Planning For Cheats

[not2late]

Just a quick note: My advice to anyone on Extended Induction who wants to "cheat" (which I define as not eating according to the Induction Rules and eating foods not on the Induction Acceptable Foods List) is to MOVE ONTO OWL.

More veggies, fruits, carbier veggies, legumes, and whole grains are acceptable foods during OWL and if your body can tolerate these foods, they can be a part of your daily or weekly menu. I've gone through the rungs and have found what the handful of foods my body doesn't like. That, in turn, has opened up a wider variety of foods to me. I don't stress out when I go to restaurants. I don't stress out when I go to parties. I don't stress out when I go to state fairs or festivals. Why? Because I know how many carbohydrates my body can tolerate and I know what kinds of foods I can and can't eat.

You can eat well on Induction, but you can eat better when you move to OWL (and contrary to popular Extended Induction belief---you still lose weight on OWL!)

[AllieCat0817]

oh YES! I lost the absolute majority of my weight on OWL. My bod preferred OWL to Induction, big time.

[FightingTheFight]

Allie, I really want to learn the science behind that.

I keep seeing it and wondering why some people OWL works wonders, where in some cases, Inductions seems the best.

Wonder if 2Big knows? or Not2Late?

[AllieCat0817]

I really am not sure. The first two foods I added were strawberries and macadamia nuts, and I ate them every single day along with the regular induction foods (veggies, meats, allowed dairy). BUT, I still kept the carbs below 25 most of the time, somehow. I think some folks' bodies tolerate more carbs better for whatever reason.

I hadn't 'dieted' at ALL since 1990... until 13 yrs later in 2003 so perhaps my bod wasn't as metabolically resistant as a 'seasoned low fat dieter'.

I also started eating Dannon full fat plain yogurt 4 months into my journey and the weight just melted off. And if you believe the carton, it says 14g carbs per 8oz, and I ate (still eat) a LOT of it, at least 2 cups every day. I was going by the 'yogurt exception' where only 4 carbs are counted because supposedly the bacteria eat away at alot of the milk sugars. Who knows if it's true or not, but my bod seems to think so.

[2big4mysize]

wellto hijack this topic, you still are enjoying the deep ketosis of Atkins high fat eating but you are not eating as much fat and your entire food intake will drop a few hundred cals as you add back the grams of carbs.

You are also getting deeper into your exercise program now and getting in better shape so you are burning more cals as exercise and you are building more calorie burning lean body mass too. Check your own exercise log and you will see you are going faster further and longer then when you started in induction. If you look at chapter 14 of DANDR you will see a footnote about regular exercise allows for more carbs in the CCLL charts but many folk keep their carbs far below the CCLL for long periods of time as they slowly climb the ladder testing foods and checking the negative results several times like not2late did with the nuts rung and the cheese rung, so in effect as your CCLL increases but you are eating further and further below it cause you don't increase to keep up you get a big gap like induction creates. This allows your Atkind ketosis to keep going much like induction as the majority fuel for your body the majority of the time.

Also, OWL foods are not calorically dense like induction foods so you will be eating less cals at a sitting, getting fuller on your carb foods added to your induction 3 cups and still getting some protein and some fats in there. You will see your snack change from burgers to a few berries and a bit of your cream alotment, a few nuts, veegies and some of your fat either as a sauce or dip and other such slightly higher carb lower protein and fat snacks which is lower cal. remember when you add 5 net carbs you are only ading 20 usable cals to your daily caloric intake but if your rung 1 choice is something like more greens you feel fuller and don't eat all the stuff on your palte that you would have eatten the week before in induction.

to sum it up you got less cals going in and more cals being used up exercising. Since the change in the internal cals used to metabolize the added carbs vs the lost internal cals not being burned up for the fats is less then 10% of the cals exchanged or about 2 for each rung asuuming all cals not ingested are fats since we slightly lower our fat intake as we up our carb intake during OWL if you do in fact maintain your caloric intake at the same amount. most don't

[love2beeamom]

WOW, 2big, that was a great explanation.. I didn't ever really think about why, I just knew I lost better on OWL too.

[iyamamaschke]

I can honestly say I have been in the mind set of this poster. I was on Atkins and would plan cheats every weekend for a while it was ok. I was able to lose and did well my cravings were in check and I thought I was doing all right. Then the cheats would turn into 2 days then it went from there. I justified my WOE every single time I cheated I didn't feel guilty to begin with but as time went on I did begin to feel the wrath of the carb monster. I cheated oevr and over and it didn't matter if I went out or what I cheated I didn't need an excuse I did it. Then the day came where I fell off hard. I was at my goal weight I cheated all the way there. This at that time was not a WOE for life it was an on again off again affair. I thought I'll do this till I get to goal then I got pregnant and all the **** hit the fan. I tried to stay on atkins but, I had not learned anything about how to follow the WOE properly I basically NEVER followed Atkins properly.

I am not meaning to offend I am just speaking from experience. Ok so back to the storey I gained 60 pounds with my first went back on Atkins like I had before I cheated all the time but lost weihgt ya, I went down to 180 20 heavier then I was before then pregnant with number 2 gained another 60 pounds throwing caution to the wind and gained it all back + I never lost the weight I was able to get down to 228 through starvation Atkins and cheating, It finally clicked after I had my 3rd was 285+ pounds this was after dieting for 2 weeks before Atkins. November 6th 2004 I finally realized that I can not cheat it ends in disaster, Many critisize because we know what happens in the long run. It's a damaging raod and all of us speak out not to hurt or harm it because we don't wanna see happen to you what has happened to us. I have restarted this WOE over 15 times every time I felt guilty this time I can honestly say I am so Proud that I have done so well 8.5 months cheat free. I have had so many opportunities to indulge but, my will will not allow me to I choose not to do that to myself again and feel the pain of being fat and lothing in my own self sabotaging pitty. I choose not to cheat. I do not support any cheating but, I am very glad you have gotten back on track and are doing well. I have been on the hard road to discovery and I don't want anyone to feel the pain that 1 cheat did to me.

Please don't take this personally I only want to share my experience and want you to do well on this WOE that's all any of us want.

Sarah

[lots2lose]

iyamamascke,that was very inspiring and I Know that I will join you in being one of those that doesn't cheat during this WOL because that is what it is,a WOL,and if you plan to follow it then the should be not entertaining ideas about cheating.When you start doing this WOE and WOL,you are basically making a pledge to treat yourself the way you deserved all along,as a beautiful human being who deserves better than the guilt they feel as a failure.If you can cheat and not realize the wrong in that,and the sabotage it poses to your WOL,then by all means go ahead but I do not in any way think that the reponses you got were in anyway chastising at all.Your whole attitude is like a lot of people I encounter:they ask for you opinion about something they did or are going to do that they knew/know was wrong,but need someone to lie to them and tell them that it was o.k. and then when they are not told what they want to hear then they become defensive.You are on an Atkins forum,with people who completely support this WOL.You should have expected every response made to you.And instead of feeling humble and realizing that every one is looking out for your best interest becuase we've all been through the same s**t,you start using derogatory language and just lashing out unreasonably.If I had asked such a question and received a response such as you did,I would call it a day and learn my lesson,but no,you had to justify your guilt and you had to be right.


other than that,as everyone has already said to you,welcome back and we are glad you learned your lesson(hopefully).1 cheat leads to another,whether planned or unplanned.You can plan plenty of cheats,but it can control you in the end as much as an unplanned out.

[bugout429]

Hi everybody,

Just doing my Sunday night check-in... I just wanted to thank everyone who wrote to me privately or through this thread who showed support. In every case, the sentiment was the same - cheating on a whim already has a detrimental snowball effect, and if I were to uncover a cheating loophole, that could open a pandora's box of excuses and rationalizations that would inevitably set the stage for a major failure, perhaps ending me up even worse than I began. I agree with that 100%, and with this one incident successfully behind me, I'm glad to say that I'm back on track, apparently without any setbacks.

To anyone who wrote me privately, I did try to respond to everyone, except some of your mailboxes are full and do not accept messages until you delete some (ahem, Raisin!)

And QuarterPounder, you were right about my intentions, I WAS willing to test my own theory out on myself to try to better understand how the ANA works. The reason I asked in the first place was because I am new, and figured someone out there might have tried it already. In the end, I had my little night of fun and didn't suffer any setbacks (not counting social ostracism). Here's the facts:

• I did go off-plan once before, by accident. I OD'ed on some BBQ ribs after my very 1st week of Induction, and promptly gained 3 lbs, so evidently I DON'T happen to have a forgiving metabolism.
• My planned cheat was going to occur at night. I planned that day's breakfast and lunch around it.
• For breakfast I had 1/2 C Uncle Sam cereal with 1/3 C 2% milk.
• For lunch I had a spinach salad with grilled chicken, grape tomatoes, red onions, cucumber & feta, with a low-cal low-sugar dressing. Lots of water.
• CHEAT-TIME!! I think part of the reason why my cheat was relatively forgiven by my body was because, even though I was cheating, I didn't go all out. The extent of my cheat was 2 lightly-sweetened cocktails, 2 bites of fire-roasted corn-on-the-cob, steak tacquitos on 2 small corn tortillas, and 2 bites each of 2 desserts shared by 6 people. I'm not trying to justify, but just saying that I doubt I'd have gotten away setback-free had I eaten KFC extra crispy with mashed potatoes, gravy, cole slaw & mac-n-cheese (not a chance. those days are over!)
• The next day I went right back on plan and guzzled water like a madwoman.
• Three days later, I'm still the same size as I was on pre-cheat.

Still, we can all agree that the best solution is DON'T CHEAT! That's the only way to ensure your success. Anything else is a gamble towards a debt you pay off with your health. I know it, and I took a chance. That doesn't make it alright, but it was at least educational. I have no intention of doing it again, not even at this same restaurant, especially after having seen the menu, I now know that there were selections that wouldn't even have required me to cheat... but I did, and I'm over it, and the true moral of my story is...

...never understimate the ANA's ability to find options on a menu anywhere you might go.

Planned cheating, in the end, is really just the food-equivalent of the white lies you tell yourself when you know you're about to be up to no good!! So don't do it! But if, for whatever reason, you're determined to not leave Dixieland without sampling a piece of authentic Buttermilk Pie, be smart and use a condom. ;-)

[Iapetus999]

Originally Posted by Quarterpounder

Looking at the multitude and TYPE of responses here, perhaps this discussion could have taken place in the Low-carb forum.

I didn't get on the Yea or Nay lists????

I get no respect I tell ya.