The problem with all of that is that I don't eat those things. I don't like the salad items, and can't stand to eat them. I do once in a while force a salad, which to me is a VERY NON-enjoyable meal. I hate spinach and I won't eat raw veggies at all, maybe once in a while, a rare cucumber, nothing on it though, so see that kind of thing does not work for me at all. I'm glad it does for you though.

If you can't eat vegetables I guess I would recommend tea with coconut oil. If you need some crunch go with macadamia nuts. Although I don't believe they are allowed on Atkins induction. Regardless fat is the key. Without fat and restricted carbs you won't go into ketosis and you won't burn fat. Moderating protein can you help reach optimal ketosis. Also sometimes "hunger" is really thirst.

By the way I am not a vegetable eater either. I am deep dish pizza eater, Coca Cola drinker, and bowl of ice cream snacker. But after trying and failing on Atkins 10-12 times [because I half assed it], I gave it up and moved over to true LCHF/MP/IF and started to do and eat all of the things I didn't want to do or eat. It didn't take long for me to adapt, and my results have been amazing.

I hope you find the formula that works for you.

Dr a said macadaimians are the perfect lowcarb food. that and cream cheese

And they are, but I still don't think they are allowed on Phase 1 Induction. Of course now they seem to allow lots of things they didn't use to.

Maybe I'm wrong but when I did my first run in 1998 I thought they were ok according to the first edition. but I could be wrong.

Hi there

I notice that you mentioned that you were in pain. Are you taking any pain pills or Ibuprofen? Those are notorious for weight gain.

Just a thought. Please don't bite my head off

I agree with much of what was already stated here.

I will tell you what worked and has been working for me, so maybe if being strict with Induction isn't working for you, you could try this.

In Dr. Atkins' book, he outlines a Fat Fast, and a Modified Fat Fast. You have to count calories as well as eliminating carbs completely (or almost completely...he does allow macadamia nuts in very small portions on this diet). I did the Fat Fast for 4 days, then switched to the Modified Fat Fast, which I've been doing for the last 100 or so days. I lose weight nearly every day. I eat no carbs at all (got sick of macadamia nuts, so switched it out). Right now I'm eating 1200 kcals a day: two meals of about 2-2.25 oz of chicken plus 2 T. carb-free mayo, and two meals (sometimes combined into one meal) of three scrambled eggs plus three strips of nitrite-free bacon. That's all I eat, and I am rarely hungry.

On the advice of the good people here, I read Dr. Fung's "The Obesity Code" (you can probably just skim the last few chapters to start, since you are so busy), where he talks about how (and why) to implement intermittent fasting (IF). When I hit a plateau, I started doing intermittent fasting. When I got past the plateau, I stopped. I have done both a 24-hour fast (as Fung describes it) for several weeks, and then a 36-hour fast for about a week (didn't like it). I tinkered with fasting, and right now I do a daily 18-hour fast, and eat all my food in a 6-hour window, not starting until noon.

In 3.5 months I lost 50 lbs. I'm still losing. Previously, like you, I could not lose on Induction.

Maybe this plan will work for you?

Mojolissa, yes, I'm in a LOT of pain. I have to take ibuprofen, taking 12 a day right now, and its not touching the pain. Yesterday, doing chores was ridiculous. I had to walk with a cane and carry 5-gallon buckets of corn, which are about 58 to 60 pounds, buckets of water, about the same weight, and 40 pound bags of animal feed. I got to the place where my right leg just wouldn't work anymore. Right about mid thigh each time I took a step it felt like I was just tearing the muscle away from the bone. I can't stand it without the ibuprofen normally, but yesterday was the worst it has ever been.

Zoozilla - I'm willing to give it a shot, but where do I find this Dr. Fung's book? Do they have a free version of it? I'm not in a position to start buying more books right now. On the way to go to the chiropractor, my car died, and I had to walk back from that. Now I'm set up for another day of pain.

I'm not real fond of this idea of crowding all your eating into one time slot and then fasting for the rest of the day. I don't think you can do that for very long and then when you have lost your weight expect to be able to maintain it because if you eat different foods and maybe more foods, which I intend that I will enlarge my circle of foods again, but keeping within the scope of reality this time, I think you would still gain, wouldn't you? I don't want to give myself anymore (once I get to goal, IF I get to goal) anymore than a 5 to 10 pound limit to go over and then I'm back to dieting and I don't want the dieting to happen that often after I get there. I want to learn to maintain, not gain.

Way way way back, on an Atkins forum, someone named TickleTickle introduced me to the Whoosh-Fairy. If you drink plenty of water, and stick to the plan, even if you don't lose for a week or so, the Whoosh-Fairy comes and you drop quite a bit. Then you go back to losing not-so-much. I have been really good since January 1st, and have lost 44 pounds. Of course I wanted to lose more, especially after seeing all the fantastic success stories! 50 pounds in 3 months - that sort of thing. But honestly, any number down is a success. And if it takes longer, it takes longer. I figure the longer it takes, the better off my skin will look Right now you seem so incredibly overwhelmed and busy that it seems like you're mentally putting this WOE as a chore to be checked off the list, and if you don't lose a noticeable amount each day, that chore wasn't accomplished. Try to stop thinking that way - mentally check off each day as 'successfully ate on plan and drank plenty of water'. String those days together, and you will be losing weight and feeling better. Trying to do something for YOU, which is what this WOE is, is very very very difficult when there are so many other priorities that overwhelm you. There's only so much willpower, effort and stamina each person has; and (speaking from a woman's perspective, which is all I can go by) I know that I tend to put everything ahead of my health and well-being; which is why I'm in the Triple Digits Club to begin with! I admire you for your endurance - please stick with it and work through these current stresses. Even a few pounds lost during this time will help keep you motivated and on plan! I wish very much for you to be successful!!

Dunroven, I'm just telling you what I do to see a loss on the scale every day. The losses motivate me to stick to my diet, same as you.

I try not to worry about my end-game too much yet, but my tentative plan is to follow the advice in Atkins' book. I'm not planning on fasting and doing his Modified Fat Fast for my entire diet, for example. I know, you see, that losing a significant amount of weight may well have removed my insulin resistance. So, when I hit 250 lbs, I'm going to start adding in 5g of carbs from the Induction list every week. As long as I continue to lose, I will add 5 more, until I get up to about 15g. The. Hopefully then I can stop restricting my calories and still lose. Of that works, I'll be doing Atkins proper: 2 weeks of Induction, followed by OWL, followed eventually by Maintenance when I reach my goal weight. And I will still use Intermittent Fasting to get past plateaus, and if my weight loss slows too much, I can always drop down to Modified Fat Fast again for a while. And if adding carbs causes me to gain? Then I will go back to MFF for another 50 lbs and try again. I sure hope I won't be on an eat normal, then fast cycle for the rest of my life. I am choosing to have faith that when I reach my appropriate size, my metabolism will also have changed so that I can eat normally (according to Atkins, that is, not how I ate before I dieted).

This WOE is not static. You have to tinker with it until you find something that works, and then when it stops working, you tinker again. That's sort of one of the things Fung talks about. Your body gets used to routine. You have to change it up every once in a while. That's part of why Intermittent Fasting works.

As for where to find the book for free, well, do you have a library card?

Otherwise, maybe you can Google the salient points.

I know I am late but that sample day menu contained far too much protein.

There is a calculator whereby you take your weight in pounds, divide by 2.2 to get kilos and that tells you how many grams of protein you should eat in a day.

Example, weight 350lb, is 159 kg. You could eat 159g of protein a day.

7oz chicken is 54g
7oz beef is 40g
7oz polish sausage is 26g

Total 120g

Eggs, bacon and a 14oz steak may take you above your limit.

Morning!

Thanks for your post. It did make me find a calculator and find out what I can have. I am at 251 pounds now (have to edit my stats). According to the calculator, I can have 180 g of protein a day.

A 14 ounce ribeye turned out to be 80, 2 eggs are 12 and 2 strips of bacon are also 12, so that is 104, which means according to the calculator I found, I'm short on protein by quite a distance. Hmmm, gonna have to find out what happens if I up that amount.

You have given me something else to look at! Good deal!

Okay, the calculator I used said to take my weight, 251 x 0.36, which is 90.36, then double that number, which equals 180.72. This is the amount it says I need for optimal weight loss.

That's a lot!

dunroven and Leigh, protein calculations are made based on your ideal weight, not your current weight. Given that that is about 1/2 your current weight, you could, using that calculator, cut the 180 in half, to 90.

Another way of doing it, that a lot of people use, is to take ideal weight in kilos (I'm a little taller than you, a whopping .5 inch , and my goal is 145) and have 1 to 1.5 times that in grams of protein. 145 lbs is 65.771 kilos. So, for me, that is 66 grams to 99 grams of protein.

Assuming that you might settle out at around my goal, for you, I'd go for that figure of around 100 grams.

You are VERY active, and you can handle the extra.

Which, OBVIOUSLY you are doing, because you have lost more. Congratulations!

Yep, based on further investigation, you are definitely right. I couldn't believe that I could be that low on protein, when that's about all I want to eat. Not much of a rabbit here! LOL

Anyway, my big problem is getting in the fat. I do eat all the fat on my meat and I have been known to cut a hunk of butter and eat it with my steak, I LOVE garlic butter with a great ribeye (which we had a fabulous sale on the other day and I got some of!) Anyway, YUM. But then I need other ways to get it. I'm not a real fan of chicken, egg or tuna salad, which my husband isn't either although I have given him tuna salad twice this week for lunches, but I guess, kind of mayo based things would be something I don't eat much.

I'm going to start trying to do that though cause I really think if I were to up the amount of fat in my diet, I might see my engine rev up a little bit, don't you think? I do drink HWC in my coffee, probably a little more than I should, but I am basically a 0 carb person, so I don't think I'm hurting myself with that.

I did have some great green beans last night! My husband even made a comment about them and he has gotten so he's tired of green beans, but he wants these again!

I took a can of French cut green beans, and put them in a pan with hot canola oil and a tablespoon of butter and fried them until crispy. Then I added a handful of slivered almonds and let them toast a bit and wow, we chowed down on those! I'll be doing that again in the near future! Almost like having some french fries!

I haven't gotten on here much lately, although I sneak in and take a peak from time to time. My life is really crazy. No one would believe it if I could document a day and my day starts at 5 a.m. and ends about 11:30 p.m. No exaggeration there.

Thanks for noticing the weight loss MickiSue! I'm going in the right direction, just really could use it a little bit faster. I know though, its coming off, right? My knees just aren't able to tell any difference just yet and my back and hips complain at me constantly. Makes it hard to keep going, so that's why the rush. I need some relief badly.

Well, I'll be watching for answers!

More fat, especially if you get it from healthy sources, will definitely help some. Do you like scrambled eggs? I make them with HWC, every morning. And, if I'm not home, MAN do I miss them!

It gets more fat in, along with the bacon I eat, and keeps me full till dinner. That took a while, though. It was probably three months from going really low carb till I started wondering why I was eating lunch, and another month till I stopped, and started having a high fat snack around 3 pm.

Then, not till June when I decided to start watching whether I could skip the snack, and just have dinner. Most days, the answer is yes. But still, that took nearly a year.

If you get more fat, and if you can afford it, get some really good omega3 supplements, it will help your joints, too. Omega3s fight inflammation in joints.