From: Hal Finney (hal@finney.org)
Date: Sat Apr 26 2003 - 12:09:37 MDT
I thought I'd write about my own experiences with the Atkins diet.
I've been on it almost two weeks. Coincidentally I began just a few
days after Greg Burch's post about it, although I had decided to try it
a few days earlier after a friend told me about his success with the diet.
I've been trying to lose weight for almost a year now. Despite being
quite active - I did a triathlon last year, and plan to do two this year,
and I exercise every day for about an hour, a mix of walking, running,
biking, swimming and working out at the gym - my weight had crept up to
the mid 220's. I'm 5'9" and that puts my BMI way into the obese range.
I don't necessarily agree with BMI, I don't think it works well for
someone who is relatively muscular, but my waistline was big, my pants
were tight and I knew I needed to come down.
I've been on a diet since about last June, just cutting down on snacks,
not stuffing myself at meals, and it's been quite successful. I got
down to about 195. But then I seemed to hit a wall and for a couple of
months I couldn't get any lower. I was feeling hungry and frustrated;
even though it felt like I was depriving myself, and I had increased
my exercise, I still wasn't losing weight. That's why I decided to
try Atkins.
The diet has been easy to follow, although it is a huge change from how
I normally eat. I have been eating low fat for years - lots of carbs,
bread, cereal, pasta, big servings of vegetables with dinner, modest
amounts of meat. Several years ago I was eating vegetarian for about
three years, but I put on quite a bit of weight on that diet.
With Atkins, I'm eating almost the opposite of what I used to, but it
has been surprisingly easy to change. Partially it is because I am now
eating as I did when I was a kid, growing up in the 1960s. Eggs and
bacon or ham for breakfast, tuna or chicken salad for lunch, meat with
some veggies and salad for dinner. These are familiar foods for me, and
they have a nostalgic quality as I haven't indulged in them for decades.
I also bought some special products, low carb versions of foods I couldn't
have otherwise, like ketchup and barbecue sauce and salad dressing.
I've been eating Atkins snack bars and the pre-made shakes as well, which
taste great and satisfy my sweet tooth (however they are quite expensive).
So what are the results? Well, there's good news and bad news. The good
news is that I've lost a lot of weight. Today I was 187, down about 8
pounds in 12 days. I think much of that is water weight; the diet acts
as a diuretic and I'm going through a lot of water. I lost half the
weight in the first three days! But it still gives you a psychological
lift to see initial results. And breaking through the 195 pound barrier
I'd been fighting with for so long was a great feeling.
The bad news is that I haven't felt that good. After about two days
I started getting headaches and feeling an upset stomach, with not
much appetite. This is supposedly because ketosis is kicking in as
the body has used up its store of carbs and now has to digest fat.
The book said this would go away and I would feel full of energy.
Well, the headaches have gone away but I don't have that much energy.
My workouts are not quite as hard. Generally I feel somewhat listless,
and I'm slow to warm up, although once I get going I can work at pretty
much the same level as before. The one positive difference is that I
literally feel light on my feet. The rapid weight loss is noticeable
in the soles of my feet as I walk, they feel the lessened pressure.
It's possible that if I increase my carbs somewhat I'll start to feel
more energetic. Atkins recommends doing a very low carb diet, less than
20 grams per day, for the first two weeks, then gradually increasing
the carbs and seeing how your weight loss goes. My main concern is
the first triathlon, but that isn't until August. I need to be at full
energy by then. Hopefully I will be able to do that by increasing carbs,
without falling back into my old eating habits.
I also want to get my cholesterol tested in a few weeks. You're supposed
to get it done before beginning the diet, but I was too impatient.
I did have it tested a couple of years ago so that would be my basis for
comparison. Eating two or three eggs a day plus a lot of fatty foods,
I'm worried about what is happening to my blood. However Atkins claims
that the diet won't hurt, or at least that it will raise the "good"
cholesterol enough to compensate for any rise in the "bad". We'll see.
Hopefully this will be useful to people who are considering this diet
or related low-carb diets. I might post something again in a month or
so about how it's going.
Hal
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