So far, so good (on the 30-day plan)

[bigaitch]

Hello, all.
My wife and I began "The 30-Day Low-Carb Diet Solution" in late May. We had been fans of the Protein Power book years ago and had done well with it but abandoned its principles after six or eight months. I think we made the mistake of limiting our food choices to a very few and we tired of the foods.

Twenty days in to the 30-day plan I've lost 10 pounds (from 222) and wifey has lost 7 (from 155). But perhaps more important for me is my blood pressure has dropped from consistent readings in the 150s/95+ range to 130s/80s. (I'm 59, wifey 57).

We've been sticking pretty close to the plan with a few substitutions here and there. Overall we're very happy with the recipes though it does mean we've had to spend a lot more time grocery shopping and in the kitchen compared to our old habits. The food tastes have been great and we've not had hunger pangs.

I've started using FitDay this week and overall I like it but I do spend an inordinate amount of time looking up nutrition values to translate the recipes into nutritional values for the food chart. I also find the FitDay nutrition data somewhat limited so I also keep the USDA Nutrient Search database (http://www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/foodcomp/search/) open in another window for a lookup and for more options to best describe the food and its measures.
Hopefully as I get more of the foods into the Custom Foods list, I'll mostly be able to just click on them and not have to do so many lookups.

We have also learned the carb count is critically important for us. If we allow the carb count to creep up (easy to do!) we tend to stay the same for a few days or gain.

-Bigaitch

[gitfiddle]

Hello, all.
My wife and I began "The 30-Day Low-Carb Diet Solution" in late May. We had been fans of the Protein Power book years ago and had done well with it but abandoned its principles after six or eight months. I think we made the mistake of limiting our food choices to a very few and we tired of the foods.Welcome in, bigaitch! I tend to get into a routine with food, too, because I feel safe there. The helpful effect with posting and reading here is that you get ideas from other members' conversation that might greatly enhance your menu! :)

Twenty days in to the 30-day plan I've lost 10 pounds (from 222) and wifey has lost 7 (from 155). But perhaps more important for me is my blood pressure has dropped from consistent readings in the 150s/95+ range to 130s/80s. (I'm 59, wifey 57).It's wonderful that your bp dropped so quickly! Cheers!

The food tastes have been great and we've not had hunger pangs.That's the best part. The shopping and preparing is a necessary evil unless you want to eat pre-prepared food that might have ingredients that would trip you up.

I've started using FitDay this week and overall I like it but I do spend an inordinate amount of time looking up nutrition values to translate the recipes into nutritional values for the food chart.I agree with you on Fitday. I do it in spurts, but mostly just to check up my trends. I don't have time to spend on it during the day. Customizing your regular foods does help.

We have also learned the carb count is critically important for us. If we allow the carb count to creep up (easy to do!) we tend to stay the same for a few days or gain.
You'll find your body doesn't exactly march in time with what you eat. Sometimes it lags behind and then it might unexplainably leap forward. Don't panic if you get variations. Just stay with it.

Keep in touch and let us know how you're doing! :)

[bigaitch]

Status update:

It has been 51 days now. We used the 30-day plan and then transitioned to making meals from that book and the original PP book and sometimes just having an Atkins shake for a meal.
Me: 59yo, 5'8", start weight 222, today = 202 (loss = 20# or .39#/day), BMI today = 30.7.
Wife: 57yo, 5'6", start wt 155, today = 145.5 (loss = 9.5# or .18#/day), BMI today = 23.4.
My BP at start was 150+/100+, now 120-130/73-83, pulse mid-Fifties (first thing in the morning)

Problems encountered:
(1) My wife has been 'stuck' at 145.5 for the last two weeks and is a bit frustrated by that. She has not been cheating on the diet but so far we've not found the cause.
(2) We both had short bouts with insomnia (for a few days about two weeks in). We took melatonin for a few days, then didn't need it anymore and the insomnia has not returned.
(3) We both had problems with leg cramps at night. Mine were very minor (just starting but would subside without fully cramping) while hers were full-on cramps and much more frequent. Mine disappeared after adding potassium and magnesium supplements (one per day). She had to add two potassium supplements per day to get hers to subside.
(4) I've had some minor problems with my ear 'closing up', an indicator of a too-low water intake.

I continue using Fitday daily to record my foods, blood pressure, and activities. I also have started using 'Brainiversity' daily and really like it. While this is not directly related to weight-loss, it is a wellness issue for me. I had long thought I'd like to try Brain Age to help address deterioration of memory, language, and math skills but couldn't bring myself to pay $130-$150 for the Nintendo DS Lite and Brain-Age package. But when I found I could get Brainiversity for $20 and it runs on my PC, I thought I'd take a chance on it.

[maxlharris]

Good deal.
1- Insomnia is something that Dr. Mike has talked about on his blog... Ketones and sleep apparently don't get along. melatonin will work. He suggested a small dose of sugar before bed.
2- Cramps are very common in the early go. Potassium will alleviate it in most cases. Typically, your body gets more efficient at holding potassium as you get deeper into the program, so a lot of people can taper and quit the potassium supplements.

With Fitday, it's a cumbersome system to learn, but once learned, you can feel like a samurai with it. I find people's complaints to be a little hard to understand, but then again, I've been doing fitday for 3-4 years. I have periods where I am religious about it. I have periods when I stop caring about it. Mostly, I use it to check stuff now. If I get real motivated for loss (as opposed to what I am now), I will go back to being religious. The monitoring effect is proven and massive.

On Atkins Shakes. I think they are garbage. If wife is drinking them frequently, I would look at them as the cause of any stall your wife may be experiencing.

A neat thing about fitday. You can set it up to share your daily menu. And you can post the link in a forum and people can take a look at your menus, not in a generalized sense, but in an actual, day by day account. If you are stalled, a week of logging may solve it itself (the monitoring effect is big), and if it doesn't, it will let others see in your menu to see if they have advice.

[Sharvo]

I've never tried the Atkins shakes, but the bars are sure spoilers for me.

I bought Atkins Day Break Cranberry Almond bars at a place called the Low Carb Grocery & I asked them about how the 2gm Net Carb claim on the front of the pkg was possible in contrast to the nutritional values on the back of the pkg which were:
16g Total carb
5g Dietar fibre
1g Sugars
3g Sugar alcohols

They said that Atkins has their own lab so they can test the carbs directly without having to calculate the net carbs of the ingredients individually. Riiiiight.:suspicious:

Between that and the info here (http://lowcarbdiets.about.com/od/nutrition/a/maltitol.htm) about malitol (which is 4th in the list of ingredients), all I can say is if their shakes are anything like the bars, no wonder your wife is stalled in her weight loss - I was too.

Having said that, I'm totally sympathetic to anyone who wants a quick shake meal replacement, but I've never really had much appreciation for the processed food short cuts. Though lately, one that I'll use if I'm stuck unexpectedly late at work with nothing but the vending machine is AchievONE (15g protein & 3g carb). And to get a *real food* shake with a reasonable amount of protein (20gm) without a lot of carb has been an elusive goal. Lately I'm experimenting with a think of as a peasant breakfast - 2 eggs, usually chopped with a smidgen of mayo, an oz of dry salami and a Finn Crisp with butter. Seems to work for me :)

Good luck & good health
Sharvo

[maxlharris]

So, most carbs I think are figured by remainder. Burn something to figure out the total calorie content. Subtract 9 calories for each gram of known fat, subtract 4 for each of known protein, 7 for known alcohol, and the remainder, divide by 4 and call carbs. This is an oversimplification, obviously.

Some foods have lower content than what is listed.

In terms of the Atkins products, it's a lot in how you count things like sugar alcohols and glycerine. Atkins counts them as 0g. This is not entierly accurate. The glycerine, which may be an actual zero, stalls a lot of people.

Glycerine is the #2 ingredient in most Atkins bars.

[deirdra]

The fact that your wife is losing half as fast as you is pretty typical. I'm 5'6" & 54yo and have had many stalls along the way. Your wife's average loss is very good at 1.26 lbs/week (1 lb/wk is a pretty typical loss for a woman this tall and close to goal). I suspect her body is just holding on to water until it equilibrates at a lower weight. The key is to just hang in there even when there is no loss. Focus on how great you feel and how satiated you are, not the number on the scale. If the pounds still don't budge after a month or so, try eliminating processed foods. And if that doesn't work, grains, dairy, soy, etc. should be considered for elimination. I was stuck at 150 for months before I started eliminating things. Note that what didn't work was cutting calories to unsustainable levels - that just slowed my metabolism and perpetuated the stall.

[Joolie]

My husband does the most lax "low-carb" diet imaginable, maybe just cutting out the sugar in his coffee or the extra roll at dinner (this is only a slight exaggeration), and he loses 2-3 pounds a week. I am doing a strict 30 g ECC/day and am losing weight more slowly. At least the scale is moving in the right direction again. After a regrettable few days of high-carb craziness, it took me about two weeks to get back on course in terms of my FitDay goal graph. It's much more fun to admire that graph if my current weight is at or below the goal line!

[maxlharris]

Joolie: your husband probably has more lean muscle mass, a faster metabolism, and possibly better genetics wrt glucose metabolism. Men have natural advantages in weight loss in terms of hormones, muscle mass, etc.

[isisrose]

I agree with you on Fitday. I do it in spurts, but mostly just to check up my trends. I don't have time to spend on it during the day. Customizing your regular foods does help.

What I do, because I also don't have time during my day, is make my entries the night before. I call it my "to eat list." I also know the night before if I have planned properly for the next day and have all I need without going over carbs. I plan the entire day, snack and all, meetings and all etc..

[isisrose]

Personally all this processed stuff is a bit too frankenstein for me. I think I would make my own bars if I needed to have them. Then I would also know what the heck was in them without needing my rocket scientist friend to interpret for me.

[Spruce Goose]

What I do, because I also don't have time during my day, is make my entries the night before. I call it my "to eat list." I also know the night before if I have planned properly for the next day and have all I need without going over carbs. I plan the entire day, snack and all, meetings and all etc..
This is what I'm hoping to do once I get all my custom foods entered (and that kitchen scale). During the week things are usually set pretty early so this would allow me to adjust as needed ahead of time.