How do I know if I'm still on the diet?
 

I mean, how can you tell? I've been making recipes from the Atkins website....beef stew, strawberries w/ french cream, pumpkin cheesecake, pork chops stuffed w/ feta cheese and spinach, even a glass of red wine every night....my ketostik might fade to pink after a heavy meal, but the red comes back in the morning....so how do i know if I've stopped burning?

If you're on induction you're not even allowed half of those foods. Many are for people on OWL or maintenance.

I guess I should rephrase the question...how do you know when you've strayed too far?

That's why I love this diet....I could eat like this forever....I guess that's the point, huh? I've been doing more home cooking lately, and just the act of preparing my own food diminishes my appetite somewhat, so I only eat a biteful and save the rest for later, or divide it up for the rest of the week. I've been losing weight at a steady pace (I actually have a NECK now) since I started and, being familiar with the diet from a few years back, only did one week of Induction and then went online to find recipes with 0-10 carbs per serving (I mean, doesn't the book say some people should skip Induction and start on the next phase with some more carbs in their diet, I figure if they can, so can I). But sometimes I sorta pig out and eat two servings, sometimes even ten (as when I made my first pumpkin cheesecake and it came out so good I gobbled the whole thing up in one sitting, THAT time I might have gone a little over, but the next day I was back in the red). So I just want to know, is the Ketostik a sure way of knowing if you've gone too far? Are there other signs?

I guess the main signs to cut back would be craving carbs, that horrible carb induced drowsiness after meals, lack of energy and weight gain.

The ketostix only reveal the presence of ketones. Ketones are produced when the body is burning fat for energy... now there's no way to know if that fat is BODY fat or fat you've eaten. A whole cheesecake might not be enough carbs to take you out of ketosis (make the switch back to a glucose/sugar/carb based metabolism) but there would be enough dietary fat in it to turn the stix dark. That obviously doesn't mean you're burning body fat. It means your body metabolized the fat in the cheesecake and because there was so much of it, there were a LOT of ketones left over to spill into your urine.

Ketostix are a lot like a bathroom scale. They only tell you what's there. They don't tell you where it came from. Get on the scale and weigh yourself. Get off and drink one glass (2 cups) of water. Get back and you will have "gained" 1#. Is that fat gain? Muscle gain? Of course not. It's the water. Same with the stix. Is it body fat? Or Dietary fat? You can't tell.

So how do you know if you've "gone too far"... weight loss will stop for one thing. Cravings come back. Old habits resurface and become hard to ignore again. You pick at things just because they're there. You tell yourself that "one won't hurt" and that you'll "get back on the program right after I have this...". If you're enjoying those foods and still losing weight... you're one of the lucky ones. Take it and run with it. You may find as your weight gets lower and lower that it gets harder and harder to lose. If/when that happens you can cut back then. In the meantime, if you're losing at a rate you're happy with... go for it. As PortoBella said, some people can eat a fair amount of carbs and still lose... 60 - 120 grams a day even.

Let us know how you're doing!

Tril

Thanks for your explanation about the ketosticks Tril, I'm on induction and it's day 7 and no weight loss. I thought the ketosticks were an indication that I was doing the eating/drinking how i should but I can see now this isn't entirely true. I've still been having cravings and this plus no weight loss means I'm going wrong somewhere, hmmmm time for an overhaul on the food as I go into the 2nd week of induction.

Thanks Tril.

YW, SOHIL...

If you have time, post what you're eating in a day. Maybe one of us could see something that you could do differently. Include amounts, too... and what you're drinking, etc. It may be, though, that you're metabolically resistant. Dr. A wrote about this in his book, DANDR. It's Chapter 20. And yes, he wrote a whole chapter on it. Check it out!

Tril

So I did a little experiment, figuring that I'm far along enough that I won't have any trouble recovering from a tiny slip up. Last night I ate two bowls of Honey Bunches of Oats w/ whole milk; this morning the ketostik didn't even blush. Needless to say, breakfast was Eggs Benedict w/ Canadian Bacon.

But now I have another concern. Does this diet raise your blood pressure, and what ways are there of reducing that factor? I'm poaching my eggs now, I'm leaning more towards the seafood / poultry side of the meat section, and plenty of leafy vegetables.

Why would this diet raise your blood pressure? Being overweight puts you at risk for high BP... heart disease... fluid retention issues... etc. Why would eating lean protein (that IS the recommendation, btw), veggies and healthy fats cause high pb?

Tril