ok who is starting tomorrow? 11 may 09?

[Georgiana]

Something else. How much water are you drinking? A dark color on the ketostix often indicates dehydration.

[lowcarbs_wow]

Thanks Georgiana.
Let me tell you my typical daily menu while i am on atkins induction
Breakfast : omelette made of 2 eggs, one sprig of spring onion and 2 teaspoons of cheddar cooked in butter
Lunch : Usually a tuna salad or a turkey salad from subway - 2 servings of that, veggies in my salad are lettuce, pepper, olives, some onions and a chilli sauce dressing.

Dinner :

• Chicken cooked/fried or roasted in spices and some sour cream
• a Big fillet of salmon/cod fish .

I also take some salad with this, about half a cucumber or some iceberg lettuce.

Also, I am having black decaf coffee with no asparatene or splena/ saccharine.
In between i have a boiled egg or some cheese strings.
I dont think i have been exceeding the 20g limit anyday. Just cant understand whats going wrong or is it my body metabolsm?
But the fact that the ketostix are turning purple, it probably means the ketosis is on. Can you think of anything wrong that i am missing completely.

[lowcarbs_wow]

ah! Georgiana.
Forgot to mention this. I am drinking about 1.5 l of water and no ATKINS shake or bar yet. I guess we're not allowed during induction

[Georgiana]

Originally Posted by lowcarbs_wow

Thanks Georgiana.
Let me tell you my typical daily menu while i am on atkins induction
Breakfast : omelette made of 2 eggs, one sprig of spring onion and 2 teaspoons of cheddar cooked in butter
Lunch : Usually a tuna salad or a turkey salad from subway - 2 servings of that, veggies in my salad are lettuce, pepper, olives, some onions and a chilli sauce dressing.

Dinner :

• Chicken cooked/fried or roasted in spices and some sour cream
• a Big fillet of salmon/cod fish .

I also take some salad with this, about half a cucumber or some iceberg lettuce.

Also, I am having black decaf coffee with no asparatene or splena/ saccharine.
In between i have a boiled egg or some cheese strings.
I dont think i have been exceeding the 20g limit anyday. Just cant understand whats going wrong or is it my body metabolsm?
But the fact that the ketostix are turning purple, it probably means the ketosis is on. Can you think of anything wrong that i am missing completely.

Are you eating 3 cups of vegetables per day, with over half of the net carbs coming from vegetables?

The problem in your menu are the Subway items. The turkey breast has:

TURKEY BREAST Turkey breast, turkey broth, contains 2% or less of: carrageenan, dextrose, modified food starch (derived from corn), salt, seasoned salt (salt, sodium diacetate, flavoring), sodium lactate, sodium phosphate. * Browned in soybean oil.

so it's not legal.

The tuna salad is okay, unless you live in Florida or Minnesota, in which case it may contain MSG.

The chili sauce, if it's the mushy stuff they sell at Subway, it has sugars in it... so that may also stall you.

Good for you for not having Atkins bars/shakes. You've saved yourself a headache. You water is a little low though. Try drinking at least 64 oz per day. Many people discover they lose better when drinking more water.

Another suggestion. It's better to spread your 3 cups of vegetables throughout the day, so you avoid a possible sugar spike. So have some veggies for lunch, but leave some for dinner too.

I think once you stop eating the hidden sugars in the Subway meals, you should see some weight loss. Some folks say the amount of sugar in these foods is small and "yeah, we just count that towards our net carbs... no big deal", but there are some of us, me included, who can't lose weight if we have even small amounts of sugar in our diet.

[lowcarbs_wow]

Thans Georgiana
That was very helpful. I will try an deat my own salads. However, whats it with the ketostix turning purple. Am i losing some fat?

[Georgiana]

Originally Posted by lowcarbs_wow

However, whats it with the ketostix turning purple. Am i losing some fat?

Not necessarily. The ketostix turn purple when your body is running on fat, as opposed to glucose. Now, this doesn't mean that fat is fat from your tummy or thighs -- it could be dietary fat just as well. For example, if you eat 2 lbs of butter and sip on a cup of olive oil, the ketostix will turn purple, but you won't be losing weight because your caloric intake is higher than the calories your body needs.

To understand the color on the ketostix, you have to understand why the color changes in the first place.

Ketones are produced when the Krebs cycle cannot take in the amount of acetyl-CoA resulting from the beta-oxidation of fatty acids. These ketones are then transported to other tissues (for e.g., heart, brain) where two of them -- acetoacetate (this is the one the stix register) and BHB -- are "recycled" into acetyl-CoA and thrown back into the Krebs cycle to produce energy. The other ketone, acetone, can't be recycled so you just pee it, but the ketostix are not sensitive to it. Anyway, so if all the acetoacetate is converted back into acetyl-CoA and used to get fuel, you won't have any left to spill in your urine, so the stix won't change color.

Since the ketostix measure the concentration of ketones in the urine (if there are any), it means that the more dehydrated you are, the higher the ketone concentration will be, hence the darker the color on the ketostix.

Also keep in mind that the color will stop changing once you start consuming more than about 50 net carbs, even though you will still be making ketones if your CCLL is high enough.

Bottom line is, you can be in lipolysis/ketosis without changing the color on the stix. Just the same, simply because the color changes, it doesn't mean you are losing body fat.

There are a few threads about ketostix in the FAQ section of the Board. You might want to read those too.

[lowcarbs_wow]

Hi again!
I was just goiing through some other threads in the forum. I started my induction while I was in TOM. Its my 11 the day and havent lost a single pound. Could that be the reason. I met my doctor, she said she is 100% sure that i have no metabolic problems as such.
However got my blood tests done, waiting for the report

[Georgiana]

Originally Posted by lowcarbs_wow

Hi again!
I was just goiing through some other threads in the forum. I started my induction while I was in TOM. Its my 11 the day and havent lost a single pound. Could that be the reason. I met my doctor, she said she is 100% sure that i have no metabolic problems as such.
However got my blood tests done, waiting for the report

Yes, TOM may affect your weight loss and in fact your weight loss rate will be influenced by where you are in your menstrual cycle, not only by TOM.

So, did you lose anything from the 21st?

[lowcarbs_wow]

Hi All,
how is everybody doing? And for people who started on May11, how is the weight loss going. Till about the 25th of May, i lost almost 3 kilos. However its been another 10 days now and I have put back another 1 kilo. I am still on induction. Atkins isn't really going great for me.
Any suggestions please?