How critical is calorie control?

[Tactical Cat]

Howdy All,

Been at this for 5 months and have lost 20lb, another 20 to go. Been stuck at the same weight for well over a month now, but am continuing with induction. I'm not having much trouble staying with the program as far as cheating & motivation go, and am sticking with the 20g carbs daily (from salad & veggies). How critical is total daily calorie intake? What's more important, the carb count or calorie count? Obviously if I take in 4000 calories daily I won't lose weight, but where should I be at here? I'm 40, 6' 240lb and work out/excercise 3x week. Also, it seems that cheating has had some beneficial effect on occasion. Am I just imagining this?

[Chicklady]

No, your not imagining that! It's your body telling you it's time to move up a rung!!

[not2late]

Originally Posted by Tactical Cat

Howdy All,

Been at this for 5 months and have lost 20lb, another 20 to go. Been stuck at the same weight for well over a month now, but am continuing with induction. I'm not having much trouble staying with the program as far as cheating & motivation go, and am sticking with the 20g carbs daily (from salad & veggies). How critical is total daily calorie intake? What's more important, the carb count or calorie count? Obviously if I take in 4000 calories daily I won't lose weight, but where should I be at here? I'm 40, 6' 240lb and work out/excercise 3x week. Also, it seems that cheating has had some beneficial effect on occasion. Am I just imagining this?

Dr. Atkins said that we do not need to count calories, but calories to matter. If you are eating more than what you are using, you won't lose weight. Also, we should only be eating the amount of food that satisfies our hunger---we shouldn't be stuffing ourselves like Thanksgiving turkeys.

As for carb count, we each have a Critical Carbohydrate Losing Level. What I've noticed is that some folks mistakenly stay on Induction too long and their bodies get used to 20 net carbs---so used that they stop losing weight. I don't know why that happens, but I think it works the same way "starvation mode" works: your body sees that carbs are limited and thinks hard times have hit, so it does whatever it can to save the fat for when things get worse.

Dr. Atkins wrote that the only people who may benefit from prolonging their Induction past the initial two weeks are those people who have a high metabolic resistance to weight loss because Induction may correct hose imbalances that hinder weight loss. Staying on Induction doesn't guarantee a consistent weight loss nor a "fast" weight loss.

Moreover, staying on Induction really doesn't teach you how your body reacts to different foods and different carbohydrate levels. And I've seen that happen too----people who stay on Induction and lose all their weight. When they get to goal, they don't know how to maintain it.

So move to OWL, imo, learn about your body while you lose weight. In the time I've been part of ADBB there have only been 3 or 5 people who had to keep their carbs below 20 net carbs daily in order to lose weight. The majority of us hover in the 30-50 net carbs daily range. And we have even had a few who could eat over 100 net carbs daily and still lose weight. So move on.

[Zarabelle]

I agree that you should probably move on to OWL. I was really amazed that I started losing again when I moved up the ladder (and added 5g carbs).

In answer to your original question - yes, I do think calories matter. I find if I have over 1600 cals I stay the same and if I have less I tend to lose. That's what I've found anyway.

One other thing to mention is that in the last six week exercise challenge I only lost a tiny 1.8 pounds but I lost 9 inches! I am so glad I measured as it really proved to me that although the weightloss was super slow (and I had a gain over Christmas), I still changed my body quite a bit.

Keep up with it and the scale will start moving again

[Tactical Cat]

Portion control used to be a big problem for me, because I tend to eat fast and can put away a lot of food before the hungry feeling goes away. I'm a lot better with that now, and try to plan ahead. The starvation mode theory sounds interesting, will have to experiment with that. Maybe by adding carbs in 5g increments like Zarabelle suggested, although that sounds like an awfully small amount to measure out.

[not2late]

Read through the On-Going Weight Loss chapter in the book or read the stickies in the OWL forum here. Depending on the food, 5 net carbs could be 15 cups of lettuce or 1 tablespoons of lentils.

And I highly recommend following the way Dr. ATkins outlined how to reintroduce foods and increase your carb intake. It will help you avoid many pitfalls and disappointments.