My Atkins Rant!

Allayall are on ma last nerve!  Even my two Sweeties, Janina and Heather are giving me grief.  That's why I started my own post, soze I can say exactly what I want to say and talk about them behind their backs.  Hehehe   

The Atkins Police is back with a vengeance, Baybee!  Now listen up all of you Atkins folks cuz we need to have a serious discussion.  Let's start with the fact that Atkins is a FORMULA diet.  There is a list of foods you can eat...period.  Dilly dallying with the list is unacceptable.  When you read the book, you learn the science behind the formula and the exact reasons why you can't go off the list.  And ya'll are making my brain leak by saying that staying with the formula is not necessary and things can be tweaked and if I don't know I messed up then I didn't mess up, and my favorite, I didn't know that starch was a carb...so yes little one, you IZ getting slapped for that!!!

The reason I am SOOOOOO adament about getting the facts straight is because there are people who come to this site for information, and some of the socalled Atkins information on here is WHACK!  Let's start with Janina.  If you read her menus, you would think that Lean Cuisine is accepptable.  It's not.  She doesn't eat enough vegetables and she eats starch...my eye is twitching.  Starch?  I digress.  Yes she is losing like crazy, but the difference between her and some other unsuspecting person rolling up in here is that Janina is BANDED.  So of course she will lose on a low carb diet, that's what she is supposed to be following in the first place.  See what I'm saying, not all dieters around here are created equal. 

And the more weight you have to lose, the more you lose in the beginning and then it slows down.  Heather has a lot of weight to lose which is why she can get away with the occassional indiscretion.  But later on, those little indiscretions are going to slow her weight loss down.  And I don't want her to get discouraged when that happens, so I'm hoping she will learn the correct way to do Atkins now instead of when that happens. 

I have one more thing to say about Atkins.  You HAVE to read the book and you HAVE to know what's on the list.  The book will tell you what starch is, it's the same as sugar and it's hidden in tons of processed foods.  The book tells you the names of the hidden sugars and starches.

And I'm sorry, you can disagree all you want, but if you are not following the formula, you are NOT on Atkins!  Now this was a gentle slap, if ya'll were on the Atkins forum, ya'll would have been blown outta the water!!!

As Ruby would say in that too sweet saccharin voice:  Love Ya'll

Mary   

Hello Mary, I have been following the information on the website but I think I will benifit bettwer with the book. I got onto amazon.com and there a ton of different atkins books, which one is the best? Thanks.

Reading the book gives you a better perspective on the whole science of Atkins and how it works, so I'm happy to hear that you are wanting to read it.  The best ever Atkins book is the 'Dr. Atkins New Diet Revolution, 2002'.  It will also let you know just how smart the man was.  He took a lot of crap from nutritionist, but now he is being vindicated.  Gotta love that!

How are you doing so far?

Mary

Thanks Mary,
I have been doing good. I am still learning thats for sure! The holidays are the hardest time to start and work through eating right, with temptations EVERYWHERE, but I think it is good for me because I can do this then the rest of the year will be such a breeze. I really want to learn the whole aspect of atkins because I want it to work for me. It is definitely different this time, when I did low carb a few years ago I did not understand really what I was doing and ended up adding more carbs here and there then just giving up. But with knowing all of you that are doing it and with the atkins website I have learned alot and it just feels right. Everyone here is so great. I know this is the place to come when I need to get my head back on straight!!!

You ARE brave for starting this during the holidays.  But you are right, if you can get through this, it gets easier by January when EVERYONE is trying to be good.  And if you are like me, you could have gained fifteen pounds while you were waiting to start.

There is a big difference between low carb and Atkins.  Atkins is ketogenic, which means you change to burning your fat stores.  What I like about Atkins is that I'm not hungry.  I was starving on a low carb diet and found it too easy to eat too many sweet potatoes!  I got stuck on weight loss after the first seventeen pounds.  Then I gave up.

The Atkins forum is a great place to go to get the technical part down pat.  But we're here to give you support and help you get the head part straightened out!  The more you work on the head, the easier the dieting gets.  I can't wait to see your next weigh-in!

Mary 

Mary we're all entitled to our own opinion.  You're forgetting a few things that chemically make up Atkin's, if you want to get down to the nitty gritty.

Things like Heavy Cream are allowed on Atkin's.  They're allowed in small amounts because Heavy cream has carbs.  It's made of moo juice, and moo juice contains natural starch.  Starch. Period.  Tomatoes have natural sugar in them - Sugar equals starch.  We can have tomatoes.  Almonds - only allowed 1 ounce serving a day - almonds equal starch. 

Now these are all natural starches - they're not chemical.  Whether or not my lean cuisine's sauce is made with real flour (natural starch) or some sort of chemical is beyond me.  Point is - it's starch. 

Atkin's has made these breakfast bars and Endulge bars up - guess what?  There's flour in those suckers.  If you read the carb counter on the back - the carb count doesn't even make sense - for example; if the total carbs are 21 and the fiber is 11, the bar claims to only have 2 grams, yet by the Atkin's formula, it should have 10.  WTF?  Who knows, who cares - you look the other way. 

What's my point?  Point is that there are guidelines to diets, not laws.  As long as Heather and I follow the guidelines and keep in mind the general (notice I'm using general and not exact here) formula and get results, we can label our method of madness as "Atkin's".  Like I said, I'm not eating my 20 grams of carbs on half a donut every day.  Neither is Heather. 

Love ya Mar, but you need to calm your southern ass down.

All of the answers to these questions are in the book.  Except for your question about the Atkins formula for why the bars are acceptable. 

http://www.atkins.com/Science/ScienceArticles/Library/Articl eDetail.aspx?articleID=48

As for figuring net carbs, you didn't deduct the sugar alcohols.  The correct formula is on the site.

Milk is not acceptable because it contains the sugar, lactose, not because it contains starch.  There is no starch in milk.  Cream floats to the top and does not have lactose. 

When I said sugar = starch, I meant that when your body is metabolizing starch, it can't tell the difference between starch and sugar.  It all causes an insulin response, which is what you want to avoid on Atkins.  This is for processed flour and sugar that takes no time to metabolize which causes the insulin response.  As for tomatoes having sugar, that is natural sugar, not processed sugar.  The book explains the difference in detail, here is a vague explanation of good carbs and bad carbs from the site.

http://www.atkins.com/Company/Press/PressDetails49/Selecting -the-Right-Carbohydrates.aspx

Where exactly is this "guidelines" list that you are talking about? 

I think I understand that you are trying to say that as long as you are kinda on Atkins and losing, then it's all good.  Kind of like being on a low calorie diet and if you go over by a few calories then it ain't no big whoop.  If that is the case, can we eat twelve hundred calories a day of doughnuts and still lose a lot of weight and call that a low calorie diet? Weigh****chers has guidelines, Atkins has rules.  I lost 129 pounds by following those rules, but I did it by reading that book backwards and forwards for years and following what Dr. Atkins calls the rules of Induction and the rules of OWL.  I just wanted to make that clear to the newbies on the board.  If you want to see why I'm so pigheaded about defending the rules, it's because the advisors on the Atkins Forum are constantly telling people that their "version" of Atkins means they are not on Atkins. 

Mary 

Mary, I'm sorry you're all pissed at us. I'm still not sure why we can't "dilly dally" with the formula as long as it's still working. I know your head probably just exploded with that last sentence, but it's the way I feel. And I didn't say that I didn't know startch was a carb, I wanted to know if/what the difference between a starch and a carb were, cause I thought they were the same. I'm all confused. I know I'm still learning about this plan, and you are my main source of info. You've seen what I'm eating daily, what am I doing wrong? In your opinion, what should I change? I really do want to know, because it will help me in the future. I want to be sucessful in this (finally) and appreciate the help. Now, you're probably gonna slap me again, but after reading your rant, I went and dug my copy of the New Diet Revolution out of a dusty box in my room. When I originally got it, I only skimmed through it, and have never really understood how Atkins works, only that it does. So now, I've got the book (go****s thick.) and I'll read it. If you say it explains how it works and all that I'll suffer through reading it.  Anyway, I'm rambling and I hope this actually makes sense.

Well Heather, I'm not pissed at anybody.  This rant was meant to be tongue in cheek, but unfortunately, it doesn't come off that way in the printed word.  It was kinda meant to be like talking to a little kid and he knows your not serious when you tell him, you are sooooo in trouble.  I rarely get pissed, I'm kinda easy going in person!

My only reason for saying what I said was so that the newbies get the facts right.  And when you get around to reading that book, you'll find all of the answers to your questions.  I think maybe I have done you a disservice by answering your questions about Atkins, but I thought you had read the book and you just needed fine tuning.

When you are through reading the book, you come back and tell me why you can't dilly dally around with the formula!  

Mary

Mary, don't think you did me a disservice by answering my questions! Remember I'm a full-time student with a 5 yr old dd. When I first started back in November, I wouldn't have had time to read the book! I was too busy dealing with all my school stuff and finding time for Jordyn. Now that finals and school are over for awhile, I have time to read the book, and I am. I'm on page 13 already.   WIthout your guidance,and the support of everyone on this forum, I don't know if I would have even started the plan till after the holidays, if I had I most likely wouldn't have been successful. Its nice knowing there are a bunch of people in the same boat as I am, and that we're all cheering each other on in our journeys.