Re: How many of you eat a low carb diet?/Christie

[Guest guest]

Wow Christie, that's fabulous!

Have you cut out all carbs? If not, what do you still include while

managing to maintain such benefits?

Blessings,

a

> >> I

> am curious as to how people have benefitted from a low carb diet. <<

>

> LOL, well, I lost over 110 pounds in 16 months, feel great, have no

> cravings, have tons of energy, lost my lifetime of IBS.... and the

list goes

> on.

>

> Christie

[Guest guest]

>> Have you cut out all carbs? If not, what do you still include while

managing to maintain such benefits? <<

a, the only way to cut out " all carbs " would be to live on meat and

oil. <G>

I follow Atkins, using NT principles. I eat buckets of salads, veggies like

lettuce (everything but iceberg, LOL), zucchini (usually grated and fried up

like hash browns), garlic, tomatos, cucumbers, onions, broccoli, asparagus,

mushrooms, kale, mustard greens, mizuma, arugala, raddichio, and really, any

and all non-starchy veggies, in great and huge abundance. I also eat low

glycemic fruits such as strawberries and melon, plus small amounts of other

lower-glycemic fruits in season. That's what Atkins calls for and I love it.

Other sources of carbs in my diet are things like cream, eggs, nuts, and

cheese. Even herbs have trace amounts of carbohydrate in them.

I stay below 35 grams of carbs a day, NOT counting fiber, because I used the

Atkins method to calculate what is called your " Critical Carbohydrate Level

for Losing, " or CCLL. As long as I say around 30-35 grams a day (not

counting fiber), I lose weight. My rate of loss has slowed way way down

now - I was averaging about 10 pounds a month and that's now more like 3

pounds a month, but that's normal and fine with me.

One thing most people don't know until they actually read his books is that

the Atkins plan does not have a set level of carbs. That is a number that

you arrive at individually, by controlled experimentation, starting with an

initital two weeks at the low level of 20 grams (not counting fiber) - this

period is known as " induction " and is designed primarily to break our

cravings and bad habits and get a bit of a clean state to start out with. It

also produces a pretty huge initial weight loss, mostly water, that is very

motivating for many people.

Then, using what Dr. Atkins " The Carbohydrate Ladder, " you add carbs in 5

grams at a time, in a certain order, until you hit the level where you stop

losing weight (or, if you are already at your desired weight, where you

start GAINING weight). You then back up to the last level where you lost (or

maintained), and that's your CCLL (or CCM, if you are maintaining). This

might flucuate at different times of the year, different ages, and if your

activity level changes, but you can, at any time, use the tool to

re-calculate.

The only foods that are 100 percent not allowed on Atkins are the " whites "

such as white sugar and its cousins like high fructose corn syrup, and white

flours. It also excludes all transfats. While IMO few people with genuine

weight problems will ever get to the last rung of carb ladder, which is

grains, many normal-weight people do.

It's a huge, huge misconception about Atkins, that you " can't " eat whole

grains. Now, I myself don't intend to eat grains for a variety of reasons,

and don't miss them particularly, but if your CCLL or CCM permit, they are

perfectly fine foods for those who do well on them. My active, normal-weight

brother has a CCM of 150 grams of carbs a day, for example, and eats

homemade, whole grain breads almost daily. And yet he IS doing Atkins, the

program for those who don't need to lose weight that is called " Atkins for

Life. "

I find Atkins to be extremely flexible and individualized, and totally

compatible with NT. While Atkins " allows " many foods that I don't eat, like

sugar alcohols and low carb junk foods and so on, it was originally

conceived as a whole foods diet (Dr. Atkins advised " Shop the perimeter of

the store and avoid the aisles - too bad the Atkins Nutritionals company

didn't remember that when they flooded the aisles with low carb junk food).

So it's quite easy to eat NT and Atkins at the same time. They fit together

very well. And I believe that the success I've had, when compared to many

people I know who try to do junk food Atkins, has been much greater due to

the things I've learned from WAP/NT principles in the years before I

discovered Atkins.

I've also been successful because I lift weights - something I didn't have

the energy to do before. And I'm also very committed. And I truly follow the

program as written and don't " cheat. " But I do credit NT/WAP with being a

huge part of my success.

Hope this was helpful!

Christie