Maintenance!!!

 

 

 

 

Even though I have been back on Atkins, I still consider this maintenance. I gained weight, hit a high point I did not wish to pass, then did what I needed to do to get back within reach of my goal weight.

Sounds like maintenance to me. 😛

Weight Statistics

323/166.1/165

Another nice drop down, but it will not last long. I will be ordering a pizza for the Saints vs. Packers. I’m finally going to knock that pizza cheat out of the park. 😀

At least I got back below my weight from my Taco Bell meltdown.

Yesterday’s Meal Plan

Breakfast – Burger patty and cheese

Lunch – Chicken and salad

Dinner – Chicken and salad

Snack – Cheese

Calories – 1300

Biking – 0

Net Calories – 1300

Biking Update

I was all set for a ride late yesterday afternoon when I checked my email and noticed I had a meeting I had to attend at 6:30 pm. That prevented me from taking a ride in the cooler weather.

As soon as I finish this post, I am headed out for my first ride in what seems like months. The fire, procrastination and the storm have kept me off my bike for 10 days. Time to get back up to that stinking levee. 😀

Tip Of The Day

Atkins Diet

I really haven’t pushed any particular diet on my blog because you need to find what works best for you, but given the fact I have dropped 150 pounds doing Atkins / low carb, I guess I need to give a shout out to the Atkins diet.

Atkins is similar to the sugar busters diet which has been around for a very long time. The difference is Atkins is even more extreme in cutting out carbs.

Induction is the main weight loss phase. To get into induction one needs to consume no more than 20 net carbs.  Once your body has disposed of the carbs in your system the body engine that creates energy switches from carb burning to fat burning.  You enter ketosis and your body has an easier time processing fat.

Under the normal carb burning engine, your body burns carbs but stores fat. Thus making it harder to lose fat. While in induction, your body burns fat and once it burns through the food you have eaten, it burns body fat. It does not store the fat thus the reason it is not a disaster to eat high fat food. What you consume is used for energy thus very little is actually stored away.

I’ve linked it before but there is a great youtube video done by a LIBERAL VEGETARIAN professor in California who studied low carb, high carb and normal diets and people on Atkins had better blood work in every single category than normal or high carb diets. They also lost more weight although he claimed it wasn’t a large amount more.

I say his results were skewed in favor of the other diets because the test subjects never went into induction which is the MAIN weight loss phase. In my opinion they simply did a low carb diet, not Atkins. They would have lost significantly more had they gone into induction.

The video is long but worthwhile if you really want to see how effective so called “fad” diets are.

Once again, the science behind those results is simple or I should say my limited explanation is simple. While in ketosis, your body burns fat. It does not store fat in the same way as when someone is consuming mainly carbs. This is also why people on Atkins have better blood sugar levels.

This is not to say the diet is for everyone. Some people aren’t tolerant of cholesterol. I have a friend who is thin as twig and his cholesterol shoots through the roof when he consumes certain foods, so this isn’t the diet for people like that.

I have tried just about every diet over the last 30 years and Atkins has always been far easier. The food you eat is savory and filling. Eating steak is far better than nibbling on rice cakes.

Now, I never bought into the eat until full on Atkins aspect which I think they have now changed. I did Atkins but I still did caloric restriction on top of that. I kept calories around 1500 or less most days. On a carb diet, I would have been starved. On Atkins, I was hungry sometimes but after a while I was not.

Of course if you have been following this blog lately, you see the downside to Atkins. Evidently, your body dumps all excess water while in ketosis and then reabsorbs that water when you switch back to carbs. This means a person who wants to lose 20 pounds might need to lose 25 to 30 pounds so that when they go back to carbs they move up but stay around the 20 pound mark.

I think my massive upswing was caused both by going back to carbs, but also going back to a higher sodium diet.

I’ve never been very good with Atkins maintenance but that is my fault not the diet. 😀

Anyone that has to lose a large amount of weight, I would definitely recommend Atkins but first get approval from your doctor. People with high cholesterol should definitely talk to their doctor about it.

Thank you Dr. Atkins.

Happy Dieting, see you tomorrow.

 

The Grumpy Man