Day 11 and Ready to Give Up!

[JulieB]

Are you weighing/measuring your food? It would be really helpful if you posted amounts when you post your menus...
Just trying to help you find/avoid problems:
The bacon bits...are they "real" (check the ingredients). Did you count the carbs in your herbs/spices? Do you know all of the words they use in ingredient lists that mean sugar (my favorites include: evaporated cane juice, corn syrup, dextrose, fructose, honey, molasses...there are 20+)
Did you cook the fish yourself (i.e. do you know what's in the spices/coating??)

[psychoschoolgirl]

Those are some great points. I need to pay more attention to spices. I have started weighing my food. I did not do this in the beginning. I bought a food scale.
I have decided to not eat dairy since it is optional and see if that changes anything.

Again, thanks for all the encouragement!

[wellkept32]

Please dont quit. Try again. It took me 6 times and this is my lucky 7th time and I am doing it. C'mon we can all do this today. Remember post post post.... lots of luck we r cheering for ya

[keriann_forgoodthistime]

hi there!!! just wanted to give you my own $.02 cents...

like everyone else has said, PLEASE don't give up. from someone who has been "obsessed" with her weight for YEARS this is the ONLY thing I've finally found that WORKS that I like doing. I've done low-fat for so long - as well as weight watchers - and even lost a LOT...but I ALWAYS ended up gaining back. why? well because i never knew "why" i was eating low fat.

granted - i was always told by "them" (the so-called health experts and the gov't) that "fat is bad" "carbs are good" blah blah blah...

I've been doing this now for 6 months and can't tell you how INCREDIBLE life is! I no longer OBSESS over food or points or calories...and I've lost 26 pounds!!!! Now, granted, that's NOT a lot compared to some people - specially those who lose that during induction alone - but the way I look at it? If I'd have given up when I kept getting frustrated, I'd have not only not lost 26 pounds - but more'n likely I'd be UP a lot of pounds from where I started at 196 instead of being at 170 where I am now.
There've been weeks upon weeks throughout this when I didn't lose an ounce - but then I WOOSH and it's gone.

Do you want that? You want to stop living healthy - go back to eating processed junk and end up weighing even MORE?!!!! I know I would never do that.

Look - it DOES get frustrating at times - it DOES get hard - but nothing worth it in life has EVER been easy.

Low carb / no sugar truly IS the way to live. and i'm not saying you're not allowed to treat yourself in the future - but for now you need to learn to do the rules of atkins the way they're written and realize WHY you're eating this way.

check out Jimmy Moore's websites (i'm obsessed with his podcasts!!!) The Livin' La Vida Low-Carb Show With Jimmy Moore and you'll learn WHY our bodies don't need processed junk food and WHY fat IS good for you.

You HAVE to change your perspective on this and realize that you're NOT doing this just to lose weight. Whole unprocessed foods (yup - even those / ESPECIALLY those with FAT) is how humans were meant to eat. SUGAR while it is "natural" has soooooooooo many ways to be processed - and I don't get now why a 100 calorie pack is "a healthy snack option" when an avocado - which is naturally grown on a tree is NOT! ???

That's what gets me through this and keeps me going is realizing that all that JUNK food out there taughted as "healthy" is just junk in disguise. WHOLE NATURAL UNPROCESSED is the way we need to eat - and when you start eating like that for life the benefits are INCREDIBLE! Lower cholesterol - lower triglycerides - and yup - eventually weight loss. To me - weight loss is like a "side effect" of this healthy lifestyle - but it's not the TOTAL reason I'm doing it. Don't get me wrong, it's def. the reason i STARTED...but now I know that i need to keep going because there is no other option. going back to "low fat" or eating all those junk carbs will just make me fat, unhealthy and unhappy.

My rule of thumb - even if i lose only 1/2 pound a week - this time next year I'll have lost 26 pounds! In fact - I'm averaging just that...I started on January 03 - this is now week 26 of 2009 and I've basically lost about 1 pound per week on average.

You CAN do this - you ARE worth it and IT is worth it!


As far as finding foods that are perfectly sugar free - while some people may not agree with this answer - I'm going to tell you it's close to impossible (not totally though). If you are lucky enough to have a whole foods or a trader joes or any other type of health food store near you - start there for meats that don't have nitrates and sugar in them.

BUT if you've only got walmart - just make sure then that your ingredients absolutely do NOT include "high fructose corn syrup" "corn syrup" "hydroginated oils" "modified corn starch" and there's a couple others I can't remember (maybe if someone else does they can add to that list).
Those are the main things I stay away from.

In my own opinion (i'm not giving this out as advice, i'm just totally saying this is my opnion)...I take the lesser of the evils. if I can't find something "perfect" as far as sugar free / nitrate free / completely whole/unprocessed...then I find what has the absolute LEAST amount of sugar in it and use that. For example - T. Marzetti's blue cheese does have 1 g sugar per serving. I use it - no issues for me.

But anyways - sorry this was long - I'm just so very passionate anymore about this way of life and don't want you to give up because it IS worth it!

[sham]

hang in there everyone loses differently you may weigh in an be pounds lighter at once its happened to others on diet.

[jeff3298]

I looked on the KFC site and here are the ingredients for the new grilled chicken, contains MSG, wheat, hydrogenated oils etc many of these are not legal I beleive.


http://www.kfc.com/nutrition/pdf/kfc...ents_may09.pdf

KFC® Grilled Chicken Fresh Chicken Marinated with: Salt, Sodium Phosphate, and Monosodium Glutamate Seasoned with: Maltodextrin, Salt, Bleached Wheat Flour, Partially Hydrogenated Soybean and Cottonseed Oil, Monosodium Glutamate, Spices, Palm Oil, Natural Flavor, Garlic Powder, Soy Sauce (Soybean, Wheat, Salt), Chicken Fat, Chicken Broth, Autolyzed Yeast, Beef Powder, Rendered Beef Fat, Extractives of Turmeric, Dehydrated Carrot, Onion Powder, and Not More Than 2% Each of Calcium Silicate and Silicon Dioxide Added as Anticaking Agents. Contains Wheat and Soy.

[neutronnorman]

I don't know, but I think your calories are too low and so is your fat intake. I'm having a hard time trying not to lose more than 2 lb per week. Don't get discouraged. Learn how to use fit day or an equivalent program.

[psychoschoolgirl]

Would you give me examples of your daily menu. I am eating until I am very full. I will try to add more fat to my diet. I have switched from using blue cheese dressing to using an oil vinegar dressing in order to incoporate more fat into my diet.

[Georgiana]

Originally Posted by psychoschoolgirl

Would you give me examples of your daily menu. I am eating until I am very full. I will try to add more fat to my diet. I have switched from using blue cheese dressing to using an oil vinegar dressing in order to incoporate more fat into my diet.

From the menu you gave, no one can say whether you are eating too much or too little, or too much fat or not enough. You need to include quantities for this. Could you re-post the menu, this time complete, or provide a link to your FitDay?

In general, if you are eating until you are "very full" then you are either overeating. What Dr. Atkins said is that we should eat until satisfied (not full/stuffed) and eat again when hungry or when six hours have passed since our last meal. For some people though, ketosis suppresses appetite to the point where they are no longer hungry at all and they go forever without eating or average 600-700 calories per day. Eating very low calorie for long periods of time can slow down metabolism and, coupled with low carbing, it may lead to hypothyroidism. So if the "no hunger" advantage of ketosis becomes a disadvantage for these folks, they'll need to tweak their eating to avoid trouble, and one way to do this is by eating smaller meals throughout the day and incorporating veggies into those meals too.

You might also want to check your vitamins and minerals intake. Being deficient in some of them can increase your body's resistance to weight loss. Are you taking a multivitamin? Did you check FitDay to see how much of each you are getting from food? Your doctor can tell you if you need additional vitamin/mineral supplementation.

[keriann_forgoodthistime]

Originally Posted by Georgiana

From the menu you gave, no one can say whether you are eating too much or too little, or too much fat or not enough. You need to include quantities for this. Could you re-post the menu, this time complete, or provide a link to your FitDay?

In general, if you are eating until you are "very full" then you are either overeating. What Dr. Atkins said is that we should eat until satisfied (not full/stuffed) and eat again when hungry or when six hours have passed since our last meal. For some people though, ketosis suppresses appetite to the point where they are no longer hungry at all and they go forever without eating or average 600-700 calories per day. Eating very low calorie for long periods of time can slow down metabolism and, coupled with low carbing, it may lead to hypothyroidism. So if the "no hunger" advantage of ketosis becomes a disadvantage for these folks, they'll need to tweak their eating to avoid trouble, and one way to do this is by eating smaller meals throughout the day and incorporating veggies into those meals too.

You might also want to check your vitamins and minerals intake. Being deficient in some of them can increase your body's resistance to weight loss. Are you taking a multivitamin? Did you check FitDay to see how much of each you are getting from food? Your doctor can tell you if you need additional vitamin/mineral supplementation.

I absolutely agree with everything Georgiana said here. You should NOT be eating until you are "very full". But eating quality food that SATIATES you. One thing I've noticed is I RARELY ever leave the table "stuffed" anymore like I used to pretty much all the time.
An "example" of one daily menu for me:
breakfast:
3 scrambled eggs scrambled in extra virgin coconut oil
3 sausage links (try to find the kind without sugar or nitrates)

lunch:
hamburger OR chicken on a bed of lettuce with a slice cheese (usually provolone or pepper jack) of tomato, red onion, sometimes a few black olives or banana peppers. mayo & mustard
a SMALL can (1/2 cup) of either green beans OR spinach with just a little bit of vinegar

dinner:
some sort of higher fat meat or a nice quality omega-3 fatty fish
1/2 cup cottage cheese (4% milk fat) (must be on/past rung 2 for this)
vegee - sometimes zucchini - sometimes green beans - sometimes cauliflower - sometimes broccoli (just depends on the night) and I usually use some sort of dressing either caesar or blue cheese to dip my vegee in.


as for recipes - have you been to Linda's website - this is a FABULOUS place to find AWESOME dinner recipes so you're not always bored...
Linda's Low Carb Menus & Recipes - Home

good luck! and again - PLEASE don't give up! you just have to learn how to work the program and once you do, it'll work out great for ya!