New to Atkins and already ready to give up because I haven't lost a pound in 12 days!

[colider]

Hello, I have been on the diet for 12 days and I show that I am in moderate to the second from high levels of ketosis and have been for about 5 days now. But I haven't lost even 1 pound :-( I am getting sooooooo upset because I have been so dedicated to this. Please help me before I give up on this diet all together. I started this diet instead of weight watchers because I heard that you are supposed to lose weight fast. But when I was on weight watchers before I had my kids I had lost 5 pounds by now. Why does everyone seem to lose so much weight in the first two weeks and I am not?

Thank you!
Lisa

[Sherri]

Re: New to Atkins and already ready to give up because I haven't lost a pound in 12 days!

Hi Lisa! If you would like to. Post your menu of what you eat throughout the day. So we can see if there's something your missing. Maybe we can help.

[HealthyMiMi]

Re: New to Atkins and already ready to give up because I haven't lost a pound in 12 days!

Hi Lisa,
This has happened to me in the past too. I've been on Atkins probably 4 or 5 times. Once I lost all my weight, kept it off for 8 months then started eating the old way. Anyhow, I have been in your shoes a few times and these are the different things that I changed to begin losing weight.
Drink more water
Some people are sensitive to caffeine, stop all caffeine.
Watch sugar, even a lil' squirt of ketchup can screw you up.
Medications the list of them is in the book. My antidepressant messed with me in the past.
Pay close attention to fats and protein make sure that you are eating enough of them. watch veggie intake sometimes we take in too many carbs even though they are healthy carbs
And of course exercise this is really important, exercise is mandatory.
I hope this helps.
Anybody out there have any other ideas?
Hang in there Lisa. This diet really does work and it has the benefit of erasing food cravings like no other diet can. That is why it is easier to stay on long term.

[SunnySmile501]

Re: New to Atkins and already ready to give up because I haven't lost a pound in 12 days!

Have you read the book??? We can't help unless we know what you are eating. How much weight do you need to lose? If you only need to lose a few pounds, it might not come off very fast. Just so you know--the color of the stix doesn't matter. Either you are in ketosis or you are not. Give us some more info so we can make informed suggestions.


Sunny!

[blue996]

Re: New to Atkins and already ready to give up because I haven't lost a pound in 12 days!

I agree with what everyone has said. Please post your menu and stats and you'll get lots of help. Atkins does work!

[sallyseachange]

Re: New to Atkins and already ready to give up because I haven't lost a pound in 12 days!

Welcome Lisa! Please don't give up! It's very likely that we can help and the suggestions the others have made are valid.
Post a menu in the "Review my Menu" forum and you'll get lots of tips. The water (preferably cold) is another very important thing, as is exercise.

Remember to only feed your hunger. If you gorge, you won't lose.
Also, take your measurements. Very very often we lose inches before pounds. Are your clothes beginning to feel looser? The tape measure is a far better weight loss guage than the scales.

Give us some more info and we'll get you losing before too long.

[dreamof145]

Re: New to Atkins and already ready to give up because I haven't lost a pound in 12 days!

Take a deep breath, measure and do a clean induction. Add exercise and don't forget your supplements and water intake. Its not how fast you lose the weight, its the changes in your life-style and the knowledge you learn as you do the program. It can be a quick weight loss for some, but for many of us...it is consistency of doing it and making it a life-style change. Best wishes. We're here for you...don't look back, don't give up, just improve your plan and make it happen.

[sillygirl]

Re: New to Atkins and already ready to give up because I haven't lost a pound in 12 days!

Welcome colider! You've been given some great advice here. Being in ketosis is a good thing, but overeating, even legally, can stall any losses.

I didn't see anyone mention www.fitday to you. it's a place where you can log your food intake and it will tell you your percentages of carbs/fats and proteins.

Most importantly, read the book! In addition you can check out the stickies at the tops of the induction forum, and also at the FAQ's. You will find some great tips and info there.

[colider]

Re: New to Atkins and already ready to give up because I haven't lost a pound in 12 days!

WOW! How wonderful to have such a great support system and so fast too. Thank you so much for all of your advice

I had thought that as long as I was in Ketosis I would lose weight and so I had been eating things with very small amounts of sugar in them and then just checking to see if I was still in Ketosis or not. The way that this habbit formed was... I bought Atkins candy bars and they had very small amounts of sugar in them and I was under the impression that we were not supposed to have ANY sugar not even a trace in all fazed of this diet (other than fruit later). So when I was having a huge sugar craving and felt like I was going to fall off the wagon I bought one of those bars and when I saw that I was still in ketosis I thought, OH! I guess I can have some sugar. Then I started to have things like sugar free pudding and sugar free coolwhip and some wraps that say they only have 1 net carb each.

By the way what level should I be at on those strips??? I am usually at moderate and rarely do I get into the purple (obviously because of my small amount of sugar intake but that is changing)?

Since I am already in Ketosis, will I not lose as much weight if I restart the induction period? Will I still need to do it for 2 full weeks even though I am already into ketosis? If I reach dark purple in 1 week can I call my induction period over and start on the next faze or do I still have to go the full 2 weeks?

I weigh 200 to 205 pounds and my goal is to get down to 120. However I have a very huge event at the end of February that I really wanted to be down to 160 pounds in order to fit into a dress that I love. This was why I was so interested in the speed of my weight loss and am feeling so bummed out. This is also why I chose the Atkins diet over all other diets (because of the speed that I had heard about). Hopefully with this new start without any sugar, I will drop pounds quickly.

Thank you for being there!!!!! I would never make it if it wasn't for this website all of the people on it.

Lisa

[*Emma*]

Re: New to Atkins and already ready to give up because I haven't lost a pound in 12 days!

The sugar thing is your staller, those bars stall the most of us, stay away!
Theyre not induction legal either, look at the ingredients and look at the acceptable foods list, doesnt add up does it? i know they say they are safe, but they aint, period. The idea is to get rid of your sugar cravings, not feed them!

The quickest way to lose weight is to ONLY eat foods off that acceptable foods list, follow this way of eating by the book, make sure your getting good veggies in (not just lettuce!) drink lots of water.

Read EVERY label.

and after all that you should see a loss! good luck on your re-try!

[sillygirl]

Re: New to Atkins and already ready to give up because I haven't lost a pound in 12 days!

Ditto what Emma said! It sounds like perhaps you have not read the book? I would encourage you to do so.

About the ketosis, either you're in or you're not. Even the lightest pink is fine. It's believed that the darker you are, the more dehydrated you are. So if you're dark purple, you're not drinking enough water.

Your daily water intake should be 64 oz for everyone, then 8 oz for every 25 pounds you would like to lose.

Have you been to the induction forum?
http://www.atkinsdietbulletinboard.c...splay.php?f=73
You will receive much better responses if you start a thread over there with these questions! The forum pertains solely to begining this way of eating!

[kate58]

Re: New to Atkins and already ready to give up because I haven't lost a pound in 12 d

Also ditto what Emma says. And although you want to be in ketosis at this point, it isn't everything. It is perfectly possible to be in ketosis and not lose weight, it is also possible to be in ketosis and GAIN weight. Just as, eventually, if you follow all the different stages of Atkins, you will be out of Ketosis and either continue to lose weight or maintain your desired weight.

Ketosis is not magic. It's just an indicator that your body is burning fat as a primary fuel. It tells you nothing about how much or how little fat is being added to the total fat store of your body, and unless you are burning off more than you are putting into storage you won't lose weight.

I think there are 3 things you need to do to make induction successful:

1. Stick like glue to the foods on the acceptable food list.
Which also means that most of your carbs are from veg, not bars, not sugar, not foods that don't appear at all on that list.

2. Drink water.
Then drink more water. Then more. And more. Plain water.

3. Starve your cravings, feed your appetite.
Bars and the like are rarely eaten to satisfy real hunger but rather to stave off cravings. You are not 'satisfying' cravings, you never will if you feed them, you are just shutting them up for a moment, you KNOW they'll be back soon to nag at you again. Starve the stupid things till they shut up and die.

Follow the good doctors instructions and the weight will go. It just works. But you have to follow it as he wrote it, because most if not all "adapted Atkins" plans are doomed to failure, sooner or later.

[colider]

Re: New to Atkins and already ready to give up because I haven't lost a pound in 12 days!

Hello, I put down what I ate today (below) so that maybe some of you guys could take a look and let me know if there is anything that I did wrong so that I am not waisting all of my time and efforts again just to be let down at the end of these two weeks. I noticed that this added up to be more than 20 carbs but I thought that the meat and eggs weren't supposed to count for your total carb count???? I used this FitDay website and I think I did it right. I would apprediate any feedback out there Oh, I also had onions and celery because they were in my cabbage and sausage soup that I made along with chicken broth witch I found out that I won't be able to use my bulion and I will need to use canned broth with no sugar from now on. Man! you sure can mess up easy when you are trying to cook something with lots of ingredients! I am concened about these Slim Jims that I have been eating like crazy because they are so processed. Here are the ingredients for the Slim Jims...

Safety Information
Contains: soy and wheat.

Ingredients
Beef, Mechanically Separated Chicken, Water, Flavorings, Salt, Corn Syrup, Soy Sauce (Water, Wheat, Soybeans, Salt), Brown Sugar, Dextrose, Maltodextrin, Sodium Phosphate, Smoke Flavor, Monosodium Glutamate, Hydrolyzed Soy Protein, Lactic Acid Starter Culture, Caramel Color, Paprika Extractives, Sodium Nitrite.


Today's Foods
Food NameServingsServing SizeCalsFatCarbProt Eggs serving 28018424 Butter, stick, salted cuptablespoonpat (1" sq, 1/3" high)stickGuideline amount per slice of bread/rollQuantity not specified 36400 Cabbage, cooked, boiled, drained, without salt headcup shredded 661133 Salt, table cuptablespoonteaspoondash 0000 Polish sausage cup, slicedoz, raw (yield after cooking)cubic inchsausage (10" long x 1-1/4" dia)slice (3-3/4" dia x 1/8" thick)Quantity not specified 70462530 Slim Jim serving 45039618 Cheese, NFS cupcubic inchsliceQuantity not specified 17113211Totals 1707 1373186
Thank you again for your support!!!!

Lisa

[sillygirl]

Re: New to Atkins and already ready to give up because I haven't lost a pound in 12 days!

Yikes! Stop eating slim jims! Sugar/corn syrup is a definite no-no as is any wheat. It's really important to read all labels before eating anything at all. It's also a must to stick to the rules: http://www.atkinsdietbulletinboard.c...ead.php?t=6782 and eat only from the allowed food list!

Again, I would encourage you to post in the 14 day induction forum, you will receive much more answers to your questions and concerns.

[colider]

Re: New to Atkins and already ready to give up because I haven't lost a pound in 12 days!

Hmmmmm, pasting my foods from Fit-day didn't work very well so here it is... I guess my biggest concern was that after putting all of my food choices in it says that I consumed 31 carbs today. If you look at my list I think I ate very well so I don't know how I went over. My omlet had 4 eggs and 2 slices of cheese and tabasco on top... I had two large bowls of my cabbage, celery, onion, Kabasa sausage, and bulion soup. Then I ate 3 of those slim jims at the end of the night. I drank 4 glasses of rasberry crystal light and 24 ounces of just water on it's own. Does my crystal light count for my water consumption????

Lisa