Kinda Long, Kinda Boring, But It's Me!

[jessicacope]

Hello all my fellow Atkins Dieters. =] I guess here is where I tell a little about myself and how I got to this point in my life... (fat - shh!) Well, I'm 23 yr. and had a baby last February. I started to gain weight out of High School (beginning weight 125). When I started back to School, there was the convenience of food that added an extra 20-30 pounds on me within the course of a year. Well, I got married the following year, and it seems that marriage usually adds another 20 pounds. So, I'm already pushing 180 after about 1 year of marriage. I tried SO many diets and couldn't get serious... maybe it's because I tried radical methods such as the Hollywood 48 hour diet, the cabbage soup diet and stomach wraps... yah... nothing like that worked. Well in July of '07 I found out that I was pregnant. I figured I'd gain the average weight that most pregnant women gained. Was I really expecting to get off that easy? Yeah right. So, 97 pounds later (9months), I had my son. I had toxemia, high blood pressure and a ton of complications while I was pregnant... my hormones shot through the roof while I was pregnant, and even looking at a carrot made me gain weight it seemed. After I had him, I was absolutely miserable. I weighed more than double my highschool weight. I was depressed and couldn't even bare to look at myself in the mirror. I weighed a whoping 268 pounds!

Well, I finally got home from the hospital and I went to the bathroom and looked at myself in the mirror... I think it was the first time I actually even seen myself clearly. I was HUGE. I was the person that I watched them make news reports about. It was me. At that point I made a decision to lose every bit of the weight. I lost 40 pounds pretty fast... I just had a kid, so that's natural. But then, my weight loss slowed down when we found out my son had to have a major operation for Craniosynostosis about 6 months after he was born. After his recovery, I started to focus more on my weight. I lost about another 10 pounds or so, but not really making much progress, and then last month I started a weight loss competition at work, everyone puts in $10.00, and whoever loses the most weight at the end of 3 months takes all the money (we've got about $280.00 in it). Money always motivates me. I lost another pound or two and then decided to get very serious. I started Atkins this Monday (2.9.09). Since I started, I have lost 4 pounds... and it's only been 3-4 days. I'm feeling very motivated. I started monday weighing 213, and now weigh 209. I was expecting some really bad withdrawls from sugar, but I've been doing great. I have had some terrible leg cramps, and just started taking all my vitamins and potassium. I think this diet will be perfect for me, and hopefully a new lifestyle change as well. So, I wish all you dieters good luck, and I'll be back posting. Sorry for writing my memoirs on here.

Also... today, I've decided is the last day for carbonated drinks... I'm waiting on the splitting headaches.

I do have a question for you people who have been doing this for a long time, is Sugar-Free RedBull ok to drink during induction... or any time through Atkins??

[Georgiana]

Hi Jessica,

Welcome to the board! You are less than 10 lbs away from onederland, that's great!

SF drinks are okay theoretically (I am against them, but that's another story) if they are sweetened with sucralose (Splenda). However, make sure you count them as part of your sweetener intake (3 servings a day); as a rule of thumb, 8 oz of soda should be counted as 1 serving of sweetener. Also, keep in mind that they stall some people or slow down their weight loss.

Are you exercising? Exercising makes a tremendous difference in the way you feel and look... and, for most of us, it accelerates weight loss, too.

[jessicacope]

Alright. Maybe I should just stay away from any carbonated/sugary drinks all together. It's not like I can't live without them anyways. I have made today my first coke-free day. I'm sitting at work now... thinking about getting a Diet Coke, but I will refuse the temptation. lol
And I have not started excercising yet. But I am going to. I have a Zune, that I've downloaded some Yoga and Aerobics videos to it... now I'm just waiting on the docking station to hook it up on my TV to get here. So, I'm planning on getting the ball rolling on that one too. Now, got another question - I watched the Atkins video that Dr. Atkins put out. And on there, this one girl said that she lost 4.5 inches in 6 days... is that really possible? I know that the weightloss can be dramatic, but just curious about the inches?

[Georgiana]

Well, it depends on how much she had to lose, in how many spots she measured, etc. The weight one loses in the first few days is mainly water weight, so not being so bloated immediately sheds off a few inches from your waist for example.