Low Carb diet aka Atkin's

[Christi]

I started this last Tuesday because my husband said he was going to do it. Most of you remember the issues with him supporting me on a diet and how it was making it hard for me to stick to it. Well he decided he was ready to lose the beer belly and bit the bullet. So I got angry about it then took advantage of the opportunity to lose some weight w/ the support.

I am down, as of this morning, 7lbs. That is a pound a day. I am sure the majority of it is water weight since I can't see a difference in my clothes or anything, but still pleasing to see the numbers go down for once.

I think I remember tom502 mentioning cutting out carbs, I was just interested to know if anyone else shared my love/hate relationship with the wonderful carbs too?

[tom502]

Carbs, mainly the refined type, like flour, sugar, high fructose corn syrup, are like crack and heroin, and studies show them to be addictive, and have the same brain response as those drugs. Also, carboholism, is like the food equivilant to alcoholism. So, that's why so many have such a hard time giving them up, or even limiting them. And, they are so bad for the body, leading, usually to diabetes, hypertention, metabolic syndrome, because over time, the body cannot break it down and utilize it, and these conditions take shape.

Personally, I believe, if no one ever ate refined carbs untill they were fully matured, we would not have all the obesity we have now(esp in children), and the health ailments.

I have been battling carboholism for most of my life, and it all started as a child, as my parents fed us junk, and allowed us to eat whatever we wanted to. Now, I have hypertension, high blood sugar, high cholesterol, and am obese(not circus level though).

[Ainkor]

My best advice is to just watch what you eat and if you are really out of shape, consult a doctor first. Diet advice I feel is something that shouldn't be just handed out like snus samples on a message board as there are many factors that play into this.

I can tell you what I did and it worked very well about 9 years ago.

I was 335 pounds and working all the time. I drank about 4 32oz sodas a day and besides work, wasn't active at all.

I figured out 5 things that I could do based on reading as much info about loosing weight. I slowly stepped into these things so that I had a better chance of keeping it up:

1. Stop drinking soda and drink water

2. Don't eat after 7pm at night

3. Count calories (I shot for 1800 per day, but usually ended up at around 2000 to 2200)

4. Exercise daily. Not just exercise for the sake of it, but doing something I enjoyed.

5. Reward myself for following my diet and exercising.

I lost 145 pounds in a very quick 10 months. It literally melted away. I wish I had kept up as I would have been able to keep it off but my biggest issue is that I have always worked in a stressful environment so slowly over time I crept back up. I am sitting at 290 pounds right now but I started the steps back up this last week and broke myself of my soda habit again.

I love to inline skate and ride my bike so that made it easy for me. I used to ride my bike for 2-10 miles a day with my kids. My diet, while not even really a diet was just making good food choices daily. Just like with anything else, crap in, crap out. You literally are what you eat.

I'd like to get back to the 220 pound range as that is where I felt the best overall.

Wish you the best of luck but remember that if you make too drastic a change it can be very hard to keep it up over time.

[Christi]

I agree with you tom about the carbs and children.

I saw the dr. in November and she wanted me to do South Beach because the fats in that diet were more healthy. I was borderline on my cholesterol. Basically, that is what I am doing. I am watching the fat intake as well as the carbs.

The alcohol I was drinking played a large part in my weight and my husbands as well.

We switched to refined alcohol for occasional consumption, instead of high calorie, high carb beer.

I am not very active, I chase my kids and exercise once a week maybe. That is something else I am trying to gradually work into my life so that I don't just burn myself out with changes.

My father has been on Atkin's for years, doing OWL. He has lost over 90 pounds and has kept it off. Even if he carb binges and gets right back on low carb he never gains more than a pound or two, which melt right back off during induction. I am hoping that I have some of his metabolism in me and the Atkin's or low carb thing will help me shed some 80+ pounds.

[WickedKitchen]

I have this carb problem too. Always have.

I didn't do the Atkin's diet but I did cut out all wheat and dairy from my diet. I think I did that for four months, maybe five. The first two weeks really sucked but after that I adjusted. I felt fine while doing that and I did it mainly to appease my wife. She likes to go to these "alternative" med people...don't get me started, if I told you some of the things she comes home with you'd think I live in a tree.

The one thing I did notice is when I was fully purged of this wheat thing (which is very hard to do mind you) I found that when I did eat something containing it I was ill for a while. This went on for weeks until my body adjusted to the carbs again. The nice thing was that a half sandwich would keep me full for hours.

I'm on the weight loss kick again too. Right not I'm just at the make correct choices stage. I too want to get to 220 or so. 258 now...ugh.

[Christi]

For a woman who is 5 foot 1 I am considered obese. I need to lose quite a bit of weight. For my health as well as for my knees and ankles.

[tom502]

I am mainly trying to not eat refined carbs. I am bad about counting things, carb grams, calories, and fat. Personally, I believe for me anyway, it's my carb addiction and binge eating. If I can remove flour, sugar, HFCS, from my diet, I would look and feel so much better. It's amazing all the stuff that has HFCS in it. I was looking at breads, even the whole grain types, and so many had sugar, corn syrup, HFCS, in it, though I should not eat bread at all.

I do agree anikor too(and that's a great weight loss accomplishment), sodas are just a can of refined carb. Not eating late allows the body to metabolise the food more, because it can't do it well, if one is always eating up to bed time, unless one eats little bird sized meals. I'm on the fence about calories, I can't negate anyone's success, but I do think it's obvious half a donut is better than 6, but for me, once that donut is in my mouth, the whole box is mine.

[Christi]

I have issues with bread and potatoes..oh and corn.

I am not a sugar eater, I don't have a sweet tooth. I don't care for donuts or candy, I would rather sit down with a bag of potato chips and eat all of it. I crave salt too, which leads to water retention.

I am about over the carb cravings after a week of staying true to the diet. I haven't cheated once. Yesterday I used a ketostik and I am in deep ketosis so I should see results pretty quick now.

[sgreger1]

Christi, me and you are in a similar position. I'm not fat but have gained quite a bit of plumpness since I got backf rom the army and quit exercising. I don't eat any sugar and rarely drink soda but I massively overdo it with the carbs.


I researched weight loss pills and have found that none of them work, or the side effects are too much to handle, or the weight comes back on once you stop.

I have been going to the gym and this has been helping. For sustained weight loss, the best thing to do is work out lightly on a regular basis and try to not eat too many carbs.

One thing i'd like to point out is that the Atkins frenzy a few years ago proved how dangerous restricting carb intake can be. Watching your carbs and cutting down is healthy, but starving your body of this vital energy source is not good and will not lead to sustained weight loss or low-weight maintenance.

Just execise a little and cut down the carb SOME and you should be good after a month or two.

[tom502]

sgreg- While I mainly agree with you about politics, I think you are wrong here about carbs. Carbs have no RDA, and are nonessential. You don't "have" to eat carbs at all. Protein and fat have RDA and are essential. The body takes all it needs from that. Now, I do not think it needed to halt all carbs, or that carbs, in general are "bad". They do provide nutriants, and such, but they are not needed by the body. Of course the quality of carbs is of utmost importance, the best being the lower glycemic vegetables. So, I don't see a need to recommend total abstinence of all carbs, it's not factual to say it's "dangerous" to eliminate them, if one so desired.

This site has a lot of info, and a forum:
http://zeroinginonhealth.com/

[sgreger1]

Tom, while your right about RDA's, carbs are integral to several other functions in the body. For example, lab tests have proven that lack of adequate carbs destroys arteries.

Also, carbs help regulate blood-sugar levels which is particularly important for diabetics, but also important for the rest of us.


Lowering carb intake is good for several reasons but like anything,moderation and balance is always key. Completely restricting the body of carbs is not any healthier or better for loosing weight than just eating small portions of GOOD carbs and otherwise eating healthy.

Another issue I have with the atkins diet is that it seems to promote low/no carbs but high saturated fat or whatever else you want. Again, balance is necessary.

Eat restricted amounts good carbs and eat healthy in general and youll be fine without starving your body for the carbs it wants.



Also, more importantly than any other argument regarding carbs: Carbs rock and are great tasting, send me to the grave with my pasta and footlong subs. :lol:

[RedMacGregor]

i recommend this book: http://www.amazon.com/Primal-Bluepri.../dp/0982207700

it's a lower-carb affair, but much easier to maintain than Fatkins or the other programs..

[sgreger1]

Several health officials including the Surgeon General, The American College of Nutrition, Chief health officers of some states, the chair of Harvards nutrition department, the American Medical Association, American Diabetic Association, the National Academy of Sciences, have all said that Atkins or extreme carb restriction diets are "unhealthy and can be dangerous."

Here are some quotes from the above states health institutions reagrding Atkins:

"A careful scientific appraisal was carried out by several council and staff members, aided by outside consultants. It became apparent that the [Atkins] diet as recommended poses a serious threat to health."

"Although you can lose weight on these nutritionally unsound diets, you do so at the risk of your health and even your life."

"Of all the bizarre diets that have been proposed in the last 50 years, this is the most dangerous to the public if followed for any length of time."




The American Cancer Society; and the American Heart Association; and the Cleveland Clinic; and Johns Hopkins; and the American Kidney Fund; and the American College of Sports Medicine; and the National Institutes of Health also agree the diet is dangerous and not recommended for anyone.

Just throwing that out there.

[tom502]

There is a political bias against carb restriction. The "doctors" and "dieticians" all promote a high carb diet, yet the scientific studies show that carb restriction generates the best health, and are not needed at all.

Ignore this site link has "bible" in it, as it really has some great backed up evidence to support what I have said. And again, while in "diet", you will find conflicting ideas, all with studies and quotes to back them up, they do all generally agree that we should should not be eating refined carbs, like flour, sugar, hfcs... etc.

http://www.biblelife.org/myths.htm

[sgreger1]

Why would they promote high carb diets? Everything i've read says cutting bad carbs is good but to excessively cut carbs while eating whatever else you want is dangerous.


There have been studies proving both sides, most leaning more heavily towards the "it's bad" view.

Atkins performs about the same as other diets:

In a comparison study done by Dansinger and colleagues (2005), the goal was to compare popular diets like Atkins, Ornish, Weight Watchers, and Zone for the amount of weight lost and a heart disease risk reduction. In the study there were 247 individuals and it lasted for 1 year. All the subjects were overweight at baseline, and had an increased risk for cardiac diseases. One of the diets was assigned to each person. [45] The Atkins diet group ate 20g of CHO a day, with an increase to 50g a day gradually. The Zone group ate a 40-30-30 % diet of carbohydrates, fats and proteins respectively. The Weight Watchers group was to keep the “points” of their food in a determined range, based on their weight. The Ornish group ate a vegetarian diet with 10% of calories coming from fats. The weight, waist size, blood pressure, and a blood sample were taken, at the beginning, after 2 months, 6 months and 12 months. All four diets resulted in weight loss with no significant difference between the diets.[46]



Dr. Robert Eckel of the American Heart Association says that high-protein, low-carbohydrate diets put people at risk of heart disease.[47] A long term study published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2006 found that women reduced heart disease risk by eating more protein and fat from vegetable sources.[48]
A 2001 scientific review conducted by Freedman et al. and published in the peer reviewed scientific journal Obesity Research concluded that low-carb dieters' initial advantage in weight loss was a result of increased water loss, and that after the initial period, low-carbohydrate diets produce similar fat loss to other diets with similar caloric intake.[49]
The May 2004 Annals of Internal Medicine study showed that "minor adverse effects" of diarrhea, general weakness, rashes and muscle cramps "were more frequent in the low-carbohydrate diet group".



Opponents of the diet also point out that the initial weight loss upon starting the diet is a phenomenon common with most diets, and is due to reduction in stored glycogen and related water in muscles, not fat loss. They say that no evidence has surfaced that any diet will cause weight loss unless it reduces food energy (calories) below the maintenance level and that weight loss from the Atkins diet may be the result of less food energy being consumed by the dieter, rather than the lack of carbohydrates.[50] They further point out that weight loss on fad diets, which typically restrict or prohibit certain foods, is often because the dieter has fewer food choices available.