OT: ATKINS DIET-what foods worked for you

[mama2be]

somewhere I have the book but who knows where...I did this diet right before my wedding and the pounds I swear melted off and stayed off for while :)...

Anyway not asking for a debate on the diet or what better diet I should do...feel free to start your own thread on it if you hate it, think it's dangerous etc...but I am looking for anyone else who did it and has any input on what foods they liked could eat on it etc...

I'm a carb addict...so this is hard...but last time I only surrounded myself with what I could eat and that helped...

Anyone done it and have advice on foods. Sorry didn't put this under "staying fit" because I'm looking for folks that possibly did this in the past and are not hanging out over on "staying fit" a forum I have not (and should) visit...

Thanks ladies and gents!!!!

[nigele]

My Dad and stepmom have been doing the Atkins diet for a while...I'll shoot them an e-mail and ask for their advice. I do know they loved the Atkins shakes. They accidentally left a couple in my fridge last time they were here. Come on over and have a drink, Neve!

[kransden]

I did it and felt great. I plan on going back on it when I stop breast feeding. The funny part of it was I was a gestational diabetic. So the diet I was on was basically the same as the Atkins maintance anyway except I drank milk.
There are some chips that are 0 carb tortilla chips that are fablous. I would make a grilled chicken breast, chop it up over spinach, add fresh salsa from the mexican market, add a dab of sour cream, cheese, and avocado. We would eat it with the chips ....yum. I also would make eggplant lasagna.

The diet gets a rap because people don't read the whole thing. Sure you can have unlimited fat. On a low fat diet you can have unlimited sugar. Neither is healthy.


Karin
Katie 10/24/02

[mamahill]

I don't think it was exactly the Atkin's diet, but my mom and sister did something similar (limiting carbs, eating more proteins and good fats - ok, maybe it was Atkins?) and had great results.

I've had friends do the Body for Life - is that similar? I can't remember, but I think it stresses eating smaller meals more frequently, but I'm not sure what their view of carbs/proteins are. Anyway, they've had great results with that as well.

Whatever you decide - good luck! And definitely visit the Staying Fit forum. I mostly lurk, but there are some great motivators over there!

[brubeck]

I am a big fan of low carb diets as they have worked well for me many times in the past, including losing pregnancy weight after nursing Amy!

It's hard to go low carb. There is a store in my area called Greenbeanz that sells all kinds of low carb foods (pasta, bread mix, candy, chips, etc.) and these help a lot to fill in the cravings. I believe they have a website and ship across the country.

As for food, I ate a ton of meat and cheese. Since it's summer, one of my favorites would be to do a steak on the BBQ and cover it in sauteed mushrooms. You can also do a salad with shredded cheese, and add sliced cucumber, real bacon bits and hard boiled egg. And of course all the Diet Coke you can drink! :-)

Breakfast is easy if you like bacon and eggs.

Occasionally I would get pizza from Domino's. They have a thin crust pizza that is roughly 40 g of carbs in 1/4 of the medium size. You can add a lot of low/no carb toppings to make it more filling. If you desperately need bread you can also make open faced sandwiches on one slice. In & Out Burger sells protein burgers which are wrapped in lettuce leaves instead of a bun.

All this aside, I can't stay on this diet for more than 2 months without being too tempted to cheat. But I can usually lose 20+ pounds in those 2 months!

[jenmcadams]

My husband's been doing Atkins for about a month...I did the two week induction phase and gave in b/c I missed Milk so much...but I'm still trying to stay relatively low on carbs. Definitely check out the Atkins website (www.atkinsdiet.com) -- it's a pretty nice site and has a lot of good recipes (and basically all of the info from the book is on this site). Here's an idea of some of the things we'll eat around here:

Breakfast
Omelettes
Scrambled or Fried Eggs
Breakfast meats (bacon, ham, etc.)

Lunch
Salad w/ ham or chicken
Cheeseburger, no bun
Chicken Breast w/ avocado and cheese

Dinner
Steak, Chicken, Fish, etc. (normally grilled b/c I hate cleaning up)
Crustless Quiche
Low Carb Meatloaf
Broccoli or asparagus
Salads

Desserts/Snacks
This has actually been the hardest area for us. We've done sugar free Jell-O just to have something sweet for dessert and I know the atkins site has some recipes for cheesecake and other desserts that use sucralose (his artificial sweetner of shoice). For snacks, diced cheese or veggies, hard boiled eggs, deviled eggs. etc. all work during induction and then after induction when you add in more carbs, you can try berries or nuts.

Good luck on this...I think it can and does work, I just wasn't willing to give up on milk and a few other things, but I think just dropping the carbs I have has been helpful.

HTH

[mama2be]

So two days into this I am chugging a huge strawberry daiquiri with all of the alcohol :)....

Stamp failure on my forhead...:(
but this thing sure taste good!!!!

[cchavez]

I plan on going back on atkins as soon as life stabilizes a little more. I still need to lose 5-10 lbs to get back to normal and since i am no longer bfing...i can do atkins again. Several of my fave snacks: sugar free yogurt (it has less carbs than labeled...there is a long scientific explanation behind this), SF russel stover candies, and slices of cheese nuked in the microwave. Also La Tortilla Lo CArb tortillas (soy) are great! I can find them at my Kroger grocery store. Goodluck!

[heidi_timms]

My husband is doing a version of it. Someone at my work said they revamped the diet to add more fiber. She was saying something about if you add a fiber, you can subtract some carbs from your daily count. She mentioned a website, but I didn't write it down. I guess they did more research after the diet has been out a while and maybe people on the diet needed some fiber to help their plumbing unplug?

When I went on it a few years ago, a favorite dessert was sugar-free jello with a little bit of whipped cream. It really satisfies the sweet tooth.

~Heidi
Mom to Kailey Ashlin
4/27/03

[brubeck]

You can also get sugar free Popsicles and you can make your own with Diet Snapple.

[stillplayswithbarbies]

I have been on Atkins for almost 2 years now, including through pregnancy. (I went to the Maintenance Level for pregnancy and am still there while breastfeeding for the first 3 months, but I am about to start back on the weight loss option now). I lost 70 pounds before I got pregnant.

Some foods to eat:
SNACKS:
sunflower seeds
nuts
avocado
olives
cheese (you can put some grated cheese in a skillet and "fry" it until it gets crispy and you have a great crispy snack if you miss potato chips and tortilla chips)
lunch meats, I like ham rolled up and spread with cream cheese

FRUITS:
cantaloupe
honeydew
strawberries (try them with some melted brie cheese spread on them, it's heavenly!)
raspberries
apricots (only 3g per apricot!)

VEGGIES
broccoli (WITH cheese sauce)
asparagus (WITH hollandaise sauce!)
green beans

SWEETS:
I don't eat any artificial sweeteners, so most of the low-carb desserts are out for me. I like to make a shake with 2/3 cup of heavy cream and 6 frozen strawberries in the blender. It is sweet enough with the strawberries, and satisfies my sweet tooth.

Breakfast ideas:
leftovers from the night before's dinner. This is quicker for me than making bacon and eggs. I also make a breakfast muffin with the Atkins bake mix that has sausage and cheese it in and it makes a great grab and go breakfast to eat on the way to work.

Lunch ideas:
lunch meat and cheese, rolled up so you don't miss the bread to hold it with.
Pizza, but eat just the toppings. Slide the cheese and toppings off onto your plate and eat it with a fork. That is where all the good taste is anyway, the crust is just there to hold it with.

Dinner ideas:
Outback steakhouse, the 21 oz porterhouse steak with steamed veggies (I always ask for "mostly broccoli") and the cesaer salad, no croutons.

I love this diet, it is so easy to stay on it because there is so much you can eat, even when you go out to restaurants.

...Karen
Jacob Nathaniel Feb 91
Logan Elizabeth Mar 03