Your profile says you are 5'8, not 5'6.

Lisa your goal is to get down to 22 percent body fat. Our calories needs are coompletely different. For an overweight person to lose is fairly easy but for a person who has 10 percent to get down to 5 percent is super hard. I can maintain 10 percent without exersing at a bodyweight of around 148.
So....you had 15 pounds to lose (which shouldn't take long for a healthy 18 year old male), you lost it following a plan that you admit you can't maintain without 2 hours of exercise a day. Really Lisa so to get down from 15 percent to 5 percent is farely easy. I had 15 lbs to lose but my bodyfat levels were extremly low.

http://atkins.com/Archive/2004/2/10-133186.html

Dr. Atkins BMI the day after his accident was 26.4 and his weight was recorded at 195 pounds; just slightly above the lower end of the range of normal for a man of his age and height (72/6 feet tall). So...either he was a body builder which makes BMI unreliable or he was right in the range he should have been. His weight at the time of his death was 258 pounds which shows that during his hospital admission he gained 63 pounds of water weight, mostly likely due to IV fluids and drugs given to brain injury patients known to cause water retention.
If you want to compare the BMI of a 72 year old man to an 18 year old boy, feel free, but you would be grossly unfair in doing so since the standards are very different for each of those age groups.



I can't agree with that because he never said any such thing. He stressed over and over that those following the Atkins program should not pig out or gorge themselves on low carb food and states clearly in his book that while most people following his plan would not need to count calories, they do, in fact, matter. If those following the plan choose to ignore that, it's not the fault of the author.

Well, with anonymous sign-ups, it's hard to tell who's being honest with their stats.

You might want to update your profile, where it currently says 5-8, not 5-6.

Wa'il

Hi satiev1:
I won't even touch Dr. Atkins issue, neither I want to discuss the health benefits of vegetables and fruits. If you think that 5% bodyfat is acceptable for a young male, may be you are right, but for a female, it will be a disaster.
Can I ask you to simply post your daily menu, I'm really curious. May be this will shed some light on what is your diet like? Seriously, to Dr.Ellis's credit, I've looked up his book on Amazon, and it has good rating.
I agree with his theory that we should seek fat loss, not just the weight loss. But it's the hardest to achieve, losing some muscles is inavitable while losing weight. So, if your menu makes sense to me, may be I'll think about the book.
Thanks,
Dina

Here is a picture for Dr. Atkins in his last year or two. Why do you assume he has been fat? He has been over 70 years old when this picture was taken.

As far as I know Dr. Atkins has been over weight more than 3 decades ago. He tried his diet on himself, lost all the weight he wanted to lose and stayed fit for the rest of his life.

In his last days, during his coma they said that a technical medical problem caused his weight to balloon before he died. This could have happened to any body and has absolutely nothing to do with his diet. One nasty anti Atkins organization called "PCRM" has tried to use this incident to make people disbelieve in Atkins diet, but no body with a mind could have listened to them.

I've found this interview with Dr.Ellis on the web and here is one abstract
Question: Do you consume any carbohydrates at all in your current regimen?
Answer:
The entire interview can be read in
http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/mahler11.htm
This agrees with Atkins concept, that some need to restrict carbs to 20g, while others can manage a bit more. So, except for calories management, I don't see such a big difference. It's absolutely true that we want to "feed the muscles and starve the fat" in order to get lean, so makes sense to estimate your caloric intake based on one's lean body mass.

OK, Time to jump in. I am a person who has reached their goal following Atkins. I have never paid attention to calories, only the carb count. And the few time I did seem to slow down losing, I would track my fat count. Making sure it was high enough. Counting calories is just to much of a pain to me. It took my 9 months to lose 60 pounds, and I have kept it off for almost a year and a half now. Following Atkins the whole time. I did not start going to the gym till after I reached goal.

So here is where I guess I agree with you. Calories do matter, Atkins never said they didn't. That is why he stresses eating till satified. There are many people on these boards who will tell you that they also have to watch there calorie intake alone with carbs to lose weight.

And because calories do matter, that is why I go to the gym now, so I can eat more and maintain. But let me tell you this, following Atkins, I can eat much more than I have been able to eat the past and lose weight!!! And for that I will be forever grateful to Dr. Atkins.

For once Dina I actually agree with you. Look Satiev, Ellis has always tried to distance himself from Atkins publicly over this spurious calorie/ eat as much as you want issue because he wants to sell more of his books. It's also why all the other low carb Atkins imitators try to distance themselves from the basic Atkins low carb message. Atkins realized way back that if you restrict carbs, it is actually very difficult to overeat. If you don't restrict carbs you are almost certain to overeat. Which is probably why all the low calorie pundits are terrified of low carbing. It actually works, permanently. It's all about hunger. Carbs (IMHO any carb with a G.I. over 15 ) tend to make you unnaturally hungry. And if you dont eat any carbs you will have to eat all your meat raw to get the benefits that phyto-chemicals provide, or pop a whole lot of pills.
Ellis is a huckster, as are all the other also rans who preach low carb, but distance themselves from Atkins. Ellis is just a particularly unpleasant example.
But his book has plenty of good low carb biochemistry in it, so if you've already blown 60 bucks, don't be too upset. Just don't make the sad mistake of bagging the guy who said it all twenty years ago. And please don't trot out quotes from Atkins' '72 book which taken out of context seem to endorse gorging. Atkins, and before him and after him plenty of others, recognize that when you low carb and don't cheat (either inadvertently or deliberately - because IT was sooooooo tempting) it is just not appealing to gorge. That is the true Atkins message, low carb and 'all you can eat' tends to become ' what you need to eat for optimum health and /or steady weight loss.
Of course if you have a multimillion dollar publishing deal like say , Fergie, then pushing the same old low fat/cal line probably is actually worth the discomfort a lifetime of hunger will generate.
Actually the low calorie/fat mantra we have all been subject to has always seemed to me suspiciously like the 'no pain no gain' adage dressed up in dietary clothes. Even Ellis himself recognizes that hunger is an over time irresistible force. So it is truly pathetic that he goes on too preach calorie control as more important than carb control. To borrow another euphemism - When you look after the carbs, the calories will look after themselves.

Can you please give a few examples of what you do eat? I find it hard to believe you're eating no carbs....unless you are literally eating only meat.

Several days menu would be nice.

I've asked this already but I'm afraid Satiev1 is not coming back. Apparently, his agenda was simply marketing of Dr.Ellis's books and this is why he tried to bash Atkins at the same time. I also suspect he's confused with carbs and starches. I doubt he ate nothing but meat, so may be he thinks only fruits and starches are carbs, and vegetables are not. Some folks really think that there are glycemic and non-glycemic carbs, LOL.

I am a newbie also, and may regret entering a debative zone just yet <LOL>. However, I have been researching low carb diets for a little while, and looked into the different plans before choosing one.

I agree with you. None of the plans I researched, including Atkins, suggested that you literally pig out on fatty foods, as well as the fatty foods being more filling and naturally provoking you to consume less calories. REASONABLE moderation of calorie/fat intake is recommended if one wants to lose weight.

Counting carbs and making sure the protein requirement is met is simply more important. Eating/cooking with high quality fats is good for building "good" HDL levels.

I am still in the first week of my plan, and I am not counting calories -- but I am mindful of what I am eating. I measure out my olive oil and butter, I don't smear my food with it. I am buying lean meat, etc.

My problem with Atkins is not the fat intake. I didn't choose this plan because I felt the 20 carb a day was a little harsh for what my body can handle considering my previously horrid eating habits.

Well, I wouldn't expect a 71 year old man to have the same sort of body a 18 year old does. Sheesh, such high standards.

However, I agree that there are lots of us that really have to restrict calories. License to gorge? Good grief, to lose weight now I'm looking more for a license to starve. Or actually, some way to not be hungry and eat 1200 calories a day. Its a struggle.

huh???

Personally, I have a hard time getting enough calories while following Atkins.

Take a look in the exercise area and in the Success Stories to see people who've followed Atkins and are lean

Take a look at this....

http://forum.lowcarber.org/gallery/...&cat=508&page=1

Or how about this...

http://forum.lowcarber.org/gallery/...&cat=508&page=1