Hi,
I was wondering, after you lose the amount of weight you want on Atkins, will your body be "hypersensitive" to carbs? Like, can you never go back to eating a low-fat diet with lots of fruits and stuff? I know low-carb is a WOE for life, but I'm just unsure.
Thanks!

Part of the journey if you are following Atkins book is to eventually establish what your Critical Carbohydrate Level for Maintainance is as well as your Critical Carbohydrate Level for Losing. The level of carbs that you will be able to eat will depend on your particular body and how much you exercise.

As for fruits you are allowed to start adding them back in during OWL, ongoing weight loss. YOu will need to stick with things like berries initally but they are more nutrient dense than say apples.

I strongly recommend reading the chapters on Ongoing Weight Loss in particular the section on the carbohydrate ladder.

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Libby

2004 174/142/138

Begin Again 2009

184/163.4 /145

I wouldn't say hypersensitive, but I think if you eat like you did it before you have good chances to get exactly where you where before you started LC.

Gavkins

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218/201/110
207/201/177 1st day of summer challenge

With me, I did lc for quite awhile and then switched to just counting my calories - but I NEVER eat low-fat or fat-free...and I still dropped some poundage...however, I started getting tired of feeling the pasta stuck on my stomach 2 hours after I ate it! Yuk! So I started lc'ing again but not as restricted since I do a streneous workout routine...

Anyway, I totally agree with what Gavkins said. I always hear people say, 'oh, I tried that diet and it didn't work for me. I gained back all my weight.'...And why did they do that? Because they started going back to their normal routine of eating - and that's what got them overweight in the first place. So no matter what you're doing - low carb, low calorie, low fat - it is a way of life. For me, I'm closer to following the Atkins plan than any other. And maybe a few times a year, I'll follow CAD - if there's a special occasion. Of course, one thing I have come to realize as well is that just 'cuz it's there doesn't mean you have to eat it...and even if they give you a plate full, you're not required to eat it all...just remember, even when it comes to lc'ing - as is with any other lifestyle you choose - moderation is the key.

Sheyla
186/129/105 60.5 inches

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>...can you never go back to eating a low-fat diet with lots of fruits and stuff? <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Who says you cannot have fruit while on OWL and on maintenance? You can. The only caution given is that fruit is a simple sugar, and simple sugars have more long-term fattening tendencies than a complex carbohydrate, such as starch. You just need to find out what your body can and can't tolerate by way of fruits versus weight gain.

Also, please explicate "stuff". What stuff are you talking about? And why would you ever contemplate going back to eating a low fat diet when, clearly, eating low carb is healthier?

Just curious...

__________________
April

The face of a child can say a lot -- especially the mouth part of the face.

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Sorry, I guess by "stuff" I just meant things like cereal for breakfast, snacks like rice cakes and animal crackers, etc.
Thanks for all of your input and replies!
Also, one other question: I take a meijer's women's multi-vitamin once a day, is that enough to make up for things I'm missing in fruit and what not?

AdieJane,

With all due respect, it sounds like you have the misconception that a low-carb diet does not provide adequate nutrition, or is lacking in some essential nutrients. That old food pyramid (and the "food groups" before that) dies hard, doesn't it? After so many years of being told we should eat at least 6 servings of bread and potatoes every day, we're afraid we're going to miss something if we don't.

As April stated, you can eat fruit on a low-carb plan, and some people can handle quite a bit of it and maintain their weight loss. A lot depends on a person's activity level, as most fruits provide a surge of simple sugars that need to be burned or they'll be stored. They don't really do anything toward building or repairing the body, so if not used right away as energy, sugars have nothing else to do but "wait", as fat.

If you study the nutrition label for most commercial cereals, you may change you mind about even wanting them. Much of their nutritional value is added during the processing, and many of them are high in sodium and sugar. There are several delicious low-carb cereals you can make yourself, once you are well established in your plan. Now, why on earth would anybody willingly eat a rice cake?! No styrofoam packing peanuts available? (OK, sorry, that wasn't very nice...it's just that I came to despise those things over the years, as I grew fatter and fatter eating them).

Anyway, as Sheyla pointed out, no matter what method we use to lose weight, we'll gain it back if we go back to whatever made us fat in the first place. If your intention is to lose weight low-carbing and then maintain the loss by switching to a low-fat, low-calorie diet, you could probably do that. But why would you want to? Has eating low-fat and low-calorie gotten you where you want to be and KEPT YOU THERE?? Again, I think you have the idea that low-carbing is somehow lacking in nutrition, so you are thinking you could just do it for a while and then revert. It's easy to get that impression because there's a lot of uninformed, negative hype out there about low-carbing not working for the long-term, but educate yourself! It's low-fat/low-cal that doesn't work long-term, and most everybody here knows that only too well!

And don't forget that moving away from a low-carb way of eating will also take away the many other potential benefits...stable blood sugars, improved skin, nails & hair, stable moods, more energy, no heartburn, faster results from exercise, improved cholesterol readings, etc.

Adie, I can't tell you how many of us wish we'd gotten control of our eating habits at your age. You have the opportunity right now to remove your weight as an issue in your life. Permanently eliminate it as a source of poor health, discomfort, or embarrassment for you. You can free yourself from a lifetime of having to worry about being overweight, and spend the next 80 years doing something more important (and more fun).

I really think once you make the conversion to low-carbing and see what it can do for you, you'll wonder what you ever saw in animal crackers. And please, whatever you decide, don't eat rice cakes, ever.


Best wishes,
Sky
Atkins since 8/02
196/144/under 150

And in my opinion, everybody should take a good quality multi-vitamin daily, no matter what they eat or don't eat.

Sky

If there's one thing I don't miss, it's rice cakes! I can have cream, chicken wings, broccoli, roasted asparagus with garlic, strawberries, steak, and cheese, among other things. WHY would I want a rice cake?

If you look at the glycemic index (a good thing to be familiar with) you'll see that rice cakes cause an immediate spike in blood sugar levels. Not only do they not taste like anything, they're bad for you, too.