I started this WOL in May. I have lost 58lbs since. I lost steadily until 2 months ago(50 lbs). Since then I have only lost 8. The only thing that has changed on my diet is I have deceased my lunch HB patties from 2 to 1. I will post my daily diet below. You will notice I have mayfield LC ice cream. I have eaten it daily(1.5 - 2 cups). When I stopped losing 2 months ago I stopped eating it. I have not cheated until 3 weeks ago when I started the ice cream again and went down the 8 lbs. So here is my diet. Also I have read the atkins book.


BreakFast
5 Strips of bacon
1 scrambled eggs.

Lunch
1 Hamburger Paties
1 Salad
2 cups of lettuce
1 Boiled egg chopped up into salad, liberal amount of cheese (1/4 cup), and bacon bits.
Liberal amount(2 cups) of regular ranch dressing *no fat free

Supper
2 hamburger patties
1 Salad(Same as above)


Around 6-7pm
1.5 Cups of Low carb ice cream (Vanilla Only)

What can I do to fix this and loose again?

Also I have gone from 320 to 262. I am 5ft 11 inches.

I am not an expert, but I have a few suggestions. But first, Congratulations! on your fantastic loss. You are really doing great. And there are a lot of people on this board who would kill to have an 8pound loss in two months! So that being said, here are my suggestions:

Breakfast,
Add some veggies (few celery sticks, few green/red pepper strips) and decrease bacon.

Lunch
2 CUPS of ranch dressing??????? Or do you mean 2 tablespoons???? If it's 2 cups, my dear, that may be your problem! You may also want to try decreasing cheese and adding some other veggies into the salad. For dressing, I have had good luck with half olive oil and half apple cider vinegar with a splash of liquid splenda.

Supper
Add another veggie. I just do canned green beans, wax beans, etc. (Some people on this board may go yeech! but, hey, it's fast and easy.)

You mention that when you omitted the ice cream you stopped losing. Maybe it's because your calorie level dropped. I am not sure. Just as an experiment, and I know this is not quite as yummy as the ice cream, why don't you try some Blue Bunny Carb Countdown Vanilla yogurt with 1/4 to 1/2 cup blueberries. I just buy the frozen blueberries and the crunch of the frozen blueberries is great.

Also, let me know your calorie count and carb count. You may be eating too few/too much.

Just my 2 cents . . .

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Alida
5'1" ~ 59 years old
Highest weight: 165
Atkins 7/10/2004
160/126/125
RE-DO, January 2008:
167/162/135

God! YOU have done fabulously! I think losing a pound a week is really a very good rate of weight loss. I'm a slow loser, so I my goal was 2 lbs a month.

The lettuce is fine and good, but I would suggest you add more veggies and different kinds of veggies: brocolli, zucchini, cauliflower, asparagus, summer squash, green beans, bell pepper, spaghetti squash, mushrooms, etc.

More veggies would mean you are getting a wider variety of nutrients - vitamins, minerals, flavinoids, anti-oxidents, etc.

You didn't mention how much water you drink. Water is vital to weight loss. A good rule of thumb is to drink a half an ounce of water for every pound of weight, so a 200-lbs person should try to drink 100 oz. daily.

The low carb ice cream is okay as an occasional treat, though it affects people differently. Some of us have trouble losing weight if we eat lc ice cream daily.

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~~~Teelbee
Back to GOAL!!!
start weight: 176/goal range: 137-134/now: 138
Reached goal in Aug. 2003 - 4rd year of maintenance.

I'm curious. When you listed your diet, did you list a sample diet or do you eat these same things every day? That's sort of what I get when I read your post. If so, you may not be getting all the nutrients your body needs.

I would add more veggies, a variety of veggies such as broccoli, cauliflower, asparagus, snow peas, etc.

BTW, losing 58 pounds since May is fabulous! I should be so lucky!!

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Melissa

Going to drop to 4 pieces of bacon at breakfast.

And OMG I was counting the dressing wrong. I was getting 17 carbs with each cup of dressing. So I was getting 68 carbs with just the salads.


Then

around 25 carbs with the icecream and everthing else. I am switching to greenbeans and broccoli. 2 cups with lunch and 2 with supper.

congratulations on your success so far. that's great!

from what you are saying, it appears you really are eating a cup or two of ranch dressing a day? you may want to measure what you're using, as you could be miscalculating.

but either way, it's my personal opinion that as you've stated it, you'd do yourself much more good by completely dropping your ranch dressing altogether and making your ice cream an occassional treat. while ranch dressing usually isn't a problem, the fact that you're eating so much more than what would usually be considered a serving or two suggests there could be a problem there.

i would be very shocked if cutting down a slice or two of bacon does anything at all for your weight loss. i would suggest starting with the most likely culprits, the dressing and ice cream, and see how you do then.

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EatSmart Nutritional Scale Review

Whew! That is one BIG culprit! Now that you have that straightened out, let us know how you do this week!

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Alida
5'1" ~ 59 years old
Highest weight: 165
Atkins 7/10/2004
160/126/125
RE-DO, January 2008:
167/162/135

HOW can you be eating a CUP of dressing????? How big are your salads????? That's an awful lot of dressing. With the amount of weight you have lost, you may be eating WAY more calories than your body requires. You may have to tweak that. Have you calculated your calorie intake at www.fitday.com ?

BTW, I am guessing you are male by your initial drop in weight, men usually drop really fast in the beginning. (also going by height here too.)

Weight loss is usually VERY dramatic in the beginning and then begins to taper off. It just took your body awhile for that to happen. Count your lucky stars you got that kind of loss.

Questions: Are you drinking any water and are you doing ANY exercise??????

Congratulations on the loss.

Suggestion: UP YOUR VEGGIES!!!!!

OH and WELCOME to LCE!!!!!!!

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Betoley - Welcome aboard.
I agree much with including a variety of vegies - so you don't get bored and for nutrition purposes. Eggs for breakfast aren't bad - I just read in Louise Ann Gettleman's book - 2 a day is fine - the are full of nutrition.

Remember, this is a way of eating for life - not a diet to go on and then return to old, bad eating patterns. I suggest you vary your menu a great deal so that you can live on low carb life long without learning to absolutely hate hamburger (which could eventually happen if you keep eating it twice a day).

Also, it seems like you are getting a ton of saturated fats and not a variety of fats. How about olive oil? You can stir fry vegies in it - use it in salad dressing, etc. How about chicken or turkey (including ground turkey) - mostly monounsaturated fat - much less saturated fat than beef - how about fish once or twice a week - very good nutrition. DH and I love fried fish. Perhaps with the cool weather now you might make chicken or beef and vegie soup. DH and I are eating a lot of soup loaded with a variety of vegies these days.

Fruit is important - Atkins allows berries after the first two weeks.

Natural foods seem to be the best weight loss formula for most people around here. Some eat the manufactured low carb stuff like ice cream and yogurt but from what I've read those losing the best usually limit manufactured lc foods to occasional treats.

You might try the recipe section of this web site for lc cooking ideas - also do a search for low carb recipes and you'll get many, many more. These will give you ideas on how to get variety and stay on the low carb. Since you are well into the Atkins plan I believe your carbs should be well above 20 each day.

Finally, I would be thrilled to lose a pound a week and I haven't enjoyed the big loss you did in the beginning. I have been told to look at your loss as a percentage of weight. In the past two months you have lost an average of about .5% of your weight each week. That is significant. Remember this is a way of eating for life - the weight will come off. You're doing great.

Glad you've joined us.
Karen

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Well I added the water and droped the Ice cream. I have now gained 5 lbs In two weeks. I have not cheated at all. I am at a loss.

One thing to consider is that a smaller body needs less fuel. Many of us find that as we get smaller, it really helps to keep a closer watch on portion sizes. So, perhaps some further tweaking is in order.

Are you also tracking your measurements? Do you know if you are continuing to lose inches, or do you notice that your waistbands are looser or tighter? Sometimes, people continue to lose size even when they aren't seeing a lot of progress on the scales - especially if they've increased physical activity.

Have you increased your veggies so that you are getting a greater variety? If only for health reasons, that would be a good move.

When the scale moves in the wrong direction for me, I start cutting back on both calorically dense foods (sausage, bacon, cheese, nuts) and highly salted foods (pork rinds, nuts, bacon). I don't necessarily eliminate anything, unless it is an eating trigger. If you are still eating a cup of ranch dressing daily, you might consider cutting back to a couple of tablespoons. Perhaps switching to a vinegrette dressing some of the time would help.

If none of these suggestions resonates for you, how about posting your daily menus again. Perhaps someone will have some advice on further tweaking to get the weight loss going again.

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~~~Teelbee
Back to GOAL!!!
start weight: 176/goal range: 137-134/now: 138
Reached goal in Aug. 2003 - 4rd year of maintenance.

Yes, post some menues from the last couple of days. Also, are you lifting any weights??? That could be adding muscle mass. Also, this way of eating adds more muscle period, so you could be gaining muscle just from eating healthier.

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you may want to take another look at the ranch dressing amounts if you haven't yet, and if you find that you're eating within the normal ranges for a serving or two a day (usually 2 tablespoons is counted as a serving), then i would suggest reviewing the calories on what you're eating and seeing if there is something high calorie in there, which can also slow people down. good luck.

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EatSmart Nutritional Scale Review

ARe you eating any of the Low Carb candy bars or breakfastbars and things like that???? If you are, the sugar alcohols could be triggering insulin reactions in you just like real sugar. Some people's bodies metabolize that stuff as if it's the real thing. Post some menus so we can take a look.

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Never Mind Since I posted this I have lost from 263 to 252. WOOT