 Tidbits from Tabekats Induction Journey. | |
Tidbits from Tabekats Induction journey.  Lack will power? Are you spineless and weak? YOU are perfect for Atkins!
Failed at low fat diets? Compulsive eater? Addicted to sweets? Then you are perfect for the Atkins lifestyle and I was too. I have no willpower at all. Absolutely none! I’m weak and spineless. But I am able to stick to Atkins because ketosis curbed my unwholesome cravings for carbage. It really is amazing. If you do a CLEAN induction you will soon find yourself slipping into that wonderful state of being where the body gets to do what it wants to for a change. After a few weeks in ketosis you will find yourself regaining the ability to control what you eat. It is a natural result of eating nutritious and healthy food on a regular basis, thereby allowing your body to do what it does best – run a fuel efficient vehicle. No willpower is required. If you have lost all respect for yourself, then Atkins is for you! How EGGS become doughnuts: As a former compulsive carbojunker, I used to crave doughnuts for breakfast. Having eggs every single day was a new thing to me. When you have been on induction for awhile you will no doubt run into the “I’m so sick of eggs if I have to eat another one I’m going to sprout feathers and start saying peep, peep, peep” kind of day. This is the point in your program where you will be tempted to quit. But do not do so. Keep eating eggs. Once ketosis kicks in completely your palate will alter and believe it or not, eggs will become one of the breakfasts you crave. You won’t want to start the day without them, and you won’t get tired of them either. I have had eggs every single day for the past year and I absolutely love them. Of course I vary them. Scrambled, boiled, over medium, quiche, casseroles, omelets, the mock danish, stir fry, etc. etc. etc. I also have some favorites I made up myself. I love to make tuna patties or salmon patties. They cook just like a pancake and taste wonderfully crunchy and sweet. Eggs are now my doughnuts. All the scales in the world are broken: As an Atkineer, you may as well get used to the fact that all the scales in the world are broken. I went from a size 22 to a size 16 and no scale showed a weight loss. Nevertheless, when I went to Ross to buy a new pair of jeans, I was astounded to discover the plus sizes would no longer fit me and the same thing is going to happen to you. You can lose inches and even drop down complete sizes and still remain the exact same weight on the scale. In the past, no doubt during another low fat diet, you learned to use the scale to tell your daily fortune. If it dipped down you felt good about yourself but then would wonder why it wasn’t a bigger dip. If it dipped up you felt awful about yourself and decided a good solution for your depression was to binge immediately, after all, the scale claims you are fatter anyway right? And if you stay the same, you don’t know whether to be mad, sad or glad… Ladies and gentleman I submit to you that using a clunky metal machine to determine our self worth for the day is a masochistic ritual that needs to take a flying leap out of our life. There are other kinds of weight we want to lose. The heavy, heavy burden of self defeating rituals that undermine our best efforts to change is definately something good to lose. Stay off the scale. Determine your own destiny.
How did such a nice person become such an unreasonable tyrant? Time and again I see a newbie posting that they have been on Atkins for 3 days and haven’t lost ____ pounds so they are giving up. It is such a tragedy. We may be nice to our neighbors, devoted to our families, spiritual and pious people. But we are unreasonable tyrants when it comes to our body. No doubt, in an effort to lost weight, you have put your innocent body through ****. I know I did. Always starving and binging. My poor body had no reason to trust me. For this reason my body hunkered down and said “this lady is crazy, I’m not releasing any of my fat stores because heaven knows what awful thing she will do to me next!” When you start Atkins your body gets very hopeful. “Hey…wow - we have food here. Nutritious food too. Food that doesn’t force me to keep shunting crappy fat all over the place. Neato.. I like this. But hey, how long is she going to keep this up? I better hang on to my fat stores until I know for sure they will continue to be replaced.” It takes time to build a new relationship with your body. After all, this engine has been your prisoner for a long time. The engine is waiting to see if you are going to keep giving it steady fuel. It needs your loving patience. It is not appropriate to tell this body that has served you so long and so well, through all kinds of wacky treatment, that it only has 3 days to meet your egotistical demands for weight loss or you will go back to abusing it again. Let your body relax, be fed, be renewed, do some healing. Allow your body to set its own time frame for weight loss. There are lots of exciting processes taking place when you stop filling your tank with carbage and start giving it high grade fuel. Just because you can’t see what your ego has decided is visible evidence of progress, that doesn’t mean it isn’t happening. Ideally, stick to Atkins for a good 3 to 6 months before forming any conclusions.
“Woo Hoo – we are living high on the hog now!”  One way to reassure your body that you are not going to become an unreasonable tyrant again is to give it a chemical signal through the mouth that it is being fed well. When your body gets a taste of butter and meat fat or chicken skin on your tongue, it knows it ain’t starving, it is living the high life!!! I know, having come from the world of low fat diets, that eating butter and fat and chicken skin seems as wicked and indulgent as it gets. But honestly, when I was adhering to a low fat diet, I just got fatter. It may be 2006 to us, but as far as our body is concerned nothing has changed, we are still caveman savages surviving outside in a world full of predators. The body has no concept of a full refrigerator. Back then our dining options were limited. It pretty much came down to scrabbling for plants and meat. So our body learned to prevent starvation by wringing as much nutrition as possible out of those measly options. So now, our body it is counting on us to provide some fat in our diet for our own survival. When we deny our body the stuff it needs for survival it gets confused. And when we give it a bunch of wacky carbage that it can’t reasonably convert to something useful, it really gets confused.
Eat a little bit of butter, enjoy some of the fat. Your body knows exactly what to do with these substances to benefit us the most. Reassure your body that it will be fed well on a continual basis and it will reward you by eventually releasing the fat stores it doesn’t need. “Hello, my name is Tabekat, I’m a carb addict” When it comes to carbs we are no different from people who struggle with other addictions. I find myself astonished by Atkineers who write that they just made a big carbage laden dinner and/or treats for their family, church, kids, pta, poker game, charity, whatever, and then expect to continue to cook this way and maintain an Atkins way of life. If you knew someone was an alcoholic would you invite him to be the bartender at your tupperware party? Well don’t do it to yourself either. Our health is our number one priority. Don’t volunteer to participate in situations that could tempt you to stray.
Over-processed food and sugar aren’t good for anyone; it is not just a problem for Atkineers. Think about the ever increasing junk food aisles in the grocery store. How about drive-ins? Do they care about making easy money or our health? Don't be duped.
If we hope to have a prayer of making this a permanent lifestyle for ourselves we need to make a genuine effort to stay away from the situations where we are surrounded by unwelcome carbage without appropriate food choices for ourselves. This means cooking our own food. This means meal preparation ahead of time. This means accountability for ourselves and not allowing our families or anyone else to sabotage our diet. They will not understand what is at stake. We must be assertive about sticking to our Atkins lifestyle. Y es, even with our spouse, our family, the people we work with, the people we go to church with and our friends. People are very likely to be supportive to us when they see us taking our program seriously. Adapt your lifestyle to Atkins, and not the other way around. This means not volunteering to bake cakes for the county fair. If you wish to volunteer, how about doing it at the ADBB? Let someone else be the baker. Love yourself.
Fight for this WOL. You are worth it. Shifting BULK from the external to the internal Some argue that this lifestyle is expensive. It could be unless you learn to buy in BULK. I like to go to Costco, however there are many other good places where you can buy in bulk. I buy a package of tuna – 24 cans, a package of salmon, 7 cans, a package of hamburgers, 30, a package of chicken breasts, about 16 of them. I buy bulk packages of butter, cream cheese and cheese. Lasts me anywhere from 6 weeks to 2 months. Costco also has jumbo packs of veggies, I like the broccoli and the mushroom packs, lasts me at least 2 weeks, maybe longer. It takes some practice to learn how to shop for this WOL. Get serious about it and learn to scout for good bargains on meat. With practice, you will save money on your food budget. Think how much you used to spend on junk food and eating out? Trust me, Atkins is going to save you lots of money in the long run. Allow your mind to play tricks on you I believe that one of the keys to success on this WOL is to learn how to substitute healthy food for former snacks. Instead of chips I like to eat chopped jicama. Now I know what you are going to say. There is no way your mind is not going to know the difference between a piece of jicama and a salty chip and you are right. At first, you do it because Dr Atkins said to do it. Then you do it because you want to do it. Attitude is everything. Allow yourself to be fooled. If you keep eating the substitutions your mind will become accustomed to the habit and it won’t continue
to fight you about it forever and ever. The day will come when you will even prefer the low carb substitutions to the original, and you will especially enjoy snacking without guilt, knowing these particular foods are nurturing your body rather than putting it in the grave. Most junk foods are ridiculous variations on what was once, a healthy food anyway. Don’t be a slave to over-processed commercialized snacks. Stick to fresh and healthy food. There are many, many substitutions used by Atkineers. Cauliflower for rice, Spaghetti Squash for pasta, the Mock Danish for sweets. And many, many more. There are low carb substitutions for just about any recipe you can think of. If you check online you will find numerous good websites about low carbing, many of them by gourmet cooks. You don’t have to do without on this WOL. Never allow yourself to feel desprived. You never have to go hungry again. The wiser but sadder Atkineer for me
I often read submissions from newbies who announce that they have cheated on induction and therefore have decided their induction is done for and there is no choice except to give up and go back to carbo junking. This behavior is just another crazy leftover from the low fat dieting world. Sometimes when we cheat we have a strange and humorous strategy in order to cope with it. We decide that it is ok to cheat as long as we have the decency to feel guilty about it. Guilt however, does not empower us to change. Quite the opposite in fact. The more guilty we feel, the more likely we are to keep cheating. But you know what does empower change? Eating well my friends.
Eating regular meals with delicious foods. One of the very best and exciting things about Atkins is that it offers a guilt free life. Think about yourself chowing down crab and butter, bacon and eggs, surf and turf, ham and cheese etc, etc, etc, with no guilt whatsoever!!! Your associates will be viewing you with envious eyes.
So if you cheat, be accountable, skip the guilt, and find empowerment by returning to induction with your very next bite. Dwelling on a mistake is a complete waste of time and energy.
Forget regret or life is yours to miss.
Don't buy into theories that limit you. Your own true love Those of us who have weight issues often speak to ourselves in a negative and derogatory manner. And yet we are kind people who would never put down anyone else, or even our pets, so why do we berate ourselves? I have learned that being kind and speaking lovingly to ourselves is vitally important to our Atkins program. Accept yourself and love yourself for who you are right in this very moment, and resist setting up conditional rungs before you are allowed to have your own love .
We might say to ourselves, I will love myself after I reach a particular size or fit into that dress. But the time to love ourselves is now – this very moment.
Our lifelong romance in life is always going to be with ourselves. We are our own true love. When you feel tempted to stray from your Atkins program remind yourself that you love yourself completely and always will and that is why you choose to nuture yourself with good food and water. My friends, good luck with your induction. Atkins is the right choice. You will find miracles happening for you everyday if you embrace this way of life as your own.
I know it seems impossible. It seemed impossible to me too. Stick to a clean induction and watch the impossible become possible.
Know that there are always kind and helpful monitors here to help you find your way. No one is judging anyone else. We are all different and unique flowers in loves garden. You are not alone.  Love, Tabekat ***Tabekats views are a reflection of her own personal opinion and her own experience with the Atkins adventure and no one elses. She is not an expert
but she is an enthusiast and she knows how to make a mean mock danish!
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__________________ Suffering is necessary until you realize it is unnecessary. Eckhart Tolle   ] Female, 48, 5'3
SW 207 / CW 165/ GW 150
Started Atkins 1st Feb 2005
Still holding at a happy size 16.
Last edited by tabekat; August 20th, 2006 at 01:48 AM.
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February 3rd, 2006, 10:30 PM
Amazing post Tabekat!
, 5'9
TWICE!!!! (10/06 and 1/07!!!)
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