[Attarderb]

Ok since I STILL don't feel like working today.. I thought I would make an obscenely long and I hope semi interesting post. I got questions, I got worries, I got opinions, I even have prizes at the end!

Ok so there are no prizes, but hey, who wants to pay shipping anyway?

Firstly is I'm coming off induction in 12 days, so I'm getting a bit nervous. I've got some things prepped up that I'm looking forward to recipe wise, and some of them are new. Notably when I got on this forum I found some things I'd never had before the last time I did atkins... which most people who have been reading me lately know was about a 3 year period.

I picked up some davinci syrups, and I'm hoping they turn out well. You can get 3 and still have the same shipping price so I got Egg Nog, Chocolate, and regular Sweetener ( to try with cooking ) I figured since I can get hazelnut, vanilla, and caramel in the stores local I should not bother shipping those to myself.

Are these pretty much a free use product, or do they have hidden carbs as well. I have been assuming that since they aren't cut with bulk filler like the dry sweeteners that they're pretty much a lock and load, fire away kind of thing. Do they have glycemic impact though? Reading through the ingredient label, I didn't see any sign of sugar alcohols in them, but I thought I would get some opinions of the pros around here first.

A few other things I'm looking forward to putting back in is some coffee and diet sodas,, and no I unfortunately don't mean the sodas with splenda. The diet ride cherry cola is tolerable, but I have an almost obscene obsession with Diet Mountain Dew Code Red. If there has been anything that was hard for me to break off from it was that. I'd like to start putting my coffee and some soda's back in. They didn't seem to stall me out last time, and I feel kinda safe putting them back in on the OWL cycles.

Sugar Free Jello. I made my own because it's significantly cheaper, 2 dollars for 16 cups worth, compared to 3 dollars for 6 cups, but I have just did more research and found out that the whole YEARS i was using it before it had hidden carbs from the maltodextrin filler..... something like 1 carb per half cup. It didn't really do too much damage last time but I'm seriously considering putting up the extra dollars to buy the pre made jello now, since apparently they use industrial liquid sweetener that doesn't have bulker agents in it, and therefore actually DOES have zero carbs.


I guess one of my concerns is that being on these forums have EXPANDED my ability to prepare things that are fun, beyond what I used to be able to cook for myself, items that are similar but low carb to realistic cooking. For most people that's good, for me I'm a bit concerned.... lol. Last time I succeeded by being pretty strict with myself and settling into a pretty tough regimen of menus that I had as a pretty steady routine. The ability to add in some of these delicious looking recipes concern me with the possibility of just absolutely trainwrecking myself... although that's probably not an issue,,, I thought I would just muse on it here. Better to worry about it on the forums and get it out then to keep it in my brain all day rattling around.

I also have never supplemented for muscle gain before, have always just relied on whole foods, but this time I have what amounts to a significantly heavier weightlifting regimen, and so I decided to give some whey protein isolate a try. It's 4Ever Fit Whey Protein Isolate Chocolate,,, says 0 carbs on it, not net... 0 period. I've never tried whey protein isolate before, but I'm a bit concerned about the fact that protein can be converted into Glucose... and how much protein to eat. The math on protein for weightlifting is so fuzzy it's not even funny. Right now it seems the upper limit for what a 200 lb / 90 kg person should consume is about 200 grams of protein a day. I think I'm around 120 right now, and will ramp it up in a few weeks when induction goes off because I'm definitely not building muscle as fast as I used to, BUT I also have to juggle my calorie increase carefully in case my metabolism has slowed from the lower calorie intake. Checking my ketosticks shows that I'm in deep into ketosis, which is possibly a sign of slow metabolism it appears.....?

So I have to juggle ramping up the metabolism slowly AND putting more protein in without maxing it out in some way that gets way too much glucose into my body. Maintenance is easy, transitioning for me is probably going to be a bit of a juggle. I want to break under 200 and then slowly drop down to about 180, and never EVER break above 200 again, no matter what. My concern is to hit 198 or so on the 19th, then balloon back up temporarily when I increase the calories and the protein.

Anyone got thoughts?