Just Starting and I need some clarification

Allison wrote:
|| I have done my own versions of low carb dieting before and had
|| success, but I never stuck with it for very long, now I am ready to
|| change my eating habits permanently. When I did low carb diets in
|| the past, I basically just cut out things like bread, sweets, rice,
|| etc.,

That works for a lot of folks...

but now that I want to do this seriously I am feeling more
|| overwhelmed with the amount of things I need to know. I have been
|| looking on the internet and I am seeing information about
|| eliminating artificial sweeteners, alcohol, caffiene, some veggies
|| that are low carb, but tend to prevent weight loss (i.e. broccoli),
|| cheese, bacon, not eating too much protein, etc.

Broccoli doesn't prevent weight loss and it is a great LC veggie, definitely
on the "to be included list"....neither do any of these other foods unless
you eat too much of them.

||
|| I feel like the rules are fairly simple until I consider those
|| issues. I am not sure what to do in the induction period. Basically,
|| yesterday, I had egg substitute for breakfast,

Can the egg substitutes and eat real eggs...unless you have some good reason
not too. FAt is not bad for you.

2 cups of coffee with
|| sweet&low and low carb creamer, for lunch i had a salad (lettuce,
|| broccoli, cucumber, grated mozzorella cheese, pepperoni, an low carb
|| ranch dressing

regular ranch dressing is low carb....no need to buy anything that says low
carb on the label..
use half&half or heavy cream for the coffee....unless you have issues with
dairy or something...

, string cheese, sugar free jello, and diet soda. I
|| had about 3 glasses of water at work, then for dinner I had water,
|| chicken at my mom's house, which is a WW recipe (chicken in the
|| crock pot with onion soup mix, cream of mushroom soup)

you'd better watch our for soup mixes. Did you read the labels?

and I had
|| some walnuts for a snack last night. I have a feeling this is all
|| wrong, so if anyone has suggestions for me or rules I should go by,
|| I would really appreciate it.

It maybe wrong for induction (no nuts), but not so bad for low carb,
depending on what's the soup mixes.

I really don't think rules work....you do need to know what are the
acceptable foods as part of a low-carb diet and you need to learn to read
labels.

||
|| I work out at the gym 4 times a week (sometimes on the days I don't
|| go to the gym I walk the dog about 3 miles).

Good...what do you do in the gym? Lifting weights is great for weight loss.
Do some cardio too.

I don't drink enough
|| water, I am trying to work on that!

Who says you don't?

I am 5'6" and when I started
|| trying to lose weight last March I weighed 225 (which is my highest
|| weight ever), I did my own version of low carb dieting and I
|| increased the intensity of my exercise program. I was down to 190
|| in July, but in August I managed to forget about eating better and
|| exercising more and I gained back 5 pounds. Now I am at 195 and my
|| goal is 150.

Well, you had success before...it seems to be the only thing you really need
to do is make a real committment and you need to realize that if you quit
low-carbing and go back to the way you ate before, the weight will come
right back. Consider that you're a person that has a history of being
overfat....so, you naturally will have a tendency to drift towards overfat.
Thus, you will forever have to be mindful of your diet and exercise levels,
if you want to maintain weight loss and keep health and fitness.

||
|| I could use all of the suggestions that any of you may have. I
|| really feel motivated this time but I get frustrated and give up
|| quickly if I am not succeeding, so please tell me what I am doing
|| wrong and what you think I should try to do!!

Who says you're doing anything wrong, other than quitting? What caused you
to quit before? ARe you diabetic, BTW?

||
|| Thanks.
|| Allison

If what you did before worked for you there is nothing wrong with it. It
sounds like the thing you did wrong was to quit what you were doing. As for
all the issues you cited, those are things you look at if you are not
losing. They MAY cause problems for some people, if you are losing at a
reasonable pace you don't need to worry about them.

It would be a good idea to get Dr. Atkins' New Diet Revolution book and read
it. You don't even have to follow it exactly, but reading it will give you
a working knowledge of the underlying principles. The other thing that is
helpful is patience, the closer you get to your goal the slower the loss
tends to be. But you are right that changing your eating habits permanently
is what you must do. So it is important to work out a pattern of eating
that is something you can be comfortable with. There are lots of recipe
ideas given in this group so it's a good place to help with that.

In news:[email hidden],
Allison <[email hidden]> stated
| I have done my own versions of low carb dieting before and had
| success, but I never stuck with it for very long, now I am ready to
| change my eating habits permanently. When I did low carb diets in the
| past, I basically just cut out things like bread, sweets, rice, etc.,
| but now that I want to do this seriously I am feeling more overwhelmed
| with the amount of things I need to know. I have been looking on the
| internet and I am seeing information about eliminating artificial
| sweeteners, alcohol, caffiene, some veggies that are low carb, but
| tend to prevent weight loss (i.e. broccoli), cheese, bacon, not eating
| too much protein, etc.
|
| I feel like the rules are fairly simple until I consider those issues.
| I am not sure what to do in the induction period. Basically,
| yesterday, I had egg substitute for breakfast, 2 cups of coffee with
| sweet&low and low carb creamer, for lunch i had a salad (lettuce,
| broccoli, cucumber, grated mozzorella cheese, pepperoni, an low carb
| ranch dressing, string cheese, sugar free jello, and diet soda. I had
| about 3 glasses of water at work, then for dinner I had water, chicken
| at my mom's house, which is a WW recipe (chicken in the crock pot with
| onion soup mix, cream of mushroom soup) and I had some walnuts for a
| snack last night. I have a feeling this is all wrong, so if anyone
| has suggestions for me or rules I should go by, I would really
| appreciate it.
|
| I work out at the gym 4 times a week (sometimes on the days I don't go
| to the gym I walk the dog about 3 miles). I don't drink enough water,
| I am trying to work on that! I am 5'6" and when I started trying to
| lose weight last March I weighed 225 (which is my highest weight
| ever), I did my own version of low carb dieting and I increased the
| intensity of my exercise program. I was down to 190 in July, but in
| August I managed to forget about eating better and exercising more and
| I gained back 5 pounds. Now I am at 195 and my goal is 150.
|
| I could use all of the suggestions that any of you may have. I really
| feel motivated this time but I get frustrated and give up quickly if I
| am not succeeding, so please tell me what I am doing wrong and what
| you think I should try to do!!
|
| Thanks.
| Allison

In article <[email hidden]>, [email hidden]
says...

Quoted message said:

I have done my own versions of low carb dieting before and had
success, but I never stuck with it for very long, now I am ready to
change my eating habits permanently.

Hi Allison, welcome to the group!

Quoted message said:

When I did low carb diets in the
past, I basically just cut out things like bread, sweets, rice, etc.,
but now that I want to do this seriously I am feeling more overwhelmed
with the amount of things I need to know. I have been looking on the
internet and I am seeing information about eliminating artificial
sweeteners, alcohol, caffiene, some veggies that are low carb, but
tend to prevent weight loss (i.e. broccoli), cheese, bacon, not eating
too much protein, etc.

Splenda seems to be the sweetener of choice. Aspartame (aka NutraSweet/Equal)
can cause an increase in appetite for some people, as can caffeine, so it's best
to find substitutes or to look into them if your weight loss seems to be impacted
by them. I've never heard of broccoli being a problem -- in fact, it's usually
the #1 recommended vegetable for low-carb :-) Vegetables to avoid are the ones
with high-glycemic values such as corn, peas, potatoes, etc. Cheese and bacon
are great as long as you eat them in moderation due to their high calorie counts
(and high salt count in some bacons).

Quoted message said:

I feel like the rules are fairly simple until I consider those issues.
I am not sure what to do in the induction period. Basically,
yesterday, I had egg substitute for breakfast, 2 cups of coffee with

Is there a particular reason (such as an allergy) that you are using an egg
substitute instead of the real thing? The association of eggs and high
cholesterol has pretty much been debunked.

Quoted message said:

sweet&low and low carb creamer, for lunch i had a salad (lettuce,
broccoli, cucumber, grated mozzorella cheese, pepperoni, an low carb
ranch dressing, string cheese, sugar free jello, and diet soda. I had
about 3 glasses of water at work, then for dinner I had water, chicken
at my mom's house, which is a WW recipe (chicken in the crock pot with
onion soup mix, cream of mushroom soup) and I had some walnuts for a
snack last night. I have a feeling this is all wrong, so if anyone
has suggestions for me or rules I should go by, I would really
appreciate it.

Are you doing Atkins or a different plan? If it's Atkins, the nuts should wait
until after Induction. The chicken was probably okay as long as you didn't have
too much of the soup/gravy with it. There are a lot of carbs in cream of
mushroom soup and even onion soup mix.

Are you keeping careful track of your carbs? Fitday.com is free, they don't spam
you, and you can get a much better idea of what you are actually taking in that
way. Personally, I use my own Excel spreadsheet to keep track of what I eat. In
any case, find a way to write it down -- you'd be amazed at how much it can help
you to make decisions. For instance, I keep track of calories, carbs, fat and
protein, so looking at the running totals gives me an idea of what else I can
still have and what else I probably SHOULD have (or NOT have, as the case may
be).

Quoted message said:

I work out at the gym 4 times a week (sometimes on the days I don't go
to the gym I walk the dog about 3 miles).

GREAT! Exercise can make a BIG difference in weight loss and overall feeling of
well-being!

Quoted message said:

I don't drink enough water,
I am trying to work on that! I am 5'6" and when I started trying to
lose weight last March I weighed 225 (which is my highest weight
ever), I did my own version of low carb dieting and I increased the
intensity of my exercise program. I was down to 190 in July, but in
August I managed to forget about eating better and exercising more and
I gained back 5 pounds. Now I am at 195 and my goal is 150.

It's a process. I've been on Atkins for 15 months and it's definitely a way of
life for me now. However, while the weight loss was initially the prime
motivation for going on it and staying on it, that's no longer the case. Oh I
LOVE that I've lost 57 lbs so far and that I look like ME again, but the MAIN
reason I STAY with this way of eating (WOE) is that I FEEL so much better. I
have a lot of health problems, and going low-carb has made a BIG difference in
how I feel. Most notably, it's completely cleared up ongoing digestive problems
that I had come to think would eventually KILL me. Certainly the lower weight
has helped with my many structural problems in alleviating pain and stress on the
joints. It took me a few months to really solidify my attitude in this regard,
but it's rock solid NOW. Weight loss brought me here, but feeling better KEEPS
me here!

I lose more slowly than many, and that can be frustrating, but I know I'm not
alone in that. I also eventually learned patience in that regard. Initially I
needed to learn that patience during my "time of month" (aka TOM) when my weight
would jump up a few lbs and STAY up until AFTER my period, no matter what I did.
So I learned to focus on coming out on the other side and staying the course in
the meantime because it DOES pay off. I've had a couple of instances in the last
15 months where I haven't lost ANYTHING for 2 months (it just bounces up and down
within the same 3 lbs), but I've noticed both times that my body did some subtle,
but noticeable rearranging during that lull and I've come out of it looking not
only thinner, but more compact somehow, as if the body took the time to do some
internal cinching. Sometimes I'll KNOW without a DOUBT that I'm smaller, but it
doesn't show up on the scale for 2-3 weeks. So where the hell did the fat go?
I've decided I have little tiny halfway houses scattered around my body where the
fat goes before it gets off parole and is free to go (like someone told it that
it doesn't have to leave the country, but it can't stay in the same state :-)

As I said, it's all a PROCESS, and, in this case, the JOURNEY is just as
important, if not MORE important than the destination. I am confident that that
will be my last bout with being significantly overweight as long as *I* have
control over what I eat. Of course, that's easy for me to say since I haven't
slipped YET. In the past, I've eventually given in and gone back to my old ways
of eating. HOWEVER, this time I am MUCH more invested in what I'm doing -- I
actually KNOW what I'm doing, and knowledge is POWER. Before it's either been
blindly doing what someone else told me to do (NutriSystem, Jenny Craig) without
really being a PARTNER in it or just dabbling in one plan or another without
really focusing on what I was doing and CERTAINLY not with an intention of
STAYING with that way of eating once I reached my goal. Now I pay ATTENTION to
what I eat and make choices based on that. If my carbs are limited, I'm not
going to waste them on [censored] when I can get good (and tasty) nutritional value out
of better quality foods.

Quoted message said:

I could use all of the suggestions that any of you may have. I really
feel motivated this time but I get frustrated and give up quickly if I
am not succeeding, so please tell me what I am doing wrong and what
you think I should try to do!!

This group has been INVALUABLE to me and many others in helping to stay on track
-- INVALUABLE! Like any group, it has its helpful, friendly people and its nasty
trolls and some who fall in between. When I first found this newsgroup (several
months before I actually made a last-ditch decision to try Atkins), I was kind of
scared away because everyone seemed so ... INTENSE! Frankly, I thought they
seemed kind of nutty, and I was used to a different newsgroup dynamic. I would
drift away and ponder Atkins, then come back, then drift away, and then come back
as I slowly worked toward making a decision. Once I actually made the decision
to do Atkins, though, I stayed here and I'm VERY glad I did! Check out
before/after/progress photos when people post them (often found in sigs like
mine). I know they certainly inspired ME! You can get lots of ideas on recipes,
treats, and just encouragement to THINK OUTSIDE THE BOX. For instance, I like to
use alfredo sauce as a salad dressing. Sometimes I use Marie's guacamole. Be
creative! You don't HAVE to have cereal or eggs & bacon for breakfast -- have
leftover low-carb lasagna or salad or maybe some hot wings! Once out of
induction, make a hot cereal from flaxseed meal, nut meal, protein powder and
some flavoring -- it's low-carb, tasty and VERY nutritious! Google this group
for recipes.

Everyone has their own motivation, situations and personalities that help or
hinder them on their way to losing weight -- you just have to zero in on your OWN
and, once you find it, FOCUS on what works for YOU.

--
Saffire
205/148/125 - 5'1.5"
Atkins since 6/14/03
Progress photo: http://photos.yahoo.com/saffire333

Quoted message said:

I have been looking on the
internet and I am seeing information about eliminating artificial
sweeteners, alcohol, caffiene, some veggies that are low carb, but
tend to prevent weight loss (i.e. broccoli), cheese, bacon, not eating
too much protein, etc.

Broccoli!? Seriously? I've never heard that. I eat it all the time. Bacon and
cheese too! :-)
LCing since 12/01/03-
Me- 5'7" 265/165/140
& hubby- 6' 310/188/180
http://f2.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/lcer09/my_photos

Allison said:

I have done my own versions of low carb dieting before and had
success, but I never stuck with it for very long, now I am ready to
change my eating habits permanently. When I did low carb diets in the
past, I basically just cut out things like bread, sweets, rice, etc.,
but now that I want to do this seriously I am feeling more overwhelmed
with the amount of things I need to know. I have been looking on the
internet

There's your problem ;-) There is a phenomenal amount of information out
there and if you come at randomly, bits at a time, you'll be overwhelmed
and confused in no time!

If you want to learn more, you'll be better off getting a book that
presents information in an organized format instead of picking up bits and
pieces of information online.

Many people have had good luck just cutting back on starchy goods and
cutting out sweets (just like our Moms told us decades ago). There's
a guy on the Web who has a whole site about how he lost 100 lbs just
by switching to diet soda.

This sort of food restriction diet is a no-brainer if you want a moderate
'non-plan' diet. However, it does mean that you still need to learn which
foods are ultra-starchy and which ones are okay.

Quoted message said:

I work out at the gym 4 times a week (sometimes on the days I don't go
to the gym I walk the dog about 3 miles). I don't drink enough water,
I am trying to work on that!

I had that problem initially and it can really slow down your weight loss.
I found that if I bought boxes of bottled water (watch for sales at
Wal-Mart) and had a bottle next to me anytime I was sitting down anywhere
(including out on the tractor!), I would naturally drink a lot more.

Quoted message said:

I could use all of the suggestions that any of you may have. I really
feel motivated this time but I get frustrated and give up quickly if I
am not succeeding, so please tell me what I am doing wrong and what
you think I should try to do!!

Diet knowledge is diet power. The more you can learn about food
composition, the easier it will be to make good choices. My wife and I
keep two cheatsheets taped to the fridge, one with a list of low carb
foods and another with recipes we've tried and liked. When it's time to
make the grocery list for the week, we are never short of ideas.

Good luck! And don't let small setbacks discourage you.

Dan
325/199/180
Atkins since 1/1/02 (yeah, it was a New Year's Resolution)
Besetting sins: good beer, German bread, and Krispy Kremes

Allison said:

I have done my own versions of low carb dieting before and had
success, but I never stuck with it for very long, now I am ready to
change my eating habits permanently. When I did low carb diets in the
past, I basically just cut out things like bread, sweets, rice, etc.,
but now that I want to do this seriously I am feeling more overwhelmed
with the amount of things I need to know. I have been looking on the
internet and I am seeing information about eliminating artificial
sweeteners, alcohol, caffiene, some veggies that are low carb, but
tend to prevent weight loss (i.e. broccoli), cheese, bacon, not eating
too much protein, etc.

I feel like the rules are fairly simple until I consider those issues.
I am not sure what to do in the induction period. Basically,
yesterday, I had egg substitute for breakfast, 2 cups of coffee with
sweet&low and low carb creamer, for lunch i had a salad (lettuce,
broccoli, cucumber, grated mozzorella cheese, pepperoni, an low carb
ranch dressing, string cheese, sugar free jello, and diet soda. I had
about 3 glasses of water at work, then for dinner I had water, chicken
at my mom's house, which is a WW recipe (chicken in the crock pot with
onion soup mix, cream of mushroom soup) and I had some walnuts for a
snack last night. I have a feeling this is all wrong, so if anyone
has suggestions for me or rules I should go by, I would really
appreciate it.

I work out at the gym 4 times a week (sometimes on the days I don't go
to the gym I walk the dog about 3 miles). I don't drink enough water,
I am trying to work on that! I am 5'6" and when I started trying to
lose weight last March I weighed 225 (which is my highest weight
ever), I did my own version of low carb dieting and I increased the
intensity of my exercise program. I was down to 190 in July, but in
August I managed to forget about eating better and exercising more and
I gained back 5 pounds. Now I am at 195 and my goal is 150.

I could use all of the suggestions that any of you may have. I really
feel motivated this time but I get frustrated and give up quickly if I
am not succeeding, so please tell me what I am doing wrong and what
you think I should try to do!!

Thanks.
Allison

You should read a GOOD book and not the often junk information found
here and there on the internet.

Broccolli is NOT a food that inhibits weight loss, unless you eat 10
pounds per day.

So long as you avoid reading a good book, your confusion will remain.

Atkins book is excellent because Dr Atkins is fully aware of what Dr
Atkins said about that version of the low carb diet - more or less the
original popularized low carb diet.

If you enjoy uninformed half truths, then continue to gather your
information is the way you have so far.

Jim

--
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