You wanted to call me a hypocrite so bad that you misquoted me out of context twice

The out of context snippet you posted was in the middle of my discussion of how I was trying to integrate foods high in potassium and low in sodium to a low-carb diet. This was to help lower my blood pressure.

At no point in the text you cut and pasted from did I claim I was doing 30-40 grams during induction, and at no point did I ever advise anyone else that they should do what I was doing.

It does not make me a hypocrite for trying to keep my blood pressure under control via diet, rather than drugs which prevent Ketosis. It seems to me rather that it makes me a much more dedicated follower of the Atkins diet. How many people would be willing to go against the advice of their doctor and forsake blood pressure medicine, in order to put a long term solution for their health in place?

Anyway Stacy I am sorry you want to paint me as a hypocrite. But I can tell you that when I did Atkins induction, I didn't go over 20g. Even if I did, it would not have made me a hypocrite. Dr. Atkins allows in his book for people who have problems with rapid electrolyte loss to temporarily increase their carb intake to slow down the changes in their metabolism. So if I had done 30 or 40g and tapered the carb intake down gradually in order to slow electrolyte loss and prevent leg cramps, this is perfectly acceptable with Dr. Atkins. I do not have my copy of DANDR with me now, but I know it says in there that there is no reason for a person to feel miserable even for a single day.

I will look up the quote and give you the page number when I get a chance.

Anyway, none of this name calling and such changes the original discussion, which was regarding the importance (or non-importance) of Ketosis, and the use of Ketostix as a tool to test for the presence of Ketosis. I stand firm in my position on these points, and I know that Dr. Atkins would agree with me.

If people in their dieting experience find something (like Ketostix) to be uneccessary, that is fine. They are not mandatory. But I do not understand why some feel the need to discourage others from using them. My guess is that it is sort of a misguided reaction to those people who become bothered by their Ketostix results.

I do not believe discouraging their use is the proper response (nor did Dr. Atkins, or their mention would not have been in his book). The proper response is to educate people in their proper use, and their purpose. Not to make light of their usefulness ("Ketostix are just a game").

You have the right to disagree with me, and even to dislike me and call me names (like hypocrite). But I think you know if Dr. Atkins were here he would agree with me

If I could wade into these shark-infested waters for a minute...

The reason I generally try to dissuade people from bothering with ketostix is that IMO they are truly a waste of time and money. I have seen way too many newbies get all hung up on the colour of their ketostix, while in fact they are successfully losing weight!

Ketostix can far too often give either a false positive or negative result.
Eating lots of fat? This can translate to a positive result on the stix without necessarily meaning you are burning fat.
Dehydrated? See above answer.
Had a drink of alcohol? Again, see above answer.

So far I have seen 3 members in just this thread state that their stix never showed as positive, despite the fact that they have lost respectably large amounts of weight.

Finally, do read Doreen T's essay on Ketosis and Ketone Test Strips for some great information: http://www.lowcarb.ca/tips/tips011.html

Rosebud

Yes, and there was certainly a reason in each case. That is the whole purpose of the test, to give you a window into your metabolism ... to give you further evidence of how the diet is affecting it. Getting a negative reading tells you just as much as a positive one ... it tells you that there is something slowing down your bodies ability to burn fat.

The people who are arguing against me, rather than placing a value on this knowlege, decide that because they did not like the result, that the test should be eliminated.

This would be like having an air pressure guage, and finding a low reading on the tire of your car. Rather than look for the leak, just proclaim that the tire pressure guage is not very accurate anyways, and tell everyone else not to check their tires


As far as the accuracy of Ketostix in their ability to detect Ketosis, Doctors consider them accurate enough in life or death situations for diabetics.

Do we throw out our outdoor thermometers because they do not account for the wind chill? Do we tell people to ignore the gas guage in their car because there is still some gas left in the tank when it says "Empty"?

How about the scale you weight yourself with? I doubt it is very accurate, unless you paid a large amount of money for it ... should we discourage everyone from using a scale to detect their weight, since it will usually be off a bit anyway?

Blood pressure testers can vary in their readings over 10% within just a few minutes. And they can vary considerably from doctor to doctor, or nurse to nurse. Should we stop checking peoples blood pressure then?

And something even more relevant ... did you know that food manufactures use all kinds of tricks in order to manipulate the numbers on food lables? Yes, that "low-carb" food you are eating might have over twice as much carbohydrate as it says on the label ... so should we eliminate food nutrition labels, since they are not very accurate?

Need I go on?

Ketostix are a very useful tool. Dr. Atkins used them. He mentions them in his books so that you can use them.

If you are not following Atkins, feel free to oppose Ketosis, Ketostix, and anything else you want ... but if you claim to follow Atkins, I fail to understand why the opposition to the underlying foundation of the diet, Ketosis, and a handy tool to detect it, Ketostix.

Yes, some people will have trouble interpreting the results ... but some people also have trouble tying their shoes ... the solution is not to discourage shoestrings

As a critical care nurse, I can assure you that this is not true. Diabetic patients have their blood sugars monitored, and their treatment is determined on this basis. Their urine may be tested along the way, but the results of urinalyses are NEVER used to determine treatment.

Dr Atkins also said, "You don't have to use LPS (lipolysis testing strips), but doing so can be an extremely convenient aid in doing Atkins."
Plus, "Remember the strips are tools; making them change color is not the sole object of the game."

I am not going to post any more in this thread; your mind is obviously set on the vital importance of using the strips.

But I do want to make it clear to any newbies, that following the diet as written is the important part. Peeing on a stick doesn't do anything to aid your weight loss, but if it encourages you, that's fine. Just don't get upset if they don't turn purple.
Use the fit of your clothes and the scales to determine your progress, rather than the colour of a piece of plastic.

Rosebud

And I want to make it clear to the newbies ... that if you had been a patient of Dr. Atkins at his clinic, you would have been tested for Ketones, along with blood lipids, glucose tolerance and other things. And if you had not gotten a purple reading, Dr. Atkins personally would have given you a lecture. He was so well known for this that they called the desk in his office "the chair". Dr. Atkins wanted to make sure they took the diet seriously. Read Dr. Atkins biography, in the chapter titled "happiness is a purple stick". You will then see just how seriously Dr. Atkins took the Ketostix.

But apparently the mindset on this board is that you can follow Atkins like a smorgasboard, you pick out the parts you like, and ignore the parts you do not like. My advice to you is to take your weight loss program much more seriously than they are. Once you decide to start a program, do it by the book. Follow all of its principles, and do not let anyone talk you out of

When you do induction, get the Ketostix, and get a positive reading. If you do not get a positive reading after a week of 20g of carbs per day, there is a reason for it. There is something WRONG. The purpose of the strips on Atkins is to verify that your metabolism is burning fat.

Ignore the naysayers, and git er done

not to kick a dead dog while it's down but i have to defend myself here...when i quoted you earlier it had nothing to do about induction just the fact you say different things in your arguments at different times. here your saying to be in ketosis, to stay in ketosis, you can't go above 20 in your introduction you clearly said you eat 30-40 and you're still in ketosis, which btw, proves wbahns point...i don't think you really know what you're talking about, you just like to argue, and who ever is on one side, there is jds on the opposite side making a fool of himself. just be consistent because you are confusing a lot of people who really are looking for answers here. i can understand you don't like what i'm quoting because it's a bunch of material that doesn't make sense, material that you wrote to different people when arguing on every different side.

me head hurts

wow... i don't think i've ever seen a soapbox quite this high before.

jds, you've gotten yourself so wrapped up in your argument that you've lost sight of what you're arguing... you've changed directions so many times that none of us, much less you, know if you're coming or going anymore.

back up and look at these two statements:

based on this, you are insisting that the negative reading on the stix AUTOMATICALLY means the people in question weren't losing fat, and yet the people in question have lost SIGNIFICANT amounts of weight... we're talking upwards of 100lbs. unless you want to claim that's not really fat they've lost, then you're not the atkid you claim to be.

you've also completely lost sight of the original poster's question. he was asking about the process of ketosis, dietary versus body fat, and made no mention at all of the importance of it. he's smart enough to know that ketosis is important, and based on that i can see he wants to make sure he's doing it the right way. if nothing else, i think you owe the original poster an apology for derailing the thread.

dr. atkins gives us three tools to use in determining our progress on a low-carb diet: weight loss by the scale, inches lost, and the stix to determine when ketosis has been achieved (or when we've messed up). like any good scientific method, those redundant systems complement and supplement each other. if one is reading differently, consult the other two. the fact that dr. atkins' clinic tested each patient for ketones at each visit is just medical procedure... they were most likely testing for a lot of other things too. when i was pregnant, my doctor tested my blood and urine for several things, most of which were redundant so if one test came up with a screwy answer, other tests could confirm or deny the result.

perfect scenario: when i was pregnant and tested for alpha fetal proteins, a key indicator in spina bifida, the threshhold for the test was 2. my test came back at 2.04. my doctor told me that since my ultrasound was 3 days away and the test was only elevated by 4 one-hundredths of a point, she was not worried and clarification would come at the ultrasound. when the ultrasound was done, we found out why the test was off... the test was only calibrated and given in singleton pregnancies. after they found out i was having twins, the test had to be re-evaluated because the presence of a second baby threw everything out of whack. the same can be said for ketostix... a body can be in ketosis, can be burning fat and losing weight, but increased exercise and hydration will throw the test off because the ketone bodies present are either being used for energy or are diluted to the point where the stix won't register them.

so please, clear the purple stix away from your eyes and realize what it is we're really saying. we KNOW being in benign dietary ketosis is part of succeeding in a low-carb weight loss and maintenance plan. nobody's arguing that. but if the stix aren't giving an accurate reading, and for many people they don't, that doesn't mean ketosis hasn't been achieved.

and unless you were actually part of the atkins clinic, unless you actually witnessed "the chair", don't go relaying rumor and hearsay (because that's what it really is) about how things were done. stick to what he says in the book... we've already shown you what dr. atkins' thoughts were on the stix, and yet you continue to insist that you know his thoughts and intentions better than we do. stop insisting that we live or die by the stix... we are not sheep, we are capable of thinking for ourselves, and stop acting like you're far better than we could ever be simply because we appreciate and respect dr. atkins rather than falling at his feet and worshipping him.

Sorry, but I never said any such thing. You are attempting to put words in my mouth to set up a straw-man argument.

Let me restate my position AGAIN. A negative reading means that something is wrong, and it needs to be investigated. I never said it did not mean "any" fat was being burned. But it means there is a PROBLEM with your metabolism. Please, if you MUST argue for the sake of arguing, at least argue against what I really said.

Since you claim to know what Dr. Atkins believed better than I do, I am in the process of typing up a post based on his biography, which was complied from firsthand witnesses, his nurses, his wife, many patients and other doctors.

I saw bad information being posted in this thread and I replied to it. I did not hijack it any more than you did. I will begin another thread on the topic of what Dr. Atkins REALLY taught about Ketostix. If you wish to respond to my posts in the future, please stick with the topic being discussed. The personal issues are not my intention here and I have no desire to see name calling and personal attacks here. Thanks

too much free time.

What would be WRONG with the metabolism of the people who tested negative, yet still lost admirable amounts of weight? What PROBLEM would need investigating?

apparently in jds's world, drinking lots of water and exercising daily is a problem.

The idea is not to lose "weight". It is to lose "FAT".

I began a new thread showing that Dr. Atkins agrees with me, but apparently it was moved to a different forum. Here is the link:

http://forum.lowcarber.org/showthre...threadid=317088

of course... because without the blessings of the holy ketostix, the only things we're all losing are water, muscle, skin, organ tissue, and bone mass. despite the bad breath and increased energy, the fat is still there, and eventually we'll all be nothing but small blobs of body fat squooshing around the floor with no internal structure whatsoever.


oh my bad... i was under the impression that fat actually had mass to it and therefore had weight as well. forgive me for leaving that particular hair unsplit.

i apologize if my sarcasm offends, but it's very hard to take this seriously anymore.

I am not easily offended. Even when you persistently misrepresent my position, even after being corrected and it has been restated ...

Oh well, i guess even low carb dieting makes some people cranky at times

Yes, I read it, but it still means squat about the composition of the WEIGHT lost by the non-stickers.

So now it's "Dr. Atkins agrees with ME.." ? Have you met?