[infarrelisam]

I've been having trouble kicking myself into ketosis. i had a couple of drinks a few days ago and my mum accidentally put lentils in my dinner (which i believe are quite carby) and i only found out after i'd unwittingly eaten them... i've also eaten a fair bit of wensleydale cheese with cranberries in it recently but i thought it might be a small enough amount not to count too much... I've started getting that funny taste in my mouth so i'm hoping my ketostix are gonna be darkening by tomorrow. other than these i've stuck to the diet 100% anyways the thing i'm worried about is... if you live on an (almost) Atkins diet but maybe have a bit of fruit or something so you don't go into ketosis, is there a danger of putting on weight due to the amount of butter/cream/mayo? or is this cancelled out by the reduction of calories caused by having no potatoes/rice/pasta/bread?

[cucceevevaind]

I'm no expert, but in answer to your question, I think it depends upon how many calories you consume (as is often said, a calorie is a calorie is a calorie). If you reduce calories from carbs, but increase calories from fat, then it depends upon the balance.

But here's an answer to the question you didn't ask...I don't believe in the "almost 100%" compliance idea, and I think you'll find many on this forum feel the same way. Either you are 100% on Atkins, or you aren't. If you aren't, that's your own plan, so don't think that will act kind of like, or almost like, Atkins. You'd be in uncharted territory. From the first time I tried Atkins many years ago, I quickly learned there is no latitude for cheating, so to speak.

Patience is rewarded, if you follow the plan exactly. A couple of weeks on Induction gets you jump-started, and then you work through the stages (as Tril has pointed out in the past, Atkins is not Induction -- OWL, on-going weight loss, is the main stage, and then you start re-introducing carbs in a controlled manner). In later stages, there is possibly room for alcohol, lentils and Wensleydale with cranberries, but it will take time to get there and to figure out whether or not you have that latitude.

Good luck.

[boltondd]

yes i agree about the 100% thing you said. maybe i didn't explain very well but other than the alcohol which i hold my hands up to anything else was an accident. i didn't know there were lentils in my dinner that night and i thought that there would be few enough carbs in the cheese... however i should have checked the label. i still don't know if that was ok or not but i'm not going to buy any more just in case. i've actually been on Atkins for a while but I've just had a week off since I went to visit my boyfriend and found it a lot more difficult to stay on the diet with someone else cooking and eating out a lot. so i'm trying to kick myself back into ketosis. So i do understand what you're saying about I shouldn't expect it to work if i don't follow it 100% which i've resolved to do again now. my concern was more over if i had a slip up. for example, once or twice i've had an orange or a grapefruit for breakfast when we were out of eggs. so my main worry was if I DO slip up, i understand that I mightn't loose any weight but I would just be concerned that if I'm not in ketosis but then consume a load of mayo on something that it might make me put on weight. I've weighed myself and I don't think I've put on any weight but my scales aren't very accurate so I'm going to weigh myself again with the good scales in Boots tomorrow to make sure.

[xIuvyAuT]

that was supposed to have line breaks in it to make it more readable but i guess i need to use the Advanced post thing insted of quick reply. apologies for the rambling-ness x

[newpiknicker]

It's a bit more complex than you might think - you get fat because your insulin response to food is out of whack. The low carb diet, Atkins or self-run, aims to rebalance your insulin response so that you don't store fat at the expense of using your food for energy. That's why overweight people always feel tired - they can't utilise their food properly, so they eat more to try and get energy...and store it instead of using it.
So keeping carbs to a minimum helps to rebalance your insulin response. If you 'fall off the wagon' in the early stages, you haven't yet rebalanced and then your insulin response will kick straight in as before and store fat. Later on (which is why you have to be strict at first), your insulin response will have normalised and when you eat high carb occasionally your insulin level will 'spike' but then return to a lower level afterwards, allowing you to utilise your food. I've made this a bit simplistic, there's a lot of biochemistry to it really, but in essence the less time you've been on a low carb diet, the stricter you need to be about it. In really simple and anthropomorphic terms, what you are doing is saying to your body "Hey, look, there's never again going to be carbs to live on so you better get on and live on some of that fat you got". Every time you say "Well, OK, just this once" your body gets complacent and goes back to the way it used to be.

[Morageort]

*sigh* what a pain in the bum. luckily i've weighed myself and haven't put on any weight.

[maclaudser]

Well. look at it this way - the WORST that can happen is that you put on weight on those 'off' days at the slow speed you did before this diet. When you stick to the diet properly, you will LOSE weight much more quickly. So you can manage the odd bad carb day, remembering though that telling a kid 'no sweets' and then giving them sweets makes them more insistent next time you say no, so it's best to get your body cravings sorted right from the start. And once you have your insulin response properly under control, you will be able to handle more carbs without putting weight back on - this is the second and third stages in Atkins, where you start to try other foods and see how you respond. So it's not 'no cake' for ever and ever!