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Oct 14, 2008

Is having 0 - 5grams of carbs a day dangerous?
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sanoukee
New Member
Joined: 20 Jun 2008
Posts: 13
Fri Jun 20, 2008 10: 04 am    Post subject: Is having 0 - 5grams of carbs a day dangerous?
So I ' ve been on induction since I think March or April. Started out at 168 lbs and I ' m now jagged between 137 - 140 and still on induction. Promising to get to 125 or so before doing the next steps in atkins. Currently 5 ' 6 ", male, 25 years old.
The first 25 - 30 lbs came off pretty quickly, but for the past month it doesn ' t feel like I ' ve been losing much weight and the scales have been devious around 137 - 140.
I also do around 150 pushups, 100 situps every day, and 60 leg lifts and 60 squats occassionaly. I used to have a gym membership many years ago, but canceled it because I stopped going and didn ' t want to reactivate and salary the admired activation fees ( used to weigh 125 back then ). So these are the only convenient exercises I can do at home. I don ' t really do much exercise in terms of cardio.
Lately I think I ' ve been only eating around 5 grams of carbs max every day for the past month or so. Buying frozen individually wrapped meats from costco ( ie, hamburger patties, variety of fish fillets ) and eating one for either breakfast, lunch or dinner. One filet or patty or any portion around that size ( eggs, tuna, etc ) is enough to satisfy me until the next meal. And sometimes I eat a cheese - stick or a pickle quarter between meals to keep the metabolism going.
But what I ' m concerned of is that for the past month my diet hasn ' t really included many vegetables ( delete for feasibly a salad of some kind if I happen to go out, which is unusual ). I take vitamin supplements, but from the atkins induction guide it says that you should take 12 - 15 grams of carbs of vegetables.
I was wondering if eating 12 - 15 grams of carbs of vegetables was really necessary for induction to work properly or if just eating protein was competent. I would have thought that the lower the amt of carbs you ate a day, the faster you would lose weight ( not really the reason why I haven ' t been eating my veggies, it ' s just a lot more convenient to cook these things on my george foreman grill without the trouble of fresh vegetables going bad in the fridge )
So I think what description to the slow weight loss are either:
1. low intake of veggies
2. oftentimes eating like 5 carbs a day
3. exercise, gaining muscle.
4. Last 10 lbs are the slowest?
I ' m optimistic it ' s just option 4. Can also be alternative 3, but I don ' t think I should be gaining muscle as fast as I should be losing weight ( ie should be losing a lb of fat but instead gain a lb of muscle so that ' s why it looks like i ' m not losing weight ). Because that would be a lot of muscle gained in a short period of time. So I ' m guessing it may be a mix of 3 and 4?
Tril
Senior Member
Joined: 27 May 2008
Posts: 1325
Situation: ( very ) Northeastern USA
Fri Jun 20, 2008 11: 42 am    Post subject:
Personally... I think it ' s ALL four of your reasons.
As far as being healthy, I think you answered your own question when you said this:
" But what I ' m concerned of is that for the past month my diet hasn ' t really included many vegetables ( erase for maybe a salad of some kind if I happen to go out, which is rare ). I take vitamin supplements, but from the atkins induction guide it says that you should take 12 - 15 grams of carbs of vegetables. "
One of the biggest criticisms of the Atkins diet over the last 30 + years is the " no carbs, no veggies " belief by nutritionists and doctors who don ' t know ( haven ' t read ) the diet. Dr. Atkins was VERY quick to say that HIS diet does embrace vegetables and carbs from those vegetables ( not mention the food on OWL that you ' ll reintroduce slowly ). If you don ' t interpolate the minimum amount of vegetables that he said to eat, then, fully frankly, you ' re NOT doing Atkins. By eating 5 g a day, you ' re doing your own self prescribed VLC plan. Atkins includes veggies for a reason... health. He also said that Induction was " brief " and should be used to change the body ' s organism. The longest ( from what I ' ve read in his books ) he wanted anyone on Induction levels was until you ' d lost half of your enthusiasm wt loss. For you, that would have been around 150 pounds. You should have started OWL about 10# ago.
What do / did you plan to do once you got to your goal weight? How do you plan to eat the rest of your life? Do you see that learning to eat more ( good ) carbs now will help you then? It ' s really not realistic to think that you ' ll live on just protein the rest of your life... and if you haven ' t learned to eat other foods along the way, what ' s going to keep you at goal?
You may find, too, that your body will respond to having those veggie carbs and start losing again.
Good luck,
Tril
smerbear
Senior Member
Joined: 09 Dec 2007
Posts: 237
Stage: North Carolina
Fri Jun 20, 2008 5: 14 pm    Post subject:
It is imperative to result the diet correctly to succeed. You also don ' t want to damage your body by modifying to what you think is ok. It is great that you are taking a vitamin supplement but that in itself will not help you. You should have already moved on to at least OWL by now... you don ' t want to move to phase 4 without going through Phase 2 & 3 first and you don ' t really want to cram them all in, you should supplant each step gradually so you don ' t have to come back a year or more down the road at 10, 20, 30 + lbs more than wha t you are now.
I give blessing with Tril, what will you do when you get to goal weight and all of sudden you have to figure out how to maintain.
Do yourself a favor and get in your veggies, water, exercise and bring your carbs to at least 20 carbs a day. Your body needs some carbs to function. I don ' t know if you have ever done lowcarb before or if you have ever done the full research on it but this is exactly why the Atkins Diet got a bad name. Please do not add to the list of people that give this WOE a bad name.
This forum is very supportive and helpful to people who do their research and proceed from this WOE properly. Everyone stumbles and makes mistakes. That is what we are here for. Please help us to show people the right way of following this program!
sanoukee
New Member
Joined: 20 Jun 2008
Posts: 13
Fri Jun 20, 2008 6: 45 pm    Post subject:
I did actually do my research on induction ( well not the books, just the guidelines listed on the atkins pages ), however the atkins guide rules on induction only said " Eat no more than 20 grams a day of carbohydrate, at least 12 – 15 grams of which must come in the form of salad greens and other vegetables. ( see Acceptable Foods ). ". Which I assumed means a maximum of 20 and since no minimum was stated, 0 - 20 a day. Though it says 12 - 15 grams from vegetables, the way it ' s worded makes it seem that if you do eat up to 20 grams, 12 - 15 of those 20 needs to be from vegetables instead of things like pure sugars, etc.
If that wasn ' t the case then I guess I read the rules incorrectly, and the wording should probably be changed to " Eat 12 - 20 grams a day, 12 - 15 which must come in the form of vegetables " to avoid confusion. I was eating my veggies for the first few months, though it ' s just been more convenient as of late to just forego them and just cook up something fast and incomplex. As far as my energy, I haven ' t felt that I was lacking any and have felt fine so far. And I haven ' t found myself getting hungry either.
Was planning on moving onto the other phases when I was closer to my goal ( like 130 or so ). If I passed my goal in the working of stabilizing then that ' d only be a plus. [ / icon_biggrin. gif]
I appreciate the replies, just thought that since the wording wasn ' t all that clear that I ' d ask and see what others felt about the matter.
smerbear
Senior Member
Joined: 09 Dec 2007
Posts: 237
Site: North Carolina
Sun Jun 22, 2008 2: 30 pm    Post subject:
sanoukee I am glad to see you are trying to get more research so you do this diet correctly. As I said before, this forum is really supportive if you pursue correctly. We will support you on this excursion, but please up your veggie intake and continue on.
It is very important to continue through the steps as so many times people do induction and then go back to eating the bad carbs. This will not set out you keep off the weight. Your body needs time to adjust.
Good Luck!!!!
sanoukee
New Member
Joined: 20 Jun 2008
Posts: 13
Tue Jun 24, 2008 6: 53 pm    Post subject:
Ya I started to take in some more veggies in my diet. Bought a few heads of broccoli and just steam up a head for breakfast / lunch. And bought some haas avocados to eat during the day as snacks too. Hopefully I start noticing some changes [ / icon_biggrin. gif]
Have a few questions. Would low carb / high fiber tortillas be okay to eat. 7 grams of fiber / 3 grams of carbs per tortilla. As long as you stay under the 20 grams per day? Or are all grains off limits during induction, even if taken so you ' ll be under the 20 gram limit? Also if I made chicken soup, using carrots as broth flavoring and straining out the carrots would be okay right?
karenjs
Senior Member
Joined: 03 Jan 2008
Posts: 544
Location: San Jose
Tue Jun 24, 2008 7: 40 pm    Post subject:
Hi Sanoukee,
Congratulations on your great weight loss so far! I ' m glad to hear you ' re adding veggies. Broccoli is great! Very nutritious and low carb, and lots of fiber too. Be sure to limit your avocados to 1 / 2 of an avocado per day.
You can get Dr Atkins New Diet Revolution at your library for free, or a used copy from Amazon for less than $5. There ' s also a book called Atkins Essentials which is a little faster to read.
We ' re happy to answer your questions, but you would be better able to avoid risks to your health if you read the book. You might not ask the right questions, after all.
If you ' re continuing on Induction, you need to limit the foods to the Acceptable Foods list. Eat nothing that is not on that list. ( Tortillas and other grains can be added toward the end of the Ongoing Weight Loss ( OWL ) phase.
I wouldn ' t try cooking the carrots and straining out the solids. The sugars from the carrots would be in the liquid.
Minimum carbs: You must eat at least 15 carbs per day. Here ' s why:
The body can burn carbohydrates ( which turns to sugar or glucose in the bloodstream ), protein or fat for fuel. The Atkins diet is designed to train the body to burn fat ( and ketones from fat ) instead of carbohydrates. However, some of your body tissues are not capable of burning fat or ketones for fuel. They must burn glucose. If they can ' t find it, they will burn protein or the cells will begin to die. The heart, in particular, needs carbohydrates or it will burn protein, especially its own muscle.
So, if you don ' t eat a minimum amount of carbohydrates, you will lose muscle mass and it could be muscle you really, really need.
Also, please plan on going through all four phases of Atkins before reaching your goal. It ' s designed to help you maintain your goal weight for the rest of your life. Otherwise, you could gain the weight back when you return to your pre - Atkins eating habits. Nobody plans to do that, but it ' s hard to avoid if you don ' t go through the phases correctly.
I ' m glad you ' re here! Good luck with that last twelve pounds!
robbie1687
New Member
Joined: 19 Jul 2008
Posts: 7
Sat Jul 19, 2008 2: 41 pm    Post subject:
sanoukee, I think it ' s very likely that your body fat has continued shrinking and that your muscles have grown. Instead of measuring your progress by weight, why don ' t you do it by measuring your body fat? You can do this with skin fold calipers or simply by looking at your abs in the mirror. If your abs keep becoming more visible, your body fat is shrinking regardless of your weight. And once they are very clearly visible, your body fat is at an optimum level and your body will want to keep it that way.
By the way it ' s easy for a young man to gain ten or twenty pounds of muscle in a few months. When I was in my thirties I once gained 32 pounds of muscle in five months by lifting weights. ( Without drugs. )
Some people believe that going on a low carb diet can make muscle growth even easier because it causes muscle tissue to become more sensitive to insulin.
KypDurron
Senior Member
Joined: 30 Jun 2008
Posts: 427
Location: Wisconsin
Sun Jul 20, 2008 6: 06 am    Post subject:
Your body will burn protein if there is not enough carbs, but it wont necessarily eat your muscles.
If you are intaking enough protein it will make it.
Part of the atkins process is the metabolic advantage, and part of the metabolic advantage is this.
Your body can make glucose from carb at a 1 to 1 ratio. It can however, make glucose from protein at a 2 to 1 ratio. Its harder for it to do, but it can be done.
Tril
Senior Member
Joined: 27 May 2008
Posts: 1325
Location: ( very ) Northeastern USA
Sun Jul 20, 2008 10: 13 am    Post subject:
And, according to what I ' ve been able to find out you need about 100 grams of complete protein a day to have enough for glucogenisis and for what your body needs. Although it ' s a less efficient way to make glucose ( from protein instead of carbs ) your body can, and will, do it in the absense of enough carbs in the diet to provide the brain, liver and one other organ I can ' t remember the glucose they require to function. If you ' re eating 20 grams on induction you ' ll make the necessary glucose. If you ' re eating less than 20 you better make sure you ' re eating sufficient protein. For men, that ' s probably not difficult. I, on the other hand, have a hard time getting 100 grams of protein day after day and therefore I make sure I get enough carbs ( 15 - 25 a day ). I have protein with every meal and snack... especially snacks.
Tril
KypDurron
Senior Member
Joined: 30 Jun 2008
Posts: 427
Location: Wisconsin
Sun Jul 20, 2008 2: 19 pm    Post subject:
A whey protein isolate shake is usually 1 or 2 carbs at most, and about 100 calories, but 30 grams of protein. 1 or 2 of those a day will help anyone keep their protein levels high enough to ensure they are always getting enough protein for glucose production, fyi.
Bliss Pirate
Senior Member
Joined: 06 Jan 2004
Posts: 3106
Location: St. Paul, MN
Mon Jul 21, 2008 3: 07 am    Post subject:
My personal experience is that 5g of net carbs resulted in SLOWER weight loss then being between 18 and 24 net carbs.
At least in part this is becuase at 5g net carbs I feel like crap and have no energy, and if I go to long without eating hit the wall hard and literally have to stop everything and rest. Net result - lower activity level.
At 18 to 24 g net carb I can exercise and have my normal level of functioning without having to eat every 4 hours. I still run into trouble if I go longer then 8 - and my daughter will tell you that past 6 hours and I get pretty cranky...
stephani501
Established Member
Joined: 12 Jun 2008
Posts: 133
Location: Seattle, Washington
Mon Jul 21, 2008 7: 57 pm    Post subject:
I am confused by something. Why does Dr. Atkins talk about the fat fast? For people who may have a metabolic resistance? He says to eat 5 meals consisting of 200 calories for four to five days. There are no carbs and I am wondering why he said to do it if it is so dangerous to our bodies.
I am not being a smart#$ %, I am seriously curious.
Tril
Senior Member
Joined: 27 May 2008
Posts: 1325
Location: ( very ) Northeastern USA
Mon Jul 21, 2008 8: 24 pm    Post subject:
He only says to do it if you are metabolically resistant. If you ' re not, it ' s dangerous. The fat fast is a way to force the body into ketosis. It eliminates not only all carbohydrate, but also most protein. The fat fast is 90 % fat. This is to ensure that protein isn ' t being converted to glucose ( glycogenesis ). It ' s a severe, low calorie ( 1000 calories per day ) last ditch attempt before medication way of inducing ketosis and overcoming metabolic resistance. It ' s ONLY for the very small population of people who cannot induce ketosis otherwise. It ' s dangerous for anyone NOT metabolically resistant. And, it ' s only done for 4 or 5 days.
I cringe when I read of people trying the fat fast to speed up their weight loss or to " break a stall ".
In my DANDR book he writes about this on pages 272 - 274.
Tril
karenjs
Senior Member
Joined: 03 Jan 2008
Posts: 544
Location: San Jose
Mon Jul 21, 2008 8: 27 pm    Post subject:
You can eat about anything ( or not eat at all ) for a few days without doing permanent damage to your body.
It ' s when you do it for longer than a few days that damage occurs.
The fat fast is a last - ditch effort to get into ketosis and break a stall that lasts longer than four weeks. It certainly isn ' t necessary for most people.
You can ask any question you want. And that was a good one! [ / icon_smile. gif]
Tril
Senior Member
Joined: 27 May 2008
Posts: 1325
Location: ( very ) Northeastern USA
Mon Jul 21, 2008 9: 02 pm    Post subject:
Atkins said it ' s dangerous because the weight loss is too fast for anyone not metabolically resistant.
" Let me make it very clear that the Fat Fast is actually dangerous for anyone who is not metabolically resistant. For people who lose weight fairly easily, the rate of weight loss is too rapid to be safe. But it carries very little risk for people who can barely lose on any other regimen. The reason why I ask such people to try the Fat Fast is to let them know that it is possible to lose weight. "
The fat fast works like this... for 4 to 5 days you eat one 200 calorie high fat choice from the list every 4 hours. I don ' t think I ' d call them " meals ", myself. [ / icon_wink. gif]
The list is on page 273 if you want to see it.
stephani501
Established Member
Joined: 12 Jun 2008
Posts: 133
Location: Seattle, Washington
Mon Jul 21, 2008 9: 21 pm    Post subject:
The funny thing is, I have the book right next to me ( I bring it to work to read ) and I still needed an explanation!
Thank you for the answers, they made sense to me. I was just curious.
You guys are awesome!
KypDurron
Senior Member
Joined: 30 Jun 2008
Posts: 427
Location: Wisconsin
Tue Jul 22, 2008 3: 02 pm    Post subject:
I had a pretty in depth conversation with my doc regarding how much weight you can lose i a week safely, and he was of the opinion that as log as your cardiovascular system is healthy ( reasonably so ) and you are getting your minerals and vitamins, even up to 6 lbs or more a week wasn ' t really " dangerous "

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