Look at my weight. I was here last year, losing on Atkins, then enough people finally convinced me that Low carb doesn't work, I was always nauceous and dizzy, so switched to WW. Paid for the books, materials, weekly meetings. So mind-numbingly boring, an entire meeting about how to cook a tomato!!!!!!! Spent faithfully $12/week and ya know what I got? Weight GAIN!

Yep, lost 5lbs the first week, but that was because I had the flippin FLU, threw up and sat on a toilet for almost a week, anyone would lose weight doing that.

I hated WW, Fat free low-cal everything just made me more hungry, no taste, can literally eat my points in ice cream if I want, what does that teach me?

Low carb works for me, I still feel dizzy and nauseous at times, but I think it's sodium too low, combined with low blood pressure, which I ironically have even at my heaviest weight.

Never again on WW, a thorough waste of money.

Caryn are you taking proper supplements? You should not be dizzy and nauseated on low carb -- at least not past the 'induction flu' point. It sounds like you might have some major vitamin or mineral deficiency that is affecting you.

Caryn,
Can I suggest to check your adrenals. Low sodium ( assuming you got the blood work done) and low BP ( I had it all my adult life) can be du to adrenal issues. Just a thought.
HTH,
D.

this is exactly my issue with plans like weight watchers or nutrisystem or slim fast... anything where the food is either replaced or pre-made FOR you. it doesn't teach you how to prepare your own food when you want to maintain the weight loss. it's the whole "give a man a fish" thing.



i agree... i'd much rather spend my money on meats, veggies, and an internet connection to get to this board than on weekly meetings .

I'm of the opinion that every person is different, and different plans will affect people differently, considering how well the person follows the plan.

The reason I'm posting is that I saw a commercial today (with the sound off) that was for Weight Watchers. It showed CANDY and they were saying it was one point.

I don't care how many points it is, to me, candy is not a nutritious food. If you're going to eat carbs and want something sweet, have an orange. It's only 60 cal and 12 g carbs...and a lot more filling and nutritious than candy. It's also low GI. Any low GI fruit will satisfy a sweet tooth that has been weaned off sugar.

How big a step is it from WW candy to the real thing? Too small to keep a person on a healthy program.

And here is what I found on Wikipedia, when I looked up fructose:



So, yes, maybe WW is trying to keep people from losing too much, to keep them paying for a long time. They are giving carb addicts what the addicts want - sugar. They are a business and they want to make money. Too bad it's not against the law to do that to unsuspecting people.

OTOH, people are responsible for themselves. They need to learn about what they are putting into their body. If they put blind trust into a pre-formulated plan, that is their own doing.



So, Absinthe62, I'd say to do more research to get all the facts and make an educated decision. You said you're following the WW plan, pretty much now. How do you feel? I think that's the most important question. If you feel well and are losing weight, then it's good for you (just watch out for the fructose!).

If you think it might be harmful to your health, in light of any new information you learn, be flexible and modify it to suit you.

You will find what works for you. Just don't give up.

It took me a long time to find the right amount of carbs and calories, and even what kinds of foods to eat to feel well and still lose weight. It's definitely worth the effort, because once you've done the work, the rest is just a matter of following what works.

You can do it!

P.S. You know, I just had a thought. You might like to check out the low GI diet. It's basically (and this is very basically) you divide your plate as follows:
1/2 low GI (low carb) vegetables, 1/4 grain, beans (and I include fruit in here, too, as it's more carbs) and 1/4 protein.

The best books are called The GI Diet, and Living the GI Diet (it has recipes) by Rick Gallop.

It's lower fat (but not too low) with an emphasis on the 'good' fats like olive oil, avocados, nuts, and includes lists of foods divided like a traffic light - green is low GI, yellow - eat with caution, and red - avoid.

You might like it, and there's a thread here on the forum for it, too. Here is a LINK

You might also like to see what I use as a guide to follow. Just click on MY PLAN link at the bottom of my post. It's pretty detailed because that's what works for me, but I'm so used to it, I can modify things and still stay within the ranges I've set up for myself. It's a very satisfying plan, that's for sure! I eat 6 times a day!

Best wishes!

I too am a heavier low bp person. my sodium levels are relatively normal - but I did notice I did get the dizzy nausea when I wasn't eating often enough or I ate the funky products to take care of my sweet tooth. I cut those things out - ate 5 times a day, 3 meals and 2 snacks - low carb yogurt and a hunk of cheese with some turkey for the other and I never felt dizzy again.

Ok, but it is not only WW - let's face it, lowcarb has a TON of "candy" and lc junk food out there as well.

Not in Germany, thankfully. However, we do have some of the best (sugar-laden) candy in the world, which can be tempting.

true, but you don't see many of us advocating eating it, unless you're one of those rare people that can handle sugar alcohols without the "bathroom effect" or being thrown into a stall. we're not using those chocolates as a way to lure people into the low-carb camp. and if you notice, those candies are 1 point per piece, and shot in such a way that they LOOK huge... they're probably only about a bite each.

that's another thing that i just remembered bothers me about the pay-to-lose plans like WW or nutrisystem... there's more focus on the desserts and stereotypically "bad" foods than on eating real, healthy foods. yes i like ice cream and cookies, but lure me in with a juicy steak or a roasted chicken, not with chocolate.

"We" may not be, but the companies that MAKE them sure are.

of course they are... they want to see their profit margins fatten, and if we get fatter in the process, so what? this is why i love this board... you can get actual user testimonies of what works and what doesn't.

It all basically boils down to the person - no marketing in the world can force food down a person's throat, unless that person chooses to allow it. I can't stand the commercials for jenny craig, but for a lot of people it really does work, and that is terrific. Some people need desserts in their lives, and that is ok. That is a personal choice. Weight watchers is another program where some people really excel, and need that "count" to be able to lose weight. That would not work for me. However, I do know people who are on ww and love it.

Personally, I love low carb, it fits my life...but I rarely eat any of the popular lc products, but, I do occassionally have a diabetic candy or sugarfree gum when I am hungry and can't get out of the office to get something. For me, it doesn' trigger my cravings, so I know that I can handle it. that said though, I can't take just one taste of pasta - it would send me into a spin backwards...it all, again, comes down to the person, and that person figuring out what will and won't work for him/her.

In reality, I think one reason WW and some other plans are so popular compared to lowcarb is because they are EASIER functionally, even though not physically and emotionally.

WW or JC: Buy 5 packages of prefrozen stuff. Bingo, you have five dinners.

LC: Figure out what to cook, then eat, five separate times, while often cooking highcarb for family, or after getting off work late or on the way to the kids' soccor or karate practice so not much time, fixing it and storing it if any extra, calculate all the carbs, calories, fiber, protein in the dish and any variations you had from the recipe where you found it, use a digital scale for any degree of accuracy, do the dishes --

TV dinners, which is what most of weight watchers and jenny craig amount to, are IMO the real secret of success. It isn't that lowcarb isn't better food or a better feeling or a better weight loss for most people; it's that it's a bigger plan-in-advance, time-consuming, storage, cooking, cleaning, pain in the butt.

I consider WW and JC the TV-Dinner Diets. Sure, you might add stuff together, but in general there's no serious listing, weighing, measuring, calculations, etc. They do all the work for you.

In short, they have succeeded not just because of our culture of obesity, but because of our culture of limited-free-time and laziness.

Atkins bars give me instant cravings. They are well intentioned but for me at least an abysmal failure as a food substitute. In the way that some people use "book thinking" to make websites, like they don't have the handle on the new paradigm, I think those approaches are a bit of using "carb thinking" to make a lowcarb/protein product. Not complaining about Atkins, who I think oughtta be sainted, and he's got cookbooks too, though I admit it bugs me when recipes use so much stuff the writer sells as well. My point is that it's the "quick sweet food, chocolate chip!" that is really the whole antithesis of the eating program to begin with.

It is trying to make the program "consumer-friendly" by making it appeal to the "standard lazy quick-grab insta-food culture". Unfortunately that's the culture that's killing us. An Atkins bar won't hurt anybody whose body doesn't react to all that sugar (no matter what its origin) and some carbs, but the whole concept of that and the drinks are no different really than other eating plans that have pre-packaged foods.

When you think about it, the ONLY "commercial promotion" that ANY eating plan gets including lowcarb is by the product manufacturers -- only the people making money, have the money and reason to put it into advertising. And corps will advertise what sells.

Sugar sells. So Atkins bars even in the marketing pics feature something with chocolate... WW ads feature something with chocolate... you get the idea.

I agree that incorporating the sugar into the diet like it's a core food is moronic though.

I hate that I agree with you about the laziness factor, rightnow.

psdiva, i agree with rightnow too, and i don't hate that one bit .

the more i think about it, the more i praise and appreciate my parents for NOT succumbing to the all-too-prevalent laziness in our society when it comes to food. the closest my mom ever got to buying pre-fab meals was getting a pre-seasoned and -stuffed chicken at the grocery store. maybe some of her insistence on cooking everything from scratch was to control what i ate (and theoretically control my weight at the same time), but in the process, i learned that cooking is a labor of love, and the effort you put into it reaps exponentially greater rewards.

weight loss is work... i don't think anyone on this board would disagree with me on that. i don't like the idea that someone else is doing that work for me, other than in the medical research side of things. the effort for me to eat this way does require sacrifice of my free time... unfortunately that's time that i should be at the gym rather than being at home cooking, but i'm teaching myself to arrange my life so that i CAN get to the gym. i don't rely on anyone else to do this for me, so therefore if things fail i can't blame anyone else either... it's all on me to succeed or not.