newbie Help: Addiction/Supplementation

[adamuk]

Hi All,

Ive posted this question on the mains room, but somebody suggested I post it here (im new to all this so sincere apologies if you have already answered, but I hope more answers can only help me and others, thank you

Adam-UK

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newbie Help: Addiction/Supplementation Hi All ,

I have just joined this site (a little more can be found about me on the introduction threads) and am very new to the atkins but hope that you can help me with a few things:

Addiction/Supplementation:

I am in the induction phase but rather than jumping straight into it, im slowly easing out the sugars. How? By eating 5 small meals a day (6 if I wake up earlier) and cleaning up each meal everyday and leaving the breakfast till last. I have only breakfast to cleanup tomorrow (meaning totally sugar free etc) but had this problem -

Today when I ate during the day it was great, but by the evening I had a major major desire to eat some sugary snacks and take-away meals that my family had left in the fridge.

I am taking L-Glutamine and Chromium daily but havent been taking them for too long, so far its day 2 (had to wait for the mail order to get to me). I am also taking multi-vitamins and essential fats in liquid oil form.

The key question I have is this please :

L-Glutamine

Im confused. Dr.A says in the book to take 500mg-1000mg before every meal. I have L-G powder, where one teaspoon is a serving of 5grams. I have spoken to a nutritionist whom says that you can have upto 40grams or more L-G a day as lots of athletes/sports people do. If I took 5grams powder in water before every meal (which I havent been doing out of fear of over-doing-it) then I would probably reach 25-30grams daily. Dr.A suggests tablets of very small doseage (500mg-1000mg per tablets) indeed (which I have found from the solgar vitamin company) so which do I take? The nutritionist said stick with the powder as you're getting more for your 'buck'/'pound, but her knowledge of the atkins diet wasnt good.

Also I have read either in the book or via this forum that whenever you feel a binge or craving (as I think i did this night in question) that you should take L-G, again what would you suggest depending on the above? and how then should I take it (depending again on what you answer for the above).

Finally, L-G i was told to take on an empty stomach, ideally 30mins before food, as it is an amino-acid that would be absorbed better alone rather than competing with other amino-acids if taken with food, so how are you all taking yours and thus how should I for it to help me with this diet please, depending on whether its the powder or the tablets/capsules.


Chromium


I have at the moment 200mg capsules that I am taking 3 times a day so far (chromium picolinate). I again noticed the binge/craving still therfore should I increase more?

In the book I think Dr.A says chromium polynicotinate is far better, is that the case and thus should I change my chromium? (the nutritionist mentioned above, told me the picolinate is proven to be better absorption but the polynicotinate isnt......i got confused and unsure at this stage).

Finally I have read that taking the above supplements as I intend to, takes around a week before their benefits are noticed, is this true?


Exercise:

I unfortunately cant exercise at the moment due to some injuries I have. I had watched and atkins dvd where they had a Q&A part at the end. In it Dr.A himself says that you CAN lose weight with the induction even without exercise, is this the case please? I do intend to exercise eventually but that will be in about 3 months time and if I can lose weight by then it will certainly help with my injuries too.


Atkins Center/Centre:

Before joining this forum (which I found by sheer luck and exhaustive researching) I had tried many many times to try to locate the atkins centre in new york and the atkins research company that makes the atkins nutritional products. I failed on all accounts here, therefore do any of you have the telephone number of the atkins people so that I may speak to a human being should I need further help in the future?


I apologise in advance if I have posted these questions in the wrong area of this forum, im new here and wanted to post asap.

Thank you for your time and reading this for me, and hope I have made sense

Adam-UK

[Desertthorn]

Both of those supplements will help, but the problem is there is no such thing as easing out of the sugar because when you eat sugar your body starts craving more and more and then you've doubled your allotment.
Just go cold turkey and get it done and you'll be slim in to time. Eat pickles when you need something sweet, it really helps, just count the carbs as part of your veggies.

[biogeek]

Hi Adam,

Thanks for the PM. I'm glad you found my L-glutamine thread from before.

I am confused about one thing you wrote: "I am in the induction phase but rather than jumping straight into it, im slowly easing out the sugars. How? By eating 5 small meals a day (6 if I wake up earlier) and cleaning up each meal everyday and leaving the breakfast till last. I have only breakfast to cleanup tomorrow (meaning totally sugar free etc)"

What exactly are you eating? Would you mind posting a typical daily menu?

I also don't know what you mean by "cleaning up" with regards to food. If you're doing Atkins correctly, you should have 20 net carbs a day from foods from the acceptable list, mostly veggies. Are you doing that?

Many of us can understand the call of cravings. It's hard, I won't sugar-coat it for you (sorry for the bad pun!), but cravings and how to get over them vary from person to person.

As far as the chromium picolinate and it's variations, just keep trying and see which one works best for you, if any. Sometimes it can take up to a month or longer before seeing or feeling an affect. Sometimes it's sooner. You really have to KNOW your body.

With L-gluatamine, Dr. Atkins states in his VitaNutrient book that you can safely take up to 40 grams/day. He said that he would prescribe this for those who suffer from leaky gut syndrome or inflammatory bowel disease. He allow states that "between 2 and 3 grams will suffice for counteracting a desire for alcohol or sugar. Take it as soon as the urge comes to mind." It would be up to you whether that works for you or whether a higher dosage is needed. Everyone is different in how supplements works on the body.

People have lost weight on Atkins without doing exercise, but it works best WITH exercise. It's part of his "3-legged stool" that we need for good health. He talks about this in his book. As soon as you're able, GET MOVING!!! Start off slow and increase as you find the exercises getting easier.

Atkins center...if you google Atkins, you'll see their main website. On there, there is a tab called "contact us." Clicking on that gives you a phone number and an address of their center in Colorado. I don't know much about them...I just follow DANDR.

On supplements and starting a new "diet" in general--what I said about KNOWING your body is true...how can you really tell if something is working or not if you don't know or maybe you think you know. If I may, I would like to suggest that you keep a daily journal. For each day, write down what you eat & drink (note amount, carbs, etc), what vitamins you took, how many hours you slept, how you feel mentally and physically. Over time, you'll see patterns in how you feel. You may notice that you feel sluggish and tend to gain weight whenever you eat cheese or you may notice that soda or salt is your downfall. It surprises many people when they look back in their journal. If you decide to journal, be as accurate as you can. If you cheat on your journal, you're only cheating yourself, no one else. It is a record to HELP you on this journey to good health.

If you don't know how many carbs are in your favorite foods, check out fitday.com. They have a free tool for you to keep track of what you eat and will list fat, protein, carbs, calories, etc. It's pretty nifty. You can also check out calorieking.com to do searches on various foods.

Please let me know if there are other questions that you may have. Best of luck to you!

~bio