magohn

+1 Back in 2004, I lost 30lbs in 5 weeks on the Atkins. I did not notice any fatigue or tiredness. However, Im a bread junkie and actually drove a truck delivering early AM, fresh, hot sourdough bread and pastries. I went 5 weeks without a piece of bread and then hit it like it was going out of style. Oh well...

Mr. Markets

Actually miss nacho chips more than bread.

But you bring up an important point -- Paleo/Atkins does not drag you down. Certainly not after the first few days when you go thru carb withdrawal. Many think it makes you sluggish.

Driving a bread truck would cause most to fail!

chefisaac

I find working as a chef causes me to fail

gbg

Well you should have access to low carb food as well then. I remember the first I heard about the Atkins diet on a news
story. They were talking to a guy who had lost a ton of weight and showed him eating breakfast.
It was a big plate of steak and eggs and sausage, looked like a million calories. I thought you can't loose weight on that.
A big problem I find is there is no real good snack, you can't find any in a vending machine.
I think if I could find REAL GOOD beef jerky that would work.
But even the $8.00 little packets seem to have more sinew than meat.
I keep wanting to go back on but I need to find good snacks, it's hard to carry fresh strawberries or blueberries with you
and I don't like paying $2.90 per bar for atkin bars.

david58

I am not an Atkins diet proponent, as I have not done that exercise. But I do lean more to high protein foods, lower carbs. No taters, little bread, etc, avoiding HGI foods as much as possible. But the bottom line of my approach has been to plan out my eating for the day - not calorie by calorie, but just looking ahead to make sure I am not going overboard at any point.

My snacks on my high protein diet include almonds (raw, bought in bulk at the grocery), hard boiled eggs, cheese, protein powder drinks, sliced lunch meat, and so forth. Things like the Atkins bars I try to avoid - too much like an expensive glorified candy bar. My eating gets more complicated when I travel, since most of what I like needs to be kept cool. So when traveling what I do is carry along packages of jerky, almonds, and the occasional protein (soy-free) bar. With some water, I can usually get across country without too much airport garbage food.

But I have folded more carbs back in that when I first started the diet - but healthy, high density stuff. Calorie Quantity = Weight Loss; Calorie Quality = Health.

gbg

I think hard boiled eggs are perfect except for 1 thing, the smell. I don't want to crack one open at work and
have everyone have to smell that. Now eggs are back on the GOOD food list. Funny how they were bad
for all the cholesterol, and now are good. Just like butter, It was SO BAD, you should replace it with margarine.
And now it is margarine is way worse for you and you should eat butter.

I remember when I was in university and a group of us studied in the same area all the time.
One guy in the group was a body builder and went on a high protein low carb diet, not sure it was Akins, but
his diet has been around for decades and this was 20+ years ago.
Well he came in with his hard boiled eggs for 2 or 3 weeks and then stopped. We all asked him why he stopped and
he said he was loosing way to much weight, dropped like 20+lbs in 2-3 weeks. And he was not fat to begin with
just too much fat for bodybuilding competitions.

Mr. Markets

You can get Atkins candy bars thru Amazon for as little as $1.10 each if you buy a few boxes at a time.

Gravity Aided

I too agree, Losing weight is not a daily battle, it's a lifestyle change . Merry Christmas-
Even this guy is watching it

Neil_B

I don't know if I qualify. I lost 160 pounds and put back on sixty of them, although my knee problems helped with the regain.

That said, the first thing I had to grasp as I was a 400 pound guy sitting on the sofa feeling sorry for myself is that food wasn't my problem. It was my attitude towards food that was the difficulty. As a chef you know food is a wonderful thing. It gives us pleasure. I had to realize I wasn't enjoying it when I was a glutton. My enjoyment of food went though the roof when I consumed less of it.

Also, I realized my excess consumption of food prevented me from enjoying other things in life. So I cut back so I could find more joy.

And, I realized that if I ate too much, the world wasn't ending. I simply resumed what was the new normal for me. One day doesn't matter in my entire life.

Weight loss isn't a matter of punishing yourself, or thinking food is evil. It's finding joy.

Go find joy, Iron Chef.

FunkyStickman

I didn't lose nearly as much weight as some of the folks in here, but I had to change the way I eat. I had to change what I ate, and seriously controlled my portions. I got hurt 5 months ago and was off the bike for 3 months straight, and since I had to eat a lot to gain my pre-op weight back, I lost all my good eating habits. It's frustrating!

I'm only about 10-15 pounds overweight now, but I am feeling the impact of holiday eating and lack of exercise. I need to get back to my original plan: riding every day, eating very small (but nutritional) meals, and having healthy snacks to munch on when I actually get hungry, not just when my stomach is empty.

goldfinch

Good point. I had the same experience. Today I had the best ever homemade tortillas made into tacos. I am sure they tasted so good partly because I was really hungry and not just less full.

jimnolimit

good thing for you is that you have the ability to make all the food that goes in your mouth. i'm an avid home cook and i cook 7 days a week and make everything from scratch. having control over portions and ingredients is very important. one of the biggest problems for me was the types of foods and when i was eating them. i was also able to modify recipes to lower the calories, case in point: the new england clam chowder i made yesterday (a 10oz bowl is about 300 calories).

you say that your achilles heel is sweets, you're going to have to re-train your taste buds. first thing i suggest is to cut out all soda and soft drinks, even diet versions, and drink pretty much nothing but water (or seltzer/club soda). this will help get your taste away from sugar. then you need to lower the amount of sugar in other foods/drinks that you eat.

make sure every meal is balanced, this means you'll be incorporating more vegetables and balancing out protein and carbs. also, what you eat should better reflect when you are eating it. you're not going to want to eat a bunch of carbs late in the day.

Mr. Markets

I finally cured my Diet Coke additions with seltzer water The fiz substitutes for some of the "taste" I am missing. Do not leave this out as an option as there is nothing in seltzer/club soda but water and CO2. I drink at least a 2 liter a day, sometimes two of them.

jimnolimit

sorry i didn't make my self clear enough, i consider seltzer/club soda as water. i changed my post above.

p.s. i'm a big fan of seltzer.

brianogilvie 

And since there's nothing in seltzer water but regular water and carbon dioxide, you can buy a carbonator and make your own for far less money than buying it (as long as your home water supply tastes OK).

chefisaac

You can make anything carbonated. Tea, lemonade, thinner fruit shakes. Anything.

Gravity Aided

I wish you the very best of luck chef. It's got to be difficult to be an artisan, and for your art to edible.

chefisaac

gravity: you are telling me... it is tough. Yikes. We try around 30 products a day and sometimes no time for lunch so you "over taste". I am trying to work hard on finding a relationship with food and trying to see food as energy versus just pleasure.

Mr. Markets

we have one of those SodaStream things, but honestly, I like the locally bottled 2 litre stuff. Called Cascade Ice, this stuff come SOOOOoooooo carbonated you can leave a bottle open and it will still have fizz the next day. It is so "fresh" at the local grocery that it is routinely sold out there (in no flavor at least), and if you open a bottle quickly it will spray all over you. the sodaStream does not come even close. And the best part is -- You get 2L for about a buck each. that's almost thecost of the SodaStream without dealing with special bottles and less fizz.

Gravity Aided

That's a great philosophy about food . I need to do that as well . Or at least do it better.

contango 

I have to agree with this.

When I see miniature sausage rolls they instantly trigger that "want one" reflex. So it's the kind of thing where in a buffet I'll put one on my plate, and if it looks like I can get away with it without being antisocially greedy I might take two or three. But these days I resist that temptation because for all they trigger the "want one, want another one" reflex when I eat them I don't actually enjoy them all that much. They're made with cheap meat and lots of grease and just aren't nice.

Likewise I couldn't tell you how many times I've had a Mars bar or something because I was in the shop and they caught my eye only to eat it and then realise I just took on 300 calories that served no purpose and didn't really even give me any pleasure. So while I might still take a large slice of Black Forest Gateau knowing full well it's got the best part of 1000 calories in it, I'll tend to shy away from the Mars bar unless I decide I actually do really want it rather and I'm not just responding to being effectively a big kid in a candy store but wielding an adult's spending power.

Gravity Aided

Black Forest Cake . Probably a real contributor to my clydeness . My mother made it from scratch . Not that often, mind, but really good . Put me on a lifelong search for good cake . And pie .

SortaGrey

I know.. an old post. But nonsense is just that.. and requires a rebuttal IMO when so far from truth. No fan of Atkins the person here.. but your carb conclusions/illusions are just lunacy.

You need to read up on HOW the human body functions. Metabolic pathways are complex.... takes a mite more than casual surfing this net sewer to find some reality.

Gravity Aided

Sbatteys prescription sounds more like a diet for Racing than riding.