Lower fat?

[Elsie150]

Hee...I knew that would get your attention. You were all ready to jump on the bashing bandwagon weren't you? LOL!

Okay..breathe...take it easy...it didn't say low fat ;^)

I would like to know if any of you successfull Atkineers are lowering your fat as you are climbing the rungs and adding back the carbs? Are you still losing? Or is your fat intake remaining at the 65% or higher mark and if so, are you still losing? And do you keep the protein at about 30%?

Thanks!

[not2late]

You HAVE to lower the fat as you increase your carbs because there are only 2 things you can alter---fat and carbs. The protein percentage stays the same, about 30% of your total calories.

If you don't lower your fat, you'll be eating far more calories than the metabolic advantage of atkins can make up for and you'll most likely stop losing weight.

There's a stickie in the OWL forum about the fat percentages during OWL and pre-maintenance.

[not2late]

I forgot to add....

The only exception to the lowering the fat on OWL is for the people who have a high degree of metabolic resistance to weight loss. These folks might do better by keeping their fat percent slightly higher. But since the majority of us have average to low metabolic resistance, we typically don't have to worry about that.

Also, during Maintenance, the fat percentage is about 40-50% of the total daily caloric intake.

[2big4mysize]

yep what Megs said.

that is also one of the reasons when we get to premaintenance and the fat lowers below a certain percent which is different for each of us the appetite suppression of ketosis is gone! That is why it is very important to move to OWL and spend a lot of time learning about the food groups and seeing which ones you can and can't handle and practicing eating for the rest of our lives and not induction to goal eating.

[Elsie150]

Thanks just want to make sure that I was doing this right. I am using my BMR as my goal and working out my protein needs from there. I find doing it this way makes it easier to keep my calories up as I was having problems and eating way below that. So it gives me a couple of numbers to shoot for. As soon as I started doing it that way the % seemed to start to fall naturally in place for me. So now when I am in dairy I have noticed that the fat had fallen to 64%.

Thanks!

[not2late]

Yeah, it doesn't take much to lower the fat percent (or raise it for that matter). Even a difference of a tablespoon has a big impact, which is why it always confuses me when newbies as we eat "alot" of fat.

Anyhow, just be ware of the dairy rung. Dr. Atkins wrote in "fine print" that you might have to decrease the amount of aged cheese/cream/butter when you add on the dairy rung.

[Elsie150]

Thanks Meg. The only thing I have added was some heavy cream. Yesterday 3 oz and today 5.5 oz and I am still in line with everything. I wanted to add some yogurt but I went to 3 stores and couldn't find any that were low carb and they do not sell Blue Bunny here in Canada. And someone on another list said to be cautious of the low carb ones as they are not all yogurt but use fillers such as gelatin so now I am unsure of what to do. I may just stick with the heavy cream as I am happy with the cheese allotment already. I never eat more than 3 oz..in fact today is only 1 oz. Yesterday I had 1 1/2 oz cream cheese...so I don't eat a lot of it anyway. And I know I will like the cream with the berry rung.

As far as the newbies and 'a lot of fat' that confused me too as I didn't really add extra to anything and it was very easy for me to be over the 65%. Then again I wasn't eating really high in the calories either. I have no appetite on this WOE.

[not2late]

If you look through the OWL forum, you'll find a "big" thread on yogurt. In it is 2Big's recipe for making your own yogurt from the Carb down milk. You can also make yogurt using heavy cream.

[Elsie150]

Found the thread. I haven't seen Low Carb milk here either...but then I wasn't really looking for it. Until I can get to the stores again I have decided to have 3 oz heavy cream...maybe add some water in there and a teaspoon of vanilla..maybe a tiny sprinkle of cinnamon and warm it up. If it tastes okay it will be really nice to have a night while the family is having hot chocolate. Thanks for all your help I will continue to search the dairy section in a few more stores.

[2big4mysize]

you can make some slightly higher carb yogurt with a mixture of that cream and some milk and a spponful of the active culture yogurt plain stuf from the store. MIx it up and allow it to react. you will grow more healthy bacteria from the lactose in the milk and the cream will thicken it and keep the fats up. You will not be able to eats as much of it but you could use some as long as you counted all your carbs from what you added into the mix to start. it will have a texture like greek yogurt after reacting in a nice warm not hot place for about 12 hrs.