I know I read this but now I can't find it

[Grant]

I know I read in DANDR that it is a really bad idea to try to eat low fat and low carb but I can't seem to find that section again. My wife is doing Atkins with me but can't seem to kick the idea that you HAVE to do low fat, and I'm trying to tell her that she is sabotaging herself. Unfortunately I can't seem to remember why it's bad.

Can anyone tell me why or point me to the right section in the book?

Thank you!

[julirama723]

I don't what section of the book it's in, but I can tell you this.

Atkins is a HIGH-fat diet. During induction, our bodies enter a state called ketosis. This occurs about 48 hours after you start--it takes about that long for our bodies to use up the available glucose/carbs stored in our bodies. After that, our bodies automatically switch to burning FAT instead of GLUCOSE.

This is why atkins is high-fat--fat becomes our primary source of fuel, and if you're doing induction correctly, your daily calories should come out to 65% being from fat, 5% from carbs, and 30% from protein. If you do low-fat AND low-carb, what are you using for energy? The obvious choice would be protein, BUT if the body has an excess of protein, the protein converts to glucose, which ultimately converts to fat in our bodies.

Fat is not bad for you! Healthy natural fats, such as olive oil, fats found in fish, avocados and nuts and seeds are on MANY other eating plans besides atkins (like Mediterranean and South Beach). It is the refined sugars and carbs that are killing us.

Hope this helps! I know there will be others to help answer your question, probably tomorrow--Saturday is a slow day around here.

[CaliGurl]

Hi Julirama! thanks for that Info! us Newbies NEED IT... can you please give us a list of Good Fats that YOU yourself eat on a daily basis...? i am starting Atkins tomorrow December 31st, 2006 (but i have been eating Low Carb since Nov) and i have my DANDR is hand and im ready as can be! I really am LOVING reading this website and getting new Information from people like you that have been doing this a while... can you share any Menu's? and/or some of the High Fat foods you eat on a daily basis...?

[julirama723]

It's important to eat foods that are a mix of fat and protein. Fat keeps you satisfied, protein fills you up. When you eat carbs, it's best to eat them WITH fat and protein to prevent spikes in blood sugar.

Um, as far as healthy fats, I basically eat the stuff that's listed in DANDR. I am on OWL Rung 6, so foods/fats I eat on a DAILY basis would include eggs, nuts, butter, olive oil, cream. Occasional foods would be olives, sour cream, flax.

But it's important that you take the list of induction foods, find what YOU like and what's convenient or affordable or time-efficient, and eat those things. Do NOT eat anything that's not on the list--if it isn't there, don't think about eating it. What I would do during induction (and still do now) is eat different combinations of fats, proteins, and veggies all the time, even if they didn't "go together." So for lunch I might have a salad with chicken breast strips and ranch dressing, or pepperoni, celery, and a cheese stick. Or for dinner, I might eat a taco salad, or something like an omelette with a side of pumpkin. Whatever is on that list (in the correct proportions) is fair game. Don't feel like you have to eat a "typical" meal all the time. Have tuna salad for breakfast. Eat an omelette for dinner. Be creative!

Check out Linda's Low Carb website for really good recipes. The ones marked with an asterisk (*) are induction-friendly.

http://www.genaw.com/lowcarb/index.html

[Adena]

I sometimes find that I eat 70-90 grams of fat in a day.... eggs, butter, nuts, olive oil, mayo, cheese, cream, fats from meats. I know that sounds excessive, but it's HOW ATKINS WORKS! Unfortunately, I'm not good at explaining why. The fat also helps to satisfy you -- the reason you were always hungry on Weight Watchers is because it's low fat. Best of luck convincing your wife -- she'll be so much more successful (not to mention happier with her food options) if she can't change her mindset on this.

[SugarFreeSheila]

Page 127, 2002 edition:

"You need not remove the skin and fat from meat or fowl ... I cannot stress strongly enough that trying to do a low-fat version of Atkins will interfere with fat burning and derail your weight loss."

Probably one of my most favorite parts of the book.

[Atkid]

This is from another board. Probably has been shown on this board before also but in anycase it is a good read.

Why low carb should be high fat...
There is a Short section on this in the FAQ, but the subject really does merit a larger article. NOT written by me, and if anyone knows the credit please forward so that I can add it.

"Trying to keep both your fat and carb intakes low in the hope of losing weight more quickly? It's probably not a good idea, and you do it only at your own risk.

Your body needs energy to perform all the little daily tasks it's called upon to do. It takes energy to walk, to digest food, to sit in an erect position, to move, to breathe -- even to think. It even requires energy to sleep, and for your body to repair itself of all the little damages it incurs during daily life.

Fortunately, your body is a very efficient power plant. It can use any of three fuels to generate the energy it needs. Only if it runs out of those fuels will it be totally unable to produce energy and cease to operate. But before it reaches that state it goes into a stage comparable to rolling blackouts -- a condition in which it warns you through various symptoms including, but not limited to, hunger, aches and pains, extreme fatigue, bowel irregularities, and even problems with the texture of your skin and hair, that it needs more fuel. However, you should never let your body get to the point of warning you that it's out of fuel. Here's why:

The three types of fuel the body can use are carbohydrates, fats, and protein. Carbohydrates are the body's "preferred" fuel -- the one it will use first, if available. If there are no carbs (sugars and starches) available, then it will use fats. And only as very last resort -- after having warned you via the "rolling blackout" method that it's in real trouble -- will the body use protein as a fuel.

That's because the protein you eat is needed by the body's organs and muscles, and is constantly used by those organs and muscles to keep in good repair. So if you require protein to produce the energy for your daily activities, you divert it from its prime -- and very important -- purpose. You could even end up cannibalizing your body, causing a breakdown of first its muscles and then the major organs you need to simply sustain life. (This, by the way, is why some doctors and nutritionists are so convinced that low-carbing will shrivel your muscles, eat your liver and do unspeakable things to your kidneys. They don't consider the fact that the body will use fat for energy before it'll use protein if it's supplied with enough fat for its needs. And because they're so conditioned to the low-fat way of eating they can't even imagine anyone eating enough fat to supply their body with energy, for heaven's sake!)

Now back to the body's preferred fuels. We are mostly conditioned from birth to use carbohydrates for fuel, so the body will use them automatically. (There's a good reason why human breast milk -- nature's intended food for infants -- contains more than 1.5 times the carbohydrates that cows' milk does.)

Most people get more than enough carbohydrates to fuel their bodies' daily activites. The body, being a well-run power plant, puts the leftovers in storage to use in the future if it's needed. But it can't store carbohydrates, so it turns them into fat and keeps them on deposit in the body's cells. And we see it walking around the streets wherever we go, hanging off bodies in a most unattractive way. Some of us see it every time we look in the mirror, as well, and don't like the way it looks on us.

An excess of fat storage is usually the reason we choose a low-carb way of life. We want our bodies to use the stored fat for energy and leave our bodies lean and sleek looking. And, as we all know, it works. But we can make it work far more efficiently by understanding the way the body uses fat.

The switchover from using carbs for energy to using fats for energy is only semi-automatic. In the absence of carbs the body will use fat, but only sparingly. Remember, the body is conditioned to store that fat against the time when it runs out of fuel. It considers fat an "emergency ration" and it goes into conservation mode, producing only the amount of energy that's necessary to sustain life, and you go into those "rolling blackouts." You may feel hunger, fatigue, muscle aches, joint pain, etc. You may become extremely constipated. Or you may just feel a general malaise. This happens to many people when they begin a low-carb diet, and often keeps them from following through. "Oh, I tried that," they'll say, "And it didn't work for me."

There is a way, though, to train the body to use fat automatically as its preferred fuel, and one that it can safely use to produce unlimited amounts of energy. You do that by depriving it of carbohydrates, while at the same time providing it a good supply of dietary fat. After a while -- usually only a few days -- this convinces your body that it can always expect to have a bountiful supply of fat to use as fuel for its energy generator and takes it out of conservation mode. Because it has both dietary fat and stored fat to draw upon, and has no reason to stay in conservation mode, the body will produce lots and lots of energy. You'll avoid the "rolling blackout" warnings and feel far better, with plenty of energy. And this will continue for as long as you eat enough fat to keep your body out of conservation mode.

This is one of the reasons that doctors who support the low-carb way of eating tell you that you shouldn't eat fat-free mayonnaise, salad dressings, cheeses, etc. (The other reason, of course is that most of them contain added carbohydrates just to make them barely edible.) It's also the basis for the widely touted and very effective "Fat Fast" method of jolting your body into weight loss if you find yourself in a persistent plateau.

But what the doctors often forget to mention is that these days even eating full-fat condiments and foods may not provide you with as many fats as you should have to encourage your body to freely burn fats. This is because so many of today's foods are routinely stripped of the good, healthy fats they used to contain.

For example, food animals are bred to be as close to fat-free as possible. Beef and pork is touted as being "lean," and it is -- almost to the point of being tasteless. It's nearly impossible to get chicken with the fat and skin still attached -- I have to order it specially from my supermarket. Recipes routinely call for pans to be sprayed with fat-free sprays rather than using fats to keep the food from sticking, and even those of us who follow a low-carb way of life often use them, thinking we're doing the right thing.

So to avoid depriving our bodies of both fats and carbohydrates at the same time, we often have to consciously add fats to our diet. Trying to eat a low-fat or reduced-fat diet along with a low-carb diet is almost a sure recipe for failure. It may appear to be effective, at least for a while. You may lose some weight, but despite cutting your carbohydrates down to almost zero you probably won't lose as much as you would if you were eating more fat. You surely won't feel nearly as good as you would if you ate more fat. And you may even end up falling by the wayside along with those people who say "Oh, I tried that, and it didn't work for me.""

http://www.low-carb.org.uk/lowcarbhighfat.htm

[Adena]

Great explanation, Atkid -- thanks for sharing. Very easy to understand when put this way!

[julirama723]

Atkid--fantastic article!

[CaliGurl]

VERY INTERESTING INFORMATION!!! THANK YOU!!!