#1. DO YOUR HOMEWORKPlease don't try to succeed on a low carb Way of Eating without buying and reading AT LEAST ONE low carb book. Take your pick as to which one,
but read one, in its entirety, so that you will understand the metabolic process you are striving to achieve. Without a basic understanding of ketosis, you will have a much harder time making this work ~ and hey, that's the whole point, right? RIGHT!
My personal recommendations for low carb books include:
Dr. Atkin's New Diet Revolution,
Atkins for Life - I better include this one, as
I am quoted in this book by the legendary Dr. Atkins!!! - look for me in the index!,
Protein Power Lifeplan,
Protein Power,
Life Without Bread: How a Low Carbohydrate Diet Can Save Your Life, and
The Schwarzbein Principle.
The
Corinne T. Netzer's Complete Book of Food Counts is a great reference to have, too (on ANY diet). Yes, you can look things up online, but a printed reference is a heck of a lot more convenient than running to the computer every time you want to eat something!
Online carb counters are listed
here on my main Links page.
#2 PITCH THE KETOSTIXThe idea of using ketostix to make sure you are in ketosis sounds good - until you realize that all they really measure is the burning of fat.
Any fat. Whether you are burning adipose tissue (existing stored body fat) OR you are burning dietary fat, you will produce ketones, which will register on the ketostix. And if you are on a low carb diet, you will burn some kind of fat, so whether you register on the stix or not doesn't necessarily correlate to actual weight loss!
Then there's this, excerpted from GO Diet:
There are two main ketone bodies produced. One is called “acetoacetic acid” and the other is named “beta-hydroxybutyric acid (HBA). Acetoacetic acid can spontaneously break down to form acetone and this is the compound which gives people on this diet a faint, but distinct smell on their breath. Other low carbohydrate diets advocate the use of ketosticks to detect these ketones in the urine, as a sign that you are really burning fats. However, these sticks, which are expensive, only detect the acetoacetic acid and acetone, which are less than one fifth of the ketones produced. The HBA goes totally undetected by this test. Many people never produce enough acetoacetic acid to cause these sticks to turn color, yet testing their blood for HBA shows plenty of ketones.” Now for some good news: I never really noticed the so-called keto-breath, or the body odors that the books talk about. (Neither did/do my friends or family, who would not HESITATE to tell me - trust me!)
Now, the color of the stix, in my opinion, has a lot to do with how much water you drink. The more concentrated your urine is, the more concentrated the ketones will be. A high ketone reading in the absence of weight loss could be due to a lot of things, but mostly it is due to high fat ingestion, which is what a lowcarb diet really is. It just isn't politically correct to call it that. Your body doesn't dump the ketones consistently, either, so it is difficult to know whether an absence of ketones might simply be your own lousy timing. Timing, after all, is everything! And if you don't drink enough water, excess ketones will necessarily have to be excreted somehow other than through your urine. And my guess is that when they get excreted through your skin and respiration, they stink to high heaven. So, for many, many reasons, drink all the water that your plan recommends. Then drink some more. And don't put too much stake in the readings of ketostix. A far better indicator of how you are doing on low carb than the color some expensive little strip of treated paper turns when you (you know) will be
-- how you feel (once you get past the inevitable week 1 slump)
-- how you look - I am serious. When I put those two pictures together that you see on the My Story page, I was totally shocked - and so gratified, too - to see how much better I could look at the same weight. Do not let the scale alone, or even your measurements alone, be your indicator of success.
-- how your clothes fit - Do yourself a favor and take those painful-to-face measurements right at the beginning, so you really know where you are. The first time I took mine I cried, but I wish I had done it earlier because in the next month after I did take them, I lost four inches just from my waist alone while the scale never moved. Is it a stall if the scale doesn't change for a month? Doubtful, if you are being true to the plan you are on. Is it possible that you have stalled? You bet! What to do? Get a software program that calculates your exact nutritional intake and analyze what is going on. The one that I used first is called
Lifeform. You can try it out free for the first 21 days and if you like it, you pay for it and it keeps working. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. In 2004, I switched to
DietPro and I still use this one regularly.
If you use a mac, there is one out there called Dietsleuth. Do a search and hunt it down. There are free places to keep track online, too, like
FitDay.
During induction, I recommend that you:Stick to meat, dairy, and veggies only. Try to not use any artificial sweeteners, fruit, or grain based products, high fiber or not. Get the full 20 carbs each day from lettuce, salad vegetables, low carb veggies like broccoli, cauliflower, and green beans. I also ate small amounts of tomatoes and bell peppers on my salads - even during induction. If you really really have to have something sweet, you can eat sugar free gelatin. Try to find Jolly rancher brand, which is sweetened without aspartame.
By the time you eat 1 large or two small salads per day, with a 2/3 cup serving of other vegetables, that will usually add up to almost 20 carbs (with cheese, cream, and salad dressing included, they add up much faster than you would expect.) After two weeks of this, you will find that you have to remind yourself to eat, that you no longer really *want* the bready things or the sweet things as much. I did not add the low carb versions of these things back in until I had been eating induction-style for about 6 weeks. I think this gave me the ability to keep these food items in perspective. I still don't crave them, I crave fruit and veggies and dairy products, if anything. When I start thinking about fake sweets too often, I force myself to go several days without any at all, and then I am back in balance. It is a constant balancing act, and I must remain vigilant to insure that my sweet-tooth/bread cravings do not take over. I expect I will have to be like this forever.
ONE MORE TIME: Eat your veggies, they go a long way towards filling you up with something less calorically dense than meat, and trust me - you NEED the fiber (and nutrients) that they contain.[/size]
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WHAT YOU CAN EXPECT:Several things can be expected when you shut down your body’s carb supply suddenly during a traditional "Atkins induction" period:
Within forty-eight to seventy-two hours, the supply of glycogen in your muscles will run out, and you will probably experience a huge energy slump, even flu-like symptoms. This lovely state of affairs is usually accompanied by a fierce headache and feelings of nausea. Don’t give up - these are all good signs, believe it or not. These temporary symptoms are signs that your body is preparing to change the way it procures its energy - in other words, you are about to successfully access and then begin to transform your fat stores into useable energy by entering into a lovely and desirable state of benign dietary ketosis.
Your kidneys will receive a signal telling them to release excess sodium and fluid from your now glycogen-depleted muscles, and you will start to shed "water weight" rapidly. (Plan to visit the bathroom a LOT for a couple of days!)
This sudden change in body fluid levels can cause more than loose rings - it can also cause an imbalance in potassium level, and this imbalance might manifest itself as light-headedness or fatigue accompanied by changes in blood pressure and/or pulse rate. You can prevent these conditions in almost all cases just by taking an inexpensive potassium supplement from the start. I strongly recommend a supplement of a least 100 mg - 200 mg of elemental potassium per day, along with a complete multivitamin, for all healthy people who are beginning a low-carb diet and who do not have a medical condition that prohibits potassium supplementation. Potassium can provide relief from the worst of these symptoms, in most cases, within twenty minutes of taking it. Dosage can be increased up to 400 mg per day, if needed. Note: the front of the bottle may say something like 550mg, but the back label, where the important data is, should list elemental potassium. That’s the dose that counts! I wasn’t taking potassium when I originally started a very-low-carb diet, and by Day Three my blood pressure and resting pulse had skyrocketed. I was also experiencing muscle cramps and "restless legs". I went online looking for answers, luckily received the above excellent advice, and felt immediately better after buying and taking some very inexpensive potassium. Do yourself a favor, and skip the trauma and drama - take the potassium from the beginning.
PLEASE NOTE: Certain blood pressure and other medications can cause a bad reaction when taken in combination with potassium. If you are currently taking medications of any kind, or have any specific health problems, you should consult your personal physician before beginning this (or any new) supplement regimen or diet of any kind.
You may experience a distinct lack of appetite after the first few days, even temporary nausea, but you must still eat an adequate amount of fat and protein during this time, in order to provide your body with all the tools it needs to successfully convert itself over to a fat-based (ketogenic) energy system.
You may also find yourself feeling extremely hungry at other times. When that happens, be sure to eat!
Most low-carb diets are much more about what you eat, and not about how much, especially at the beginning. Be sure to select foods containing mostly good fats and protein, which are your primary energy sources and which will therefore be the most satisfying. Consult individual plans for guidance on which fats you should be eating, but you can pretty much
throw everything you ever heard about restricting fat and calories in the past out the window. At this time in a low-carb plan, fat is most definitely your friend. Failing to eat regularly, and failing to include sufficient fat and protein content when you do eat, will not only not make you lose weight any faster, it can be counter-productive. Think of your metabolism as a furnace that you need keep burning evenly. If you wait too long to feed the fire (eat) and let the flame go all the way out, then it will take a long time to for it get "hot" again. Many plan authors advise never going more than four waking hours with eating a little something - the trick is choosing the "something" wisely.
Once your body has successfully adjusted to burning fat for energy instead of carbs, which should occur within seven to ten days, your blood sugar levels will stabilize (perhaps for the first time ever!) and you can expect to enjoy a huge rush of energy accompanied a feeling of overall well-being that leads many low-carbers to proclaim themselves "low carb for life" on the spot.
Now, don’t panic on me! "Making lifelong changes" does NOT mean that you will never enjoy a carb again, I promise. It does mean that until you reach maintenance and have allowed your insulin receptors sufficient time to heal, you will have to be very careful in each and every one of your carb choices. You will be able to successfully incorporate more and more "good carbs", the longer you follow a low-carb lifestyle, but you will never be able to (nor will you want to!) return to your old ways and go back to eating lots of refined "bad carbohydrates".
