3 lbs down already but I have a few questions

[ariesdragon]

Okay - I couldn't wait to weigh myself on Sunday (my 1 week point) so I weighed today and this is working for me. 3lbs down! What I really like so far is the lack of hunger - and I'm only eating 1200 cals/day. It's so nice to treat myself to scrambled eggs with cream or a cheese and mushroom omelette for breakfast. A little problem with constipation. I tried psyllium husks in water and nearly threw up - that's torture - so I gave up on that and am just downing my water at every opportunity. I'll have to seek out something in pill form I can just swallow. The taste of metamucil is nauseating . I just ordered some chocoperfection bars online which have 12g fiber/bar so hopefully that will help

Btw - I'm still getting acquainted with this site and for some reason everytime I tried to upload my pic it gets rejected (I've tried a few different ones). I will have to explore the site better and read up on site navigation.

[Elizellen]

I moved your post out of the other thread so it is not overlooked, I hope you don't mind

Originally Posted by ariesdragon

Okay - I couldn't wait to weigh myself on Sunday (my 1 week point) so I weighed today and this is working for me. 3lbs down! What I really like so far is the lack of hunger - and I'm only eating 1200 cals/day. It's so nice to treat myself to scrambled eggs with cream or a cheese and mushroom omelette for breakfast.

Congratulations on your loss so far
I am glad you are experiencing some of the other benefits of Atkins too and enjoying the food

A little problem with constipation. I tried psyllium husks in water and nearly threw up

I used to mix mine with mayo and have them with chopped celery for a snack - really could not taste them at all. There are also some recipes around that use them.

I just ordered some chocoperfection bars online which have 12g fiber/bar so hopefully that will help

make sure you check the list of ingredients before usign them, to make sure they only contain 'allowed' ingredients. You might need to save them for when you have reached the OWL rung that allows all the ingredients. I looked online and they seem to be more than half cocoa (which is a nut) as well as cocoa butter (made from a nut) neither of which are induction friendly. Though some people do use a little unsweetened cocoa powder on induction treating it as a spice, for using anything more than a spoonful you really should wait till OWL rung 3

Btw - I'm still getting acquainted with this site and for some reason everytime I tried to upload my pic it gets rejected (I've tried a few different ones).

It might be too big. Try resizing it to about 600 pixels wide and see if that has helped.

[Lyssie]

When I have that "problem", I eat flaxseed... mix about 2T with some heavy cream, half a pkt of splenda, and some cinnamon, microwave for about 30 seconds... it tastes kind of like oatmeal.. but you have to eat it before it gets cold. There are lots of other recipes that are with flaxseed as well.

[ariesdragon]

Lyssie - that sounds like an excellent idea with the ground falx seed. I will try that. Thankyou very much!

[not2late]

RE: the chocoperfection bars......

What kind of fiber is in them? Psyllium husks, flax seed, and wheat bran are bulk-forming laxatives. That is they swell up when exposed to water. When these products are in your intestines, they absorb the water and swell. That "bulk" stimulates your intestines to move things along.

These bulk-forming laxatives are also known as "insoluble fiber", meaning they don't dissolve in water. As opposed to "soluble fiber", which do dissolve in water and don't form any "bulk" to move things along "down there".

So check what kind of fiber those choco bars have. If it's mainly soluble fiber, they won't get things moving as efficiently as insoluble fiber like psyllium.

[ariesdragon]

Elizellen - thankyou for moving my post! Unfortunately, even the thought of psyllium husks makes me want to throw up now. My stomach is turning as I sit here . There's something about the smell (my sense of smell is very acute). I will try ground flax seed - I have some in my fridge.
I am so excited about eating this way!! I feel better already and its nutritionally sound - I love that there's growing scientific and epidemiological support for low-carb eating. To think we were all fooled by the 'low-fat/high carb' message for so long.

E

[ariesdragon]

Not2late: good point - I'll go check the site. I know they went into considerable detail re. the nutritional content.

E

[ariesdragon]

Not2late: I think you have it backward. Psyllium is primarily soluble fiber, as is flax. The chocoperfection contain soluble fiber.

E

[Elizellen]

It beats me how they arrive at the nutrition info when I look at the list of ingredients.

I looked up Lecithin to see if it is soluble fibre, but it appears to be some kind of fat, so I think the fibre in this must be from the cocoa (a nut) and the sweeteners used.
I found that 'cocoa solids' probably means cocoa powde as they specify cocoa butter as a seperate ingredient (here http://patric-chocolate.blogspot.com/2008/03/chocolate-and-percentages-what-does-it.html)

“Cocoa solids” is the really tricky term. It also has no legally defined meaning and some companies apparently use it to signify the same thing as cocoa content—again butter, beans, and powder—but other companies use it to signify only cocoa powder, or more accurately, the non-fat solid portion of the cocoa bean--and this is how I have seen the term used by most people.

I looked up how many grams in unsweetened cocoa powder and found that 1 ounce of that (assuming that 50-60% of 1.8 ounces might be about 1 ounce) has 17 grams of carbohydrate including 5.7 grams of fiber, making a net count of 11.3 grams.

So even with them deducting the oligofructose and the erythritol carbs I haven't a clue how they arrive at their net carb count of 2 when there would still be the net carbs from the cocoa powder

Anyway as it contains nuts I would wait till you reach the nuts/seeds rung of OWL rather than add it during induction.

[not2late]

Aries, you are correct. I did screw it up...however, psyllium, flax and wheat bran contain both soluble and insoluble fiber.

It's too early to do math ( ) but even looking at the nutritional info, the fat cals + carb cals + protein cals don't seem to add up to the total calories listed.