Wow even more gr8 info.... About to continue with a good old nose on this site. My dDaughter took I think a tablespoon of flaxseed within water. .. Lets just say it did the trick (she had the squits the following morning ).

Well your quote helped to make up our minds... My daughter has been following Atkins this past week & has lost 7lbs. She already has energy. Shes had brain fog for 2 years plus so if she had this she wouldnt know any better. Either way She is feeling quite human & is chuft with her current weight loss... We are using the http://www.fitday.com/fitness website to track/input the days foods as it counts the carbs for you. Something another blogger recommended and true to form it is brilliant..... She is having 20 grams of Carbs a day of which is predominantly Veg..

Earlier this week my daughter had constipation.... Well now she has the squits? How does she remedy this? :0

I would think that now things have moved, she will be OK with the salad leaves and other green vegetables. However she is unlikely to have a bowel movement as often as she did when she was eating a lot of carbs, maybe once every 2 days.

Taking flax seeds in water sounds a bit drastic! and probably not very easy or pleasant. I think Milk of Magnesia, although a little chalky in texture, would be preferable, if anything is needed, as you can measure it and take as much or as little as produces the required effect.

Is your daughter drinking plenty of water based drinks? Otherwise her body may hang on to every drop it can, which might also contribute a bit to a lack of need to 'go'.

She should be prepared for her loss of weight to slow down after the first few weeks. Stored glucose from her carb eating days holds water at a ratio of 4 molecules of water to each one of glucose, so that is released as she uses up the stored glucose before her body changes to having to burn fat as fuel. She should continue to lose as long as she keeps the carbs right down, just not as fast.

Thankyou ....

Great to hear she's doing well on Atkins! One thing that might be causing her stomach issues is if she's trying to reintroduce grains or had a 'cheat'. It's often that we find when we've removed grains that they were actually having an inflammatory affect on our body, after removing them the body returns to normal. If they are reintroduce however, the body can have quite an accute reaction to it. The flax might help - I eat flax every day in the form of a flax 'muffin'. 2 tbsp ground flax, 1 egg yolk, 1/2 tsp cinnimon, 1/4 tsp baking powder and 1 packet splenda. 50 seconds in the microwave in a little paper muffin cup... a little butter on top and it's wonderful

Good luck!

This recipe sounds lovely. Shame is Sunday night & our shops are shut here in England else I would dash to the supermarket to get the ingredients namely cinnamon.... Will give feedback on how the teenage food tasting goes...

Otherwise my daughter is following:

Carbohydrate (20 net carbs) = 80 calories
Protein = 500 to 600 calories (125 to 150 grams approx)
Fat = 1300 to 1400 calories (145 to 155 grams approx)

She is drinking plenty of water too.... We are using the fitday.com website to track her foods....

Doing Low Carbing she has so far achieved the following losses :

My daughter ... Starting weight.... Current weight ...... lbs lost
...........................29th Oct 2009 ..... 7th Nov 2009

Ashlea ..............239.9................... 228.2.................... 11.19 lb

The Flaxseed muffin is a hit. VERY easy to make & tastes lovely... 4 mins prep including cooking. That has to be the quickest 'make & bake' muffin in history.....

Shes not finding it particularily hard right now to stick to this way of eating. Which is a VERY good thing. She still wakes up feeling sickly though (which she has for the past 4 years plus) because of this she doesnt want to eat first thing. She eats from 12 noon onwards, not what I would recommend but its what she finds works best for her...

HOME TOWN: TAMWORTH, STAFFORDSHIRE IN ENGLAND.....

Wow, congratulations to your daughter and you. She must be very happy about her progress so far.

I wouldn't worry too much about not wanting to eat immediately in the morning. Not eating in the morning can be a problem if it means that later on she's much hungrier. Some people find that if they don't have some breakfast, they end up wanting to eat a lot in the evening and night. But other people do just fine in the morning with nothing but a cup of water, or a mug of tea or coffee.

Perhaps she might like to have a simple mug of hot tea, or hot water with a twist of lemon. Then she can pack something to take with her to school or work if she finds she starts getting hungry mid-morning.

Just in case it comes up: often there are periods of slowed progress or stalls. Those times are tough on everyone, especially young people. If that happens, remind her that the body needs time to readjust itself to its new weight. A stall is not a reason to give up, it's a time to allow the body to adjust and catch up. It helps if you are also tracking other measurements of progress like inches lost on the waist and hips, distance she can walk/run, number of push-ups she can do, number of consecutive days she's stuck to her exercise/food plan, etc.

Again, congratulations to your girl, and keep up the good work.

Not being hungry and not eating in the morning I found out much too late, was a bad idea and a sign of my hormones being off. Not eating in the morning just perpetuated the problem.

But then I was a person who wouldn't eat much all day and then had a lot in the evening and even later. Which I found out, insulin late in the day screws up melatonin and prolactin too, messing with sleep and the beginning of the next day.

When I started having more of my food earlier in the day, and stopped eating after 7 pm, my weight loss went faster.

My daughter visited the Birmingham Childrens Hopital (Professor Barrett senior Endocrinologist ) in England. He has approved & even congratulated her for following a VLC/Zero Carb !!!!

I cant believe it, I thought he would give us slapped hands.. Instead he gave us credit said he's happy for her to continue this way of eating, since she has fully grown now and she is reaping so many benefits, weight loss results etc. He has simply said that she needs to ensure she has multi-vitamins (minus extra iron) and that should be fine. He has increased her metformin too, not sure what it is but Im sure he said 2 tablets in the morning 1 in the evening (shes been 1 morning 1 evening).... Would you believe it !!!!

Shes had more blood tests now to check for Gluten Intolerance & PCOS... so we await the outcome of these tests...... As usual Ashlea nearly passed out and had a really rough ride giving her bloods. Poor girlie....

She has now lost 15.5 lbs

Hi there Broops100,

This is fantastic news!!! I am so glad your endo guy didn't give you a right old b*****king!!! And she must be thrilled to have lost 15.5lbs so far!!!

I don't know how far you want to go down the supplement road, but if your daughter tests positive for gluten intolerance, then you definitely then want to ask for her to get her Vitamin D3 levels tested. (Not another drawing of blood, I hear you cry... Yes, I'm sorry, but that would be necessary...)

If your daughter doesn't get out much and/or when she does stays covered (which would be understandable, given her skin complaint) or uses sunscreen, then she may well be low in vitamin D3, which would most likely exacerbate her health problems. I am not an expert on this particular complaint, but I am pretty sure I have read something about insulin sensitivity and vitamin D3, plus PCOS. I will have a bit of a look around this forum and post a couple of links.

You can get vitamin D3 in the UK, I get it from these people:

http://www.thevitaminservice.com/ac...nfo_NL1012.html

It wouldn't do her any harm, as the chances are high that she is low in vitamin D3 (most of us are these days).

I assume that she is not really eating many wheat products if she is on a VLC diet, is that correct? If she still does, it may be an idea to cut them out, too.
If she is in fact gluten intolerant, eating any wheat products could exacerbate things.

I am trying my best to go wheat-free at the moment myself, just to see what happens, and if it makes any difference to some arthritic symptoms that have developed in the last few months (I am "only" 46 and I do NOT want to be crippled with arthritis in the near future, no sirree, I will do ANYTHING to try and stop this arthritis progressing further, or at the very least want to seriously slow it down). I have started reading up on wheat and it does seem that it can be the cause of a lot of nasty things!!! I have posted some links to myself in my own journal, if you want to look them up there.

I do hope your daughter continues to feel better - is she now well enough to go to school or is she still suffering from fatigue? Chelated magnesium might help with that, actually, if I didn't mention that before.

My eldest daughter (now 12) gave us a scare by being off school for two months at the beginning of the year, so I really feel for you: it's awful to feel so powerless, but it seems you are doing everything you can for her!!!

Take care,

amanda

I agree! You really should eat most in the morning. I'm trying to follow the Dalai Lama's suggestions of a large breakfast (even when I don't want to eat one), a moderate lunch and very little before bed. Or, as my grandmother always says, "Eat link a king for breakfast, a prince for lunch and a pauper for dinner."

It doesn't always work out, but not eating much after 2PM helps my digestion unimaginably.

I'm so pleased for her, Broops100, and for you too, as you must have been out of your mind with worry. Support and approval from a consultant should have reassured you, although you can see the results of the way of eating for yourselves.

Congratulations to your daughter and you, Broops, she must be right chuffed. Good on both of you for sticking with it. I hope she's on her way to feeling better very soon.