A few Newbie-Questions from a confused Continental European

[dadi]

So, I have spent most of the last day reading through the forum, and found a lot of excellent advice, and answers to several questions which were clouding my brain. But, I have a few more, and haven't found any topic dealing with those until now, so I'd be glad if some of you more experienced people maybe can enlighten me! I also have not yet read "THE" book, because I live in Europe and it takes Amazon quite some time to deliver over here, alas! I can't wait to hold it in my chubby little hands.

So, here come the questions. I am on day 4 of induction, and have lost 2 pounds so far (all on the first day, nothing after that, but I do feel a bit lighter around the waist, and I also have been exercising, so I think this is normal).

1. I have EXTREMELY low blood pressure at the best of times (80/55) and the combination low carb/no caffeine kills me dead. The first two days I actually risked passing out several times because I tried to avoid caffeine. I don't drink a lot of coffee usually, only when I feel the pressure going down dangerously, but over the last few days I had to drink at least two cups a day, otherwise I could not stand upright. I don't even like the stuff, I only take it "as a medicine", but if I want to be halfway functional, I have to resort to it, alas. So, does this somehow impact on my possible weight loss? I was not able to find anything about that! (I put a drop or two of liquid sweetener into it).

2. I have gone through what I have seen refered to "induction flu" after about 24 hours, with headache, foggy head, weakness, etc. This has settled mostly down, but there is another symptom which turned up together with the flu, and to which I can't find any reference anywhere: a dry, nervous cough which is more a shortness of breath and the feeling of my lungs being filled up with something than a symptom of a respiratory infection. As this is the 3rd day of the cough now, and it has neither gotten worse nor better, I thought I'd ask if anybody else has experienced something like that. It is not always there, I have been completely ok while jogging (not coughed once), I don't cough during the night, and also not all the time during the day, but when it starts, it lasts for quite some time. It doesn't hurt at all, it is just strange.

3. Measures and conversions: I am certainly having a few problems with this.. I have found tables where the quantities are also expressed in liters and kilograms, but most receipes obviously give them in cups and ounces, and I REALLY can't get how much a cup of salad greens would be.. I usually eat enormous amounts of salad and other vegetables, and this is one of the hardest aspects of this diet for me, much more than renouncing the bread (I am gluten intolerant anyway, so usually don't eat much of that), and I am having a hard time to find out how much of my beloved raw veggies I can still eat. Any advice is welcome.. for example, a picture showing a bowl or a normal dish with a cup of greens on them so I can get an idea! My conversion chart says 0,25 liters, but I can't imagine salad in liters either! HELP

4. Always in the conversion cathegory, could it be that a few items in the food list, even if they have the same name, have different carb contents in Europe and the US? Example, mozzarella. The one I buy gives on its consumer information 1 g carbs per 100 g produce. One mozzarella weights 125 gram, therefore if I eat one at each meal (I love them and particularly at breakfast they allow me to CHEW something, I used to eat an enormous bowl of fresh crunchy fruit, *cry* before I started this diet..). But most of the US food lists give much higher amounts for mozzarella, so how can I know how much of it I can eat? (Also, how much is a cup of mozzarella? Again, I can't imagine anything with the volume measurement!)

5. Last but not least, I feel rather jumpy (not in a bad mood, just in a state of constant agitation) most of the time, also during the night, and am sleeping VERY badly (due also to the fact that I have constantly to get up and ..unload.. the water take on during the day. I have a light sleep even at the best of times, the last three nights I felt like I didn't sleep at all (don't feel too tired though, only this strange wrought-up-ness). Will this go away? Or am I doing something wrong?

My basic daily menu is 2 scrambled eggs and 1 sliced mozzarella for breakfast, grilled chicken and salad for lunch, celery or cucumber slices and a few cubes of swiss cheese in the afternoon, cauliflower or broccoli or cabbage with bacon, 1 egg and a slice or two of swiss cheese or similar in the evening. I do drink at least half a gallon of water during the day, a big pot of tea in the morning and a diet coke during the day.

Thank you for any advice and sorry for the language errors, English is only my third language..!

[momtomany1]

If you can't go without the coffee, don't for now. It won't impact your loss if it doesn't give you cravings. I went without and now I am going 'with' and it doesn't affect my loss either way.

We can buy mozzarella sticks here, and one 1 oz stick is about the size of an adult middle finger. Does that help? Roll your slice and compare, probably getting an oz a slice, or a little less. Salad veggies, if you can picture a baseball sized bunch of leafy greens, that is roughly a cup.

In induction you personally might need to watch the cauliflower, cabbage, broccoli. Those are all veggies we are limited to 1 cup of if we only had two cups of salad veggies. One cup will be around fist sized. You will be able to add another serving back in when you hit ongoing weight loss 'rung 1' which you can do right after your two week induction period.

Menu looks good, the cough should not be Atkins related. Keep an eye on that, might need to get it checked.

What supplements are you taking? You might consider adding some supps for the jumpiness. A good multi plus a good hi potency B-complex.. B's for your nerves. You should have extra energy, but not feel 'nerved up.'

You are doing fine with your English, hope we can continue to help you!

[brightstar7801]

Originally Posted by dadi

So, I have spent most of the last day reading through the forum, and found a lot of excellent advice, and answers to several questions which were clouding my brain. But, I have a few more, and haven't found any topic dealing with those until now, so I'd be glad if some of you more experienced people maybe can enlighten me! I also have not yet read "THE" book, because I live in Europe and it takes Amazon quite some time to deliver over here, alas! I can't wait to hold it in my chubby little hands.

So, here come the questions. I am on day 4 of induction, and have lost 2 pounds so far (all on the first day, nothing after that, but I do feel a bit lighter around the waist, and I also have been exercising, so I think this is normal).

1. I have EXTREMELY low blood pressure at the best of times (80/55) and the combination low carb/no caffeine kills me dead. The first two days I actually risked passing out several times because I tried to avoid caffeine. I don't drink a lot of coffee usually, only when I feel the pressure going down dangerously, but over the last few days I had to drink at least two cups a day, otherwise I could not stand upright. I don't even like the stuff, I only take it "as a medicine", but if I want to be halfway functional, I have to resort to it, alas. So, does this somehow impact on my possible weight loss? I was not able to find anything about that! (I put a drop or two of liquid sweetener into it).

2. I have gone through what I have seen refered to "induction flu" after about 24 hours, with headache, foggy head, weakness, etc. This has settled mostly down, but there is another symptom which turned up together with the flu, and to which I can't find any reference anywhere: a dry, nervous cough which is more a shortness of breath and the feeling of my lungs being filled up with something than a symptom of a respiratory infection. As this is the 3rd day of the cough now, and it has neither gotten worse nor better, I thought I'd ask if anybody else has experienced something like that. It is not always there, I have been completely ok while jogging (not coughed once), I don't cough during the night, and also not all the time during the day, but when it starts, it lasts for quite some time. It doesn't hurt at all, it is just strange.

3. Measures and conversions: I am certainly having a few problems with this.. I have found tables where the quantities are also expressed in liters and kilograms, but most receipes obviously give them in cups and ounces, and I REALLY can't get how much a cup of salad greens would be.. I usually eat enormous amounts of salad and other vegetables, and this is one of the hardest aspects of this diet for me, much more than renouncing the bread (I am gluten intolerant anyway, so usually don't eat much of that), and I am having a hard time to find out how much of my beloved raw veggies I can still eat. Any advice is welcome.. for example, a picture showing a bowl or a normal dish with a cup of greens on them so I can get an idea! My conversion chart says 0,25 liters, but I can't imagine salad in liters either! HELP

4. Always in the conversion cathegory, could it be that a few items in the food list, even if they have the same name, have different carb contents in Europe and the US? Example, mozzarella. The one I buy gives on its consumer information 1 g carbs per 100 g produce. One mozzarella weights 125 gram, therefore if I eat one at each meal (I love them and particularly at breakfast they allow me to CHEW something, I used to eat an enormous bowl of fresh crunchy fruit, *cry* before I started this diet..). But most of the US food lists give much higher amounts for mozzarella, so how can I know how much of it I can eat? (Also, how much is a cup of mozzarella? Again, I can't imagine anything with the volume measurement!)

5. Last but not least, I feel rather jumpy (not in a bad mood, just in a state of constant agitation) most of the time, also during the night, and am sleeping VERY badly (due also to the fact that I have constantly to get up and ..unload.. the water take on during the day. I have a light sleep even at the best of times, the last three nights I felt like I didn't sleep at all (don't feel too tired though, only this strange wrought-up-ness). Will this go away? Or am I doing something wrong?

My basic daily menu is 2 scrambled eggs and 1 sliced mozzarella for breakfast, grilled chicken and salad for lunch, celery or cucumber slices and a few cubes of swiss cheese in the afternoon, cauliflower or broccoli or cabbage with bacon, 1 egg and a slice or two of swiss cheese or similar in the evening. I do drink at least half a gallon of water during the day, a big pot of tea in the morning and a diet coke during the day.

Thank you for any advice and sorry for the language errors, English is only my third language..!

You know what your symptoms sound a lot like Adrenal fatigue. I have a lot of those symptoms and I was diagnosed with Adrenal fatigue after I had a serious car accident.

Do you get your best sleep between 7-9 am in the morning?
Do you find that if you don't get to bed by 11 you get a burst of energy and will want to stay up until 1 am or later?
Do you crave salty things most a lot of the time?

These are just a few of the symptoms. I know you are encouraged to stay away from salt, but I was staying away from salt and I was miserable. I felt bloated even though I was drinking tons of water. So after I found out about the adrenal fatigue I started drinking water with 2.5 ml to 5ml of sea salt (not the regular table salt). Since I've been doing that I have felt loads better. I can usually tell when I've had enough salt because when I first start to drink the salted water I can't even taste the salt. When I can taste salt in the water I know I've had enough and then I don't need to salt it anymore. I drink regular water until I get that bloated feeling again. It's a fine balance though.

As for sleep a half hour before bed you might want to have a snack with fat and protein. I usually wrap a piece of bacon around a slice of cheese. Also I take adrenal support vitamins (I know one brand here in the states is called from fatigued to fantastic).

[dadi]

Thank you SO much, this was really helpful! I am taking a supplement, because of the celiacy I have always to take supplement since I can't eat a lot of things. But I never thought about the B supplement, since I thought eating eggs and meat would provide me with enough of that. Right now I will go and shop for it!
Argh for the cauliflower&co. I definitely had more than a fist sized portion. Need to scale down on that therefore. *sigh* I'd never think I'd arrive to CRAVE more veggies! (and don't get me started on the tomatoes.. life without tomatoes in Italy is a SAD life!)

[Georgiana]

1. Different people react differently to caffeine. For me, it does not seem to affect my weight loss, but I am not sure how much I would lose if I gave up coffee. You seem to know what you're doing, but did you try eating more sodium and less potassium for dealing with hypotension? Are you taking any medicines?

2. I do not think the cough is related to Atkins, unless you drink no water... but you'd have to be on a mission to do this. I would see a doctor if I were you.

3. This post (How To Measure Foods Properly) should help.

4. You are supposed to eat at most 4 oz of cheese per day, even if these 4 ounces have less than 4 carbs. 4 oz are equivalent to about 100 g, so eating a mozzarela at every meal is not allowed during induction (sorry, I know this is awful... ).

5. This is typical during induction. It will go away after some time. I remember I gave up my alarm clock last semester while I was on induction, because I was up at 6 anyway.

Regarding food sizes... A slice of cheese typically has 1 oz (not the one cut by you, but the one packed in slices ). In cheese cubes, one ounce is about the size of 4 regular dices. Here's a website that might also help you with this:
NAAP - Seven Ways to Size Up Your Servings | Department Of Medicine

To measure a cup of something, I use a 8 oz glass (1 cup = 8 oz). So just take a 225 ml glass, fill it with 'stuff', and you have a cup of that 'stuff'.

[Elizellen]

For veg you can use Soliwit's thread called 'weight per cup of vegetables' among the sticky threads at the top of this forum and get the weights of a cup and parts of a cup of all induction veg.

[dadi]

Originally Posted by brightstar7801

You know what your symptoms sound a lot like Adrenal fatigue. I have a lot of those symptoms and I was diagnosed with Adrenal fatigue after I had a serious car accident.

Do you get your best sleep between 7-9 am in the morning?
Do you find that if you don't get to bed by 11 you get a burst of energy and will want to stay up until 1 am or later?
Do you crave salty things most a lot of the time?

These are just a few of the symptoms. I know you are encouraged to stay away from salt, but I was staying away from salt and I was miserable. I felt bloated even though I was drinking tons of water. So after I found out about the adrenal fatigue I started drinking water with 2.5 ml to 5ml of sea salt (not the regular table salt). Since I've been doing that I have felt loads better. I can usually tell when I've had enough salt because when I first start to drink the salted water I can't even taste the salt. When I can taste salt in the water I know I've had enough and then I don't need to salt it anymore. I drink regular water until I get that bloated feeling again. It's a fine balance though.

As for sleep a half hour before bed you might want to have a snack with fat and protein. I usually wrap a piece of bacon around a slice of cheese. Also I take adrenal support vitamins (I know one brand here in the states is called from fatigued to fantastic).

Thank you dear! Fortunately (because I already have quite enough syndromes and intolerances) what you describe is not my case! I usually sleep well from 11 pm to 3 am, and then the trouble starts. I can for the love of my life not stay in bed after 6.30 am! And I don't like salt at all.. I usually find most food prepared by others too salty!