The Atkins diet.

[Az]

If people ate right and didn't have a terrible lifestyle, they wouldn't be facing these problems... du-h!

[Jac de Molay]

Originally posted by Azazel
If people ate right and didn't have a terrible lifestyle, they wouldn't be facing these problems... du-h!

Well, at least in American society, it's not quite the no-brainer it seems.

I have members of my family who are seriously overweight, and suffer badly from it, like diabetes. The prevailing culture says it ok to stress out, eat badly, and work yourself into the ground so you can invest in making money, and acquiring material things.

But, when you start to talk about fitness and diet as an investment, it's suddenly not worth pursuing, or excuses like 'Im too busy, not enough time".

Fad diets will do nothing if you can't make an investment in yourself.

[Provost Harrison]

Originally posted by Dissident
metabolism doens't increase magically. trust me, I tried it.

some people just have a naturally low metabolism- like me. excersize didn't help it out at all.

what it did do though, is help quell my hunger. Yes suprisingly, after excersizing, I wasn't hungry. I actually have an easier time eating less when I'm exersizing. But it didin't do **** for my metabolism. It has been the same all along.

What kind of exercise were you using? You need pretty strong aerobic exercise...it works for me when I do it and I do not have a particularly high metabolic rate.

[lightblue]

Originally posted by Dissident


that's not true.

What kind of excersize do you do? run a friggin' marathon?

excersize doesn't burn that many calories. Most people don't have the stamina to do it for more than 20 or 30 minutes. And it's not worth the lost time to your life. There has yet to be conclusive evidence that excersize increases your lifespan. Being fit increases your lifespan- but some people can be fit without ever excersizing. I wish I was one of those people .

Reducing you calorie intake is the surefire way to lose weight. But that takes discipline.

I row (crew i think you Americans call it). I do about 20km a day on the water, 3*1hr (16-7km) on the machine a week. Add to that regular weight sessions. I do the rowing usually between 6 and 8am, then the rest for an hour in the late afternoon, early evening.

So yes it is an awful lot, but I find it better to spend time doing it than sleeping or watching TV.

Exercise is the single best proven healthy way of losing bodyfat. I haven't lost much weight if any, since seriously turning up the training regime, but I have reduced my bodyfat percentage from 16% to 9%.

In the meanwhile my average food intake will look sometime like this: couple of bananas before the morning outing, full fried breakfast (3 eggs, 3 rashers of bacon, 3 sausages, hashbrown, toast, beans, tomatoes), couple of sandwiches for lunch, about 500g of pasta for dinner. In between I snack a lot, mostly Jaffa cakes, chocolate bars and fruit. I'll drink on average about 2 litres of juice, 2 litres of softdrinks and about 3 pints of beer (but I binge drink those).

Caloric restriction only works for lengthening your life if you do it seriously, ie if you cut it to about 30-40% of the recommended amount. And even then it's only shown in rodents and not humans.

Diets should only really be used by people who have some sort of disability that does not allow them to exercise, imo of course.

All remotely serious rowers eat and drink what they want (apart from the lightweights, but people starving themselves down to 72kg at 1m90 are playing a dangerous game), and almost all will have low body fat percentages (mainly because as a crew you want to minimise weight for maximum power, we use tests such Watts produced per kilogram of body mass).

[Evil Knevil]

I sometimes go for days without food, when I'm working.....

But I still don't lose much weight! Bah!
Mon: One cookie.
Tue: One cheese sandwich.
Wed, I had 1 round of ham sandwiches.
Thurs, nothing.
Fri, nothing.
Sat: two rounds of tuna sandwiches and matchbox full of smarties.
Sun. Beans on toast.

I only lost one pound (135->134lb) (although it wasn't a deliberate diet!) Bah



Advice: start smoking. I smoke about 20-30 a day. It really can destroy your appetite, making them a decent (and marginally cheaper) alternative to food

[Solly]

Average day for me...

Brekkie: 3 rashers of bacon, 2 eggs

Lunch: Beef, bacon or chicken salad (with a lot of full-fat mayo!!)

Dinner: Steak with cabbage or cauliflower

Snack: Jelly with double cream

I started six weeks ago at just above 14 stone (198 lbs) and weighed in this morning at 13 stone (182).

[DarthVeda]

Now how did this thread get so far without me walking in here? I will single-handedly give the anti-atkins folks a walk with my sig.

[Gatekeeper]

Hmm. The latest studies indicate that while people on the Atkins diet lose weight faster *initially,* by the time a year has passed, their weight loss is no different from the people who simply changed their eating habits and got regular exercise. I belong to the latter group.

Gatekeeper

[Gatekeeper]

Addendum to the above: I've dropped 45 pounds since November by simply eating healthier and getting at least 15 minutes — sometimes more, but no more than 45 minutes to an hour — of exercise a day.

Gatekeeper

[Az]

I've realized that my military pants don't fit anymore. I've decided to take some drastic action.

My carbohydrate intake today was a tablespoon of rice, and some veggies.

[Lung]

I haven't gone on to the Atkins diet, but i have gone back to a more traditional amount of carbs, and it works. My problem with it is that it sounds like an excuse for people to eat badly (and the no beer rule). However, for people who have failed at all other diets, it's a dead cert

At the end of the day though, fat people are people who eat too much and/or get not enough excercise. I love it when fat people either;

*in order to gain sympathy, eat like sparrows in front of everyone else and eat like a piggery when no one's watching, or;

*eat like a piggery in front of everyone else, claiming fat pride

Fat people - stop eating like pigs, and at least walk to wherever it is where you intend to do it instead of getting a cab!

[monkspider]

Most doctors I have talked to say the Atkins is bad news, so try it at your own risk. It does work for some though.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Provost Harrison
Unlike Stew, I don't drink to excess. Touche!

I do it is my great weakness the the cause of my beer belly.

Still I figure I just have to keep up with the adkins for 2-3 months and I'll be back at 185 which is the weight I was for years and years. Not bad for being 6'1".

So far (5 days into it) I've been completely loyal to the Atkins diet except I didn't know 0 calery selsers that contain aspertane (a suger substitute) weren't allowed. I had two of them before I figured it out. Apartently aspertane acts like caffine and slows your metabolism down so it is a no-no. I have been keeping up with the excersize plan though. I plan to weight in once per week so next Sunday I'll give you guys an update.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Provost Harrison
Myths? Well acetoacetic acid, a primary ketone body, does break down into acetone readily...which causes that smell on the breath, usually associated with diabetes.

Yes, I read about the keytones and yes I've noticed them. I just brush my teeth twice a day and chew on parsley after lunch. So far no one has said anything to me. I hope that's a good sign.

[Gatekeeper]

Y'know what, Lung? You're pretty rude about certain things. Yes, there are so-called lardbutts out there who are that simply because they eat too much and get too little exercise. There are also lardbutts out there whose problems are rooted in genetics.

We've all been envious of the folks who can eat anything in the world, in significant quantities, and never gain a pound. That's been tied to genetics. It goes to reason that the opposite is true as well — and research is proving this — that there are populations out there who pretty pack on the pounds no matter how much or how little they eat, or their exerise levels. It's tied to genetics. Hell, they've found that there are entire populations who are more likely to become addicted to various drugs — tobacco, for example — because, somewhere in their genetic makeup, a switch has been flipped, oftentimes due to no conscious action of their own.

Now this isn't an excuse for folks to "go with the flow," so to speak, but it puts things in perspective, IMO.

Gatekeeper