Atkins

I lost about 1 1/2 stone on Atkins although I did put it back on.
IIRC, one of the studies into the diet showed that because of the high protein content in all of the food you're eating, you tend to get full quicker and end up taking in less calories than if you were eating a regular diet.

TBH, you're better off just finding your maintenance calorie intake (in my case this is about 2900 cals) and dropping 1000 cals a day and doing an hour of cardio.
That diet has got me losing a steady 2.5lbs a week so must be working.
Once I'm at my target weight I'll work out my new maintenance calorie intake and stick to that - easy ;)
 
Gangster said:
Ok ive been looking at the net carbs / carbs and im onyl allowed 20grams a day right, but how exactly am i supposed to - not count what im eating, just eat till full (as says in the book) if ive got to keep track of the carbs/net carbs??

Can someone clear that up for me? Its saying eat until your full, then it says control the amount of carbs you have and dont exceed 20g. :confused:

Atkins carb counter link Here breaks it down into food groups and how much carbs common examples in each contain.

As i have said earlier and others later it is only 20g of carbs for the 2 week induction, then after that you slowly add carbs back in until you are losing 1-2lbs a week. Once you reach goal you find the carb level you need to eat to maintain the weight you want.

edit: Recipes link to the recipes page on the main Atkins site as if you stick to just basic meat it can get a tad boring.

SCM
 
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Thanks, Ive come across stuff like 100g of bacon is 0g carbs - does this mean if i have for example 500g of bacon it will still be 0g? :confused:

I am also considering HITT (i think its called) whilst on atkins.
 
Finally got round to going on the Atkins after getting all the bits.


Today I had:

Breakfast:
-3 Bacon Rashers
-2 Fried Eggs
-1 Cup of decaf coffee+splenda sweetner.

Lunch:
-Chocolate chip cereal bar
-1 Babybel
Had this because I cannot make anything for lunch, this is the best i could look for, usually its a bag of crisps and a sandwich..

Dinner:
-3 Fried Eggs
-1 Bacon Rashers
-2 Small Mushrooms cut up
-1 Cup of decaf coffee+splenda sweetner.

Is this enough to be taking?? Because i want to eat the right amount to loose weight. I dont feel hungry which i find quite un usual - but i dont know whether i am taking enough?? I also took 1 Multivitamin with some other ingredients in it that was reccomended by boots.

Thanks for your help!


G
 
Gangster said:
-Chocolate chip cereal bar

I spy a fair chunk of carbohydrate... and simple sugars at that!!!.

Also you may want to put a bit more variety in your meals... Egg and Bacon 2 times a day is going to get very boring very soon.
 
Gangster have a look at the pages i linked to in my previous post to the Atkins site to give you an idea of what else you are able to eat, how much of it in cases of some veg and also for recipes so you do not get bored of the diet after a week or 2. As you can eat chicken, fish, steaks, lamb, mince and other meats.

Also don't have as much fried eggs boil them and have them this way instead. You will also need to add in more veggies as you need them in the diet as well, so look at adding in tomatoes, peppers, carrots etc or veggies you like but check the quantities to carbs on the Atkins page or the back of the packets to see how many carbs in each portion size.

Make sure you are drinking 1-2 litres of water a day as this is needed on the diet to help it along. I had started the diet Monday but had a bad reaction this time with very bad near migraine headaches and i'm putting that down to the pills i am on for my depression and the depression itself. As can only assume the brain chemical imbalance for me made the intial start even worse, so had to go back to normal diet for now.

I had started off very well and was enjoying it and my daily menu had been as follows so you have an idea of what else you can do

Breakfast/Lunch depending what time i got up lol Monday - Wednesday

2 Sausages with 4.5g carbs each.
2 Fried Eggs
Grated cheese on top

Dinner

Monday - Lamb gigot, small rib eye steak, cherry tomatoes, few slices of beetroot and grated cheese on top.
Tuesday - as above but grilled chicken breast fillet instead of the lamb

Also 2 litres of water a day and a multivitamin.

Good luck with it Gangster and i hope you lose the weight and find the maintenance level you need and if you need any advice or links to recipes etc let me know as have a few here.

SCM
 
SCM said:
Good luck with it Gangster and i hope you lose the weight and find the maintenance level you need and if you need any advice or links to recipes etc let me know as have a few here.

SCM

Thanks mate i appriciate you helping me along :D

Today I had for breakfast:
*2 Eggs
*2 Pieces of bacon
*2 Tomatoes
*1 Mushroom
*1 cup of decaf cofee + splenda.

Lunch it looks like ive got to have the same thing - the chocolate bar (its an atkins one) and a babybel.

Dinner:
Im planning on having chicken breast, with coliflour and brocoli.

Just to make sure, by taking this multivitamin im getting all the stuff that my body needs daily aren't i? Is there anything that my body is not getting? (Apart from the carbs :p)

Thanks for the help once again :D :cool:
 
As long as you are eating enough veggies with the diet and with the multivitamin you should be getting all the necessary requirements a day.

SCM
 
Gangstah,
I got quite good at lunches on Atkins, some real variety but a bit difficult when I was at work.

I used to make up a small box with cubed cheese, slices of cold meat, cherry tomatoes, and olives. I'd often add some salad leaves, got to love the peppery taste of rocket.

You could swap the cold meat for a small tin of tuna or sardines (so long as it has a ringpull if it's in your lunch box), or maybe some grilled chicken. Boiled eggs pack really well for lunch

Nuts are a great thing to keep around. If you get boared with them, you could try roasting them on a dry frying pan before eating, try flavouring them with salt, peper, or garlic. Yes really, try garlic on your nuts. :)

A realy handy dinner, easily prepared is smoked mackerel, it's fairly cheap and zaps in the microwave in a few secs, or a couple of minutes under the grill. Served with salad, or veg.....try turnip, swede, cabbage or greens.....got to love shredded greens with garlic.

Try some vegetables like Cauliflower or Brocolli, with cheese sauce. Don't make your cheese sauce boring though....get to the deli counter and look at the options. Gorgonzola, Brie, Stilton, Cheddar, Applewood smoked.

Be careful with prepacked cooked gammon (sandwich ham), it can often have a load of sugar in it.

Tescos do a range of Lo-Carb dietary bars, which are probably cheaper than the Atkins ones. IIRC, they're about £4 for a box of 6.

Burgers, make up your own form some minced pork or beef, add some chopped onion for flavour, and maybe some beaten egg to help sticky it all together. You can add some herbs to your burgers as well. If you like Indian food, then add some Corriander and Cumin. Mexican add chilli fresh, dried or ground.

You can have some great curry on Atkins, you just can't mop it up with nan or rice, but that never held me back. :)


I love cooking, and Atkins was a challenge for me to make tasty meals, you'd be surprised just waht you can come up with if you get adventurous enough. It'd be handy if I knew if you have a full kitchen available, or maybe just a small oven / grill / microwave combo.
 
Gangster said:
Today I had for breakfast:
*2 Eggs
*2 Pieces of bacon
*2 Tomatoes
*1 Mushroom
*1 cup of decaf cofee + splenda.

Lunch it looks like ive got to have the same thing - the chocolate bar (its an atkins one) and a babybel.

Dinner:
Im planning on having chicken breast, with coliflour and brocoli.

That is what I had today ^^.

Im thinking of buying some sausagges to add with the eggs for the morning however im not that imaginative when it comes to creating meals :p.

Kitchen wise i have quite a good selection, however i want to keep the costs down, ive spent quite a bit already on bacon,eggs etc and dont want to be spending too much - So im afraid stuff like fresh tuna is out of the option, so that includes smoked samon etc aswell.

If you could reccomend some dinners or breakfasts which include ~ eggs, bacon,sausages than that would be good as they are reasonably cheapish. (Please remember i am on the 2 week induction phase and only allowed certain bits thx)

Thank you for your time. :)

G

p.s: I will look into them breakfast bars, as the atkins worked out at £1 a bar (5 in a box)
 
Deli counter in the super market again, buy some kabanos. They're a greek (IIRC) cured suasage, and they are very versatile.


Eggs and bacon......lemme see.
Breakfast,
Omlette, takes a minute or two too cook, and if your in a hurry you can prepare the toppings the night before. Chopped bacon, cheese and tomato.

Poached eggs, my favourite, with butter and black pepper. You can do them quite easily in the micro wave, if you break them into individual ramekins (little bowls) pierce the yolk and membrane in the white, and sprinkle on 2 teaspoons of water. Microwave at half power, for about 45 seconds, then 10 second bursts after that. Place a sheet of paper towel over the top of the ramekin, as when they explode they can be messy. :D

Boiled, chop them up in a mug with butter, like your mum used to do for you. :)

Scrambled, not my favourite, but always nice with cheese in.

Eggs Benedict, wow, this is a monster breakie and I love it, easily made large enough for a dinner, it's one for the weekend. There are plenty of variations on the theme, but it's supposed to be a toasted muffin with a thick slice of smoked salmon on top, a poached egg on top of that, and the whole lot covered in cheese sauce. We can't have the muffin, but that's no great miss when we've got some great cheese sauce. Swap the Smoked Salmon for gammon steak, bacon rashers or maybe a beef burger.

Lunch,
Is mostly a combiantion of cold sausage, cold meats, cheese, pickled onions and olives and salad.

Dinner,
Loads of vegetables can't be wrong, and you'll marvel at people thinking that Atkins is bad, when I'll wager you eat more vegetables when follwing it than you did before.

Steaming vegetables is a great way to keep them healthier, and they cook real quick this way too. Chop and clean them, pop in a pyrex bowl, a good splash of boiling water from the kettle, cover and microwave for 3-6 minutes depending on what you've got.

I found Bolognaise sauce goes really well with boiled veggies like turnip or cabbage, and cauliflower replaces rice really well for an indian style curry. fancy somethng chinese syle then swap rice for bean sprouts.

You can't beat a nice slice of steak, with a peppercorn and cream sauce served with salad. The sauce is easily prepared by adding a few black peppercorns to the pan after removing the meat, then add a couple of large tablespoons of thick cream to the pan juices and heat through whilst stirring. Honestly, it is that easy.

Try frying (saute if you want to be posh) cabbage as an alternative to boiling it. Gives it a crunchier texture. I'd be reaching for my dried chopped chilies or some garlic to go with this again. You could slice up some of your bacon, and add it to boiled cabbage, it'd be lovely with butter and black pepper.

This reminds me of a dish I had in Memphis last year, made with greens (sort of an american equivalent of a dark green cabbage here only not so strongly flavoured). The greens were coarsely chopped, and placed in a slow cooker, with chopped red peppers and some seasoning and left to slowly cook away all day. it was slightly sweet to taste, and had a very tender texture. I never did try making this at home, but maybe I'll give it a go next time we have a BBQ.

If you like fish, then try and visit the fishmongers. They'll have plenty of choices, and lots of suggestion of how to cook it. It's not always really expensive, especially if your buying fish in season.


If I've not bored you to death with my love of garlic and chilli already, I'll try to post some more stuff up tomorrow.
 
dmpoole said:
Buy Hot dog or frankfurter sausages.
Normal sausages are full of cereal which is full of carbs.
Good advice this, look for the Herta Frankenfurters big packs of ten, they're often to be found on BOGOF in the supermarket....I usually buy 4 or more packs when they're on special, they keep really well, and zap in a few secs in the micorwave for a tasty quick breakie.
 
Also if there is a Tescos nearby look out for their premium made pork sausages/chippolatas as this range of sausages are very low in carbs.

SCM
 
whoa thanks guys :D

Todays eating plan:

Breakfast:
3 Eggs (Scrambled)
2 pieces of bacon
1 small tomato

Lunch:
1 babybel
1 atkins chocolate bar

Dinner:
1 piece of cod
coliflour and a bit of melted cheese ontop.

I would just like to ask on some information on this birds eye frozen beef burger.

Details:

ENERGY - 490kj/120Kcal
PROTEIN - 8.5G
CARBS - 1.4G
(OF WHICH SUGARS) - 0.5G
FAT - 8.7G
(OF WHICH SATURATES) - 3.7G
FIBRE - 0.2G
SODIUM - 0.2G

Now I have calculated this to be a total of.... 0.7G (round up to 1 Net Gram).
I did this by; Carbs minus of which sugars minus fibre = net grams

Is this correct? If not I appricaite for helping me resolve this problem.

dmpoole said:
Buy Hot dog or frankfurter sausages.
Normal sausages are full of cereal which is full of carbs.
SCM said:
Also if there is a Tescos nearby look out for their premium made pork sausages/chippolatas as this range of sausages are very low in carbs.
SCM
JasonO said:
Good advice this, look for the Herta Frankenfurters big packs of ten, they're often to be found on BOGOF in the supermarket....I usually buy 4 or more packs when they're on special, they keep really well, and zap in a few secs in the micorwave for a tasty quick breakie.

Also thanks for this :)

G
 
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Discount the fibre content, the remainder is your net carbs.

CARBS - 1.4G
(OF WHICH SUGARS) - 0.5G
FIBRE - 0.2G

So, 1.4 - 0.2 = 1.2g net carbs.

If you have a 20g target, then you'll can munch into these, but you should definately try making your own.
 
Thanks for that mate. :)

I got some hot dogs in a can (8) and from the calculation that i done it was near to 0 net carbs. It says 'port sausages in brine' and also is gluten free - if that helps.

Per Hot Dog:
Energy:227kJ
Protein: 2.8G
Carbs: 0.1G
Fat: 4.8G
Fibre: less than 0.1G
Salt: 0.5G

So i assume that is 0 net carbs per hot dog?


Thx,
G
 
Unfortunately, in this country the carbs already have the fibre discounted, so if it says 1.4g carbs, then thats what it is.

I use Fitday to track what I eat and the various values. Over time it has been great for me.

You can also download the software and track other items like weight/body measurements etc, and set targets/goals.

The biggest thing that I found was that you have to drink lots of water (and I mean more than 2 litres!) The minimum should be 2 litres, but really aim for 3 as part of the problem lies with the way that your body processes protein. It can't do this properly without sufficient water, so drink as much as you can.

Good luck though to all involved.

Oh, and a big thumbs up for the Herta frankenfurters :) I've been having these for a few months, and go great when sliced into a salad
 
And whilst I'm thinking about it, if you really must have a beer (a match isn't the same without at least one ;) ), then try and get a hold of some Michelob Ultra. Only 2.8g of carbs in each bottle.

Don't just get your daily carb allowance from this source though :D
 
Thanks for the information sadgeek....I bought 12x2l bottles of water today :) Will get me through niceley - although it is hard when my brother is gulping down the coke :p

I've lost so far 4 pounds, so thats definatley motivating me i understand it is only water weight - but im happy anyway. :)

so far I have had...

Breakfast:

3 Eggs (scrambled)
3 Bacon rashers
1 small mushroom
1 small tomato

Lunch (just now):
3 herta 'classic' hot dogs - they're nice! :eek: lol.
2 small pieces of cheddar cheese ontop (work out to be 0.1 net carbs per slice.)

Dinner:
Not too sure yet, maybe some chicken breasts or poached eggs (shame i cant have a big bowl of coliflour cheese :()
 
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