the menus listed for induction which worked out that the percentages of fat/protein/carbs in them were about 65% fat/30% protein/5% carbs.

I agree with Sally that if you stick to induction rules your percentages will most likely land up at about those numbers - I know mine did when I discovered fitday.com after being on induction a while and entered in my past menus.

[Sheepie]

Re: Why do people on induction use things like fitday, or count %

Why? I think it's because people are excited to be starting induction and fitday makes them feel even more involved in this woe. It's fun. It makes them feel more in control. It helps to motivate them. It gives them the cold, hard numbers that they crave if they're used to counting calories or points. Not bad things.

[not2late]

Re: Why do people on induction use things like fitday, or count %

I see alot of people on here using fitday while on induction. I don't see anywhere in the Book where you are suppose to be worring about ratios for induction. You are suppose to eat you serving of veggies, don't eat the off-limit food, no more than 20 carbs, and eat till your satisfied.

The problem with this web site is that too many people are giving advice contrary to the Book.

Ditto to what everyone has written. But to explain further why we recommend using fitday and other tools......

If you follow the Rules of Induction and the the Acceptable Foods list, you really don't need to count carbs during Induction or anything like that. Induction is really mindless---if you follow the instructions precisely. Even Dr. Atkins wrote that in the book you don't really have to make a note of everything you eat provided that you follow the rules.

The problem is that many people don't follow the book and do their own thing. For example, doing a low fat Atkins induction or including a bite or two of potato chips/cake/cookies/etc. or having one or two beers, etc.

So we recommend using fitday.com or other carb counters as a means of keeping people honest and accountable. Also it gives you practice for the On-Going Weight Loss and Pre-Maintenance phases when you really need to keep track of the carbs you ingest daily.

As for the percentages, again, it's to provide guidance for those people who are too afraid of eating fat and/or think Atkins is a high protein diet that forces you to eat an entire cow/chicken/pig/lamb/etc. for every meal and snack. Believe me when I say this, but we have had folks here who absolutely insist Atkins is about eating 2 dozen eggs with a pound of bacon for breakfast, 1 lettuce leaf and a half a chicken for lunch, and a 16 ounce steak for dinner--along with three bags of pork rinds and a pound of cheese for snacking. Or we get the person who thinks if they eat fat--whether it's monounsaturated fat like olive oil or if it's an animal fat like butter, they will gain weight. So they eat a low fat Atkins.

However, if you follow the Rules of Induction and eat only what's on the Acceptable Foods List, you won't have to keep track of the percentages: I certainly didn't during my Atkins weight loss phases.



By the way, you don't eat "a serving" of vegetables daily during Induction. 1 serving of vegetables is 1/2 cup cooked or 1 cup raw. During Induction you eat 3 cups of vegetables (cooked or raw---Dr. Atkins doesn't say how to prepare them!), so depending on the preparation you eat a minimum of 3 vegetable servings daily during Induction.

[Torchwood]

Re: Why do people on induction use things like fitday, or count %

As far as indcution goes, I still don't agree. I lost 26lbs during induction doing it by the Book. I appricate what you guys are saying, but going by %'s in NOT in the book. And I think it is confusing to people just starting. Dr. A says count carbs. He doesn't say you should be able to tell what your carb amounts are by what you eat, he says COUNT THEM AND KEEP TRACK.

As far as eating tons of bacon goes, Dr. A address that. If somebody does the Book just like he says, they shouldn't have a problem.

I tried Atkins before by using things like Fitday and ratios, and I never became successful from doing Atkins till I stopped all that and did what Dr. A said to do.

[not2late]

Re: Why do people on induction use things like fitday, or count %

As far as indcution goes, I still don't agree. I lost 26lbs during induction doing it by the Book. I appricate what you guys are saying, but going by %'s in NOT in the book. And I think it is confusing to people just starting. Dr. A says count carbs. He doesn't say you should be able to tell what your carb amounts are by what you eat, he says COUNT THEM AND KEEP TRACK.

As far as eating tons of bacon goes, Dr. A address that. If somebody does the Book just like he says, they shouldn't have a problem.

I tried Atkins before by using things like Fitday and ratios, and I never became successful from doing Atkins till I stopped all that and did what Dr. A said to do.

I agree with you that if you follow what Dr. Atkins says to do in the book, you don't need fitday.com or percentages.

But on any given day, you can read these forums and see that people either don't bother to do what Dr. Atkins said because they

1. haven't bothered to read the book
2. have read it but don't understand it
3. don't ever want to read it and understand it but just want to lose weight
4. think they know better than Dr. Atkins so they make "improvements" on the plan to include things like noodles, pasta, etc.
5. don't have any faith in Dr. Atkins' plan because they have been burned by other weight loss plans in the past

Again, those recommendations of using fitday.com or checking the percentages are useful for those people. If you have no problem wholly committing to what Dr. ATkins wrote for 2 weeks of your life, then you don't need those adjuncts. During my Atkins weight loss, I kept a notebook of the foods I ate and only counted the net carbs.

ADBB is here to help people with their Atkins Diet. If that help includes advise on how to fine tune their Atkins by tracking their carbs on fitday.com or monitoring the amount of fat they eat, then this website is doing its job of helping. If using fitday.com helps someone stay on track and stay motivated, where's the harm? It would be more harmful if we were to withhold these adjuncts from people who could use the extra guidance.

[chunk!]

Re: Why do people on induction use things like fitday, or count %

i use thedailyplate.com, but that's more for my own personal edification as it not only tracks your carbs but fat, protein, sodium etc. it's wonderful because i was able to determine early on that i eat a very high-sodium diet and was able to scale it back a bit within the "recommended" limit. i loooove tracking my food intake on thedailyplate ahead of time, it really helps me to plan what i'm going to eat the day BEFORE, that way i'm less likely to eat something that doesn't jive well with what i've already eaten.

i am not a professional atkins-eer and i would venture to say that the more i eat the atkins way, the more my opinons about food evolve based on what i notice my body responding to. i still post here and try not to offer advice (as i'm, as stated, not at all a pro on the topic) but i firmly believe this is the best way of eating for a lot of people (including myself, until i start tweaking it a little bit based on my body's reaction to foods, which i guess is still technically atkins-ing it since i'm not indulging in simple carbohydrates and stick with higher-fat choices)... er, but anyway. atkins is amazing, and thedailyplate (which is similar to fitday) is just another way to have a food diary so you can figure out if you ate something that stalled you one day, or if you notice that you're eating more cheese than is recommended than your daily induction intake and didn't know it, or whatever.

just another way to hold yourself accountable.

[brandywine1241]

Re: Why do people on induction use things like fitday, or count %

Fitday is a marvelous automated carb counter. I started using it because I did not want to have to look up everything I ate in a book to figure out how many carbs it has. (I'm talking about the things like veggies that don't have a nutrition label.) The other benefits are icing on the cake.

By the way, chunk, fitday tracks all those other nutrients also. If you explore the reports section, you'll find it very thorough. And you can set min and/or max limits for almost any nutrient and see how you're doing. I particularly like the %RDA and %DV graphs.

[TheDogAteMyName]

Re: Why do people on induction use things like fitday, or count %

I like fitday and I find it very helpful. One of my favorite parts is the activity section to see how many calories I've burned Love that part!

[quotidianlight]

Re: Why do people on induction use things like fitday, or count %

I use fitday to keep me accountable. I can record anywhere since it works on my blackberry. When I tried writing down everything I ate I never kept my food journal up or accurate. It's more convenient than carrying around a carb counter everywhere I go and I can include foods that may not be in a carb counter manually. I like that it stores my information so if I start to gain or lose particularly well I can go back and see what is different and the averages. If I did this in my head I would never be accurate, I cook too much and use to many ingredients. I don't concentrate on my ratios but I have noticed I lose more with higher fat. Fitday isn't a diet or a way to alter Atkins, it's a tool to be used with any diet.

[SugarFreeSheila]

Re: Why do people on induction use things like fitday, or count %

I've never had any use for FitDay or food journaling, & mind only carbohydrates (I don't count these per se - just eyeball them); however, it does seem to help a lot of people along who might be curious about their caloric and fat intake and/or track what they're eating. To each his own!

[MorningGlory]

Re: Why do people on induction use things like fitday, or count %

Hi Torchwood....I use fitday because I like to track the carb count for veggies. I rarely concern myself with the percentages of fat, protein, carbs, but when I have looked to see what they are, they tend to always be in that 60/30/5 range anyways. The reason I like to track the carb count of veggies is that there is a daily carb count you are supposed to reach from veggies alone, for each stage of the Atkins eating plan. For induction it's 12-15 net carbs just from veggies...because of the varying fibre counts of each veggie, it's amazing how much you can eat to reach 12-15 net carbs. That's something I really like to know...just a personal thing. Fitday is a great tool if it's something that works for you. If you don't want to approach Atkins that way, you certainly don't have to.

[KellyNew4Me2]

Re: Why do people on induction use things like fitday, or count %

Just need to chime in. I believe my success during induction was highly due to the accountability Fitday gave me. It helped me keep track of portion sizes so that I could manage my veggies. It helps me greatly to be able to track what I've eaten, and even to create carb counts for recipes that I prepare regularly. I don't count calories at all, but it's comforting to know that the calories I've ingested have allowed me to be fully satisfied, and never hungry. When I started on 3/9/08 @ 324 lbs, I certainly had no clue how many carbs were in jicama, or celeriac, or what a proper portion-size of cheese looked like. Now I know. Now @ 302.6 as of 4/22/08 I am now better able to "eyeball" things that I totally screwed up in the earliest days. Now mind you, I have NEVER BEEN TOLD TO GO TO FITDAY TO CHECK MY PERCENTAGES! Only as a food journal. Plus, I'm sort of a computer geek, I think colorful graphs are pretty! Ooooh.....PIE CHARTS!!!!