Considering Atkins

[avram]

I’ve been hearing good things about the Atkins Diet, and impatient with my own rate of weight loss (285 this morning), I skimmed the book at Barnes & Noble today. Two thoughts:

• A weight-loss diet that encourages me to eat as much bacon as I want? Maybe there is a benevolent deity!
• No fruit?! Yow! I think I’ll wait till after cherry season ends.

I’m also looking at modifying my excercise regimen. Like, maybe, actually going to the gym. (Three times this week: Monday, yesterday, today.)

Comments

[editrx.livejournal.com]

You have to watch your kidneys wih the Atkins diet -- you can altogether too easily put yourself in ketosis. :(

[roadnotes.livejournal.com]

We're doing some research, and might try a modified version of it here, see if combining it with returning to the gym regularly helps us get into better shape.

[ladymondegreen.livejournal.com]

As Mann_of_Talent is fond of pointing out, any fad diet will probably work for the first two weeks, because it's a shock to the system. After that it's all up to the exercise.

*hugs*
LMG

[avram]

Or I could just change fad diets every two weeks.

Re:

[ladymondegreen.livejournal.com]

I was thinking that. Just don't follow the ice cream diet with the grapefruit diet, 'k?

[(Anonymous)]

As I've mentioned at Teresa's blog, I have been dabbling with the Zone plan, which isn't as strict. As long as your intake is in the proportion of 7 grams protein to 9 grams carbohydrates to 1 gram fat, you're cool. You can have _some_ fruit, but starches (including starchy vegetables like corn and potatoes and carrots) are frowned upon. With Atkins, ketosis is the point, but if you worry about your kidneys you may not want to risk it. My former coworker who did Atkins for months did well with it, but it requires lots and lots of water. So be prepared to have a bathroom handy at all times.

[avram]

I've also been considering The Zone, because there's some sort of class or support or something for it at my gym.

Most likely I'll just keep up with the quesadilla diet, going lighter on the quesadillas, and actually working out. Worked reasonably well when I was actually doing it. Two consecutive days of gymming under my belt makes it seem more plausible.

[camfangrrl.livejournal.com]

The little secret of eating all the bacon you want is that, according to the diet's theory, bacon (and other such foods) is so fatty that you won't want very much. This theory flies right out the window when one realizes that Atkins had no idea how many people can absolutely gorge on bacon and fatty food and not even blink an eye. So what you can end up with is a lot of extra fat on your bod and the feeling that, as with many religions, the problem is not that the Great God Atkins is at fault, but that you were a bad worshipper at the diet's altar and didn't perform the rituals exactly right.

[princessheacock.livejournal.com]

Er. Being in ketosis is not the problem. I was in a similar diet "Lean for Life" that the whole point was to GET yourself into ketosis by eating protein high. Then following their diet intermixed with protein high days to STAY in ketosis. When I could keep up the pace, I lost weight (for several months even) but having to stay on that strict a diet eventually broke me and I stopped watching what I ate, etc.

Ketoacidosis is the problem.

http://www.lowcarb.org/ketosis.html
http://www.ketosis-ketoacidosis-difference.com/
http://www.survivediabetes.com/ketosis.htm
http://www.bestlowcarbs.com/article1067.html

etc

BSD here w/ similar situational advice

[(Anonymous)]

ATKINS BAD.

Any diet that tells you that calories don't matter is lying through its teeth. Calories are the only thing that matters. Of course, since everyone hates counting calories, fad diets spring up, and they work short term, or long term for people with certain types of bad behaviors (0-fat works well for people who derive most of their calories from fat and especially crave fat, Carbohydrate Addicts/Sugar Busters works well for people who (like my sister and father) love nothing more than giant hunks of starch (it's worked excellently for them)). But for people like me (and I think, from what I've seen, you) eat a well-balanced starch:fat:protein diet, just in problematic quantities, the best solution is exercise and portion/frequency control. I dropped nearly 30 in the past 50days with that, and NONE of the fad diets ever worked for me, at all. THe velocity of loss has slowed for me, but the direction remains correct.

Don't be impatient with the speed. Be happy with the trend.