Help please - low carb diet

[Meg888]

I've been on low carb diet for exactly 2 weeks. In the first week I lost 8 in 4 days. I then put 2lb on (I dont know how, as I really didn't cheat) and this was all I lost last week. So 2 wks in I've still only lost 8lbs. I just don't seem to be going anywhere with it. My meal portions have reduced drastically as I enjoyed large meals previous. Typical food I'm eating is eggs/tuna/salmon/kippers for lunch with cheese; tea will be something like pork chops/roast chicken with a green veg stir fry (fried in sesame oil or butter & soy sauce). At the weekends I've been having a vodka & diet coke. I don't eat breakfast, I drink coffee with no milk or sugar. I don't eat sweets, crips or nothing & I've not had 1 slice of bread /potato/rice or pasta - I've cut right back on fruit & I'm being really careful what veg I eat - so where am I going wrong? TIA

[ojread2]

8lbs over 2 weeks is great!
2lbs a week is what you should aim for
Not eating breakfast will not help
Vodka and coke has calories
Why cut back on fruit and veg? Eat fruit instead of drinking vodka
Frying in fat wont help either, use fry light or just soy sauce - measure the oli too, dont just chuck it help

[katdarn79]

Eat breakfast, when i do weight watchers i have a better weight loss by eating breakfast!

[rowanwitch]

In a proper low carb diet you don't cut down on fat but cut out the cheese as it still has more carbs than other protein food veggie wise leafy veg or green beans/green peppers no carrots or onions or other roots as they have quite a bit of natural sugar. also be careful with tomatoes and with a proper low carb diet once you are in the ketotic phase you can try a tiny amount of fruit but only blackberries or raspberries otherwise rhubarb

Try the new atkins website for more ideas

[Meg888]

@ OJ, it's a take on the Atkins diet so it's not calorie counting or low fat - it's avoiding high carb foods, and you have to be careful with fruit & veg as some is quite high. Using oils, butter etc for stir frying is better as I'm not supposed to eat low fat. I know I should eat breakfast, I could maybe manage something about 10am @ work, but I couldn't possibly at home @ 7am!

[VHG]

You did not really "lose" 8lbs in 2 weeks. That was was caused by changes in your eating habit and as soon as you started eating "normally" again you would put it back on.

>so where am I going wrong? TIA

By expecting too much to happen too quickly.

You have probably put on weight over months or even years (or even decades).

So the weight will also take a long time to come off and you need to allow months (or even years) if it is a lot of weight.

For a long term diet then about 1lb a week loss is all you can expect.

So dont weigh yourself every day, and then get upset if you dont see a change.

Just stick to you healthy diet and the weight will gradually come off over the next months and years.

Also note that dont say your are "on" a diet, we are all "on" diets (our diet is whatever we eat), some are good diets some are bad diets.

Say you have CHANGED your diet and stick to it for the rest of your life.

[VHG]

>>>>I don't eat breakfast

During the night our body goes into a sort of suspended animation to use as little energy as it can (it sort of "switches off").

It will stay that way until it gets more energy (ie food) so the earlier you eat the quicker your body will start up and begin using energy.

So try to have something for breakfast as in many ways it is the most important meal of the day.

[ojread2]

Still eat breakfast no matter what diet plan you are following
Can't see that using fat will help myself but I know people have had success with this plan

[Meg888]

I'll try and get in the habit of eating breakfast. I know I shouldn't expect too much, but I did think this was quite a quick weight loss diet?

[jomifl]

When you go onto a diet particularly an extreme one, your body gets rid of a lot of water. This is what your initial weight loss was mostly due to. When your new diet stabilises your body will store more water and your weight will go back to near where you started. You will start to lose weight again when you water content stabilises. You cannot expect to lose more than 2lb per week as you would have to go on a starvation diet. To put your initial weight loss in context, if you had lost 8lb of fat in 4 days and hadn't eaten at all, you would have had to run about 75 miles each of the 4 days to burn up that amount of fat, obviously implausible. If you halve your normal calorie intake, say 2000 calories per day to 1000, you can expect to lose 1-1.5 lb per week. If you starve yourself then only 2-3 lb per week. A clever thing to do is not to eat after 6 in the evening this means that most of the food you eat gets burned up before you go to bed and doesn't get turned into fat overnight as it would if you ate later.

[rowanwitch]

Low carb you can easily lose a stone the first month and 6-8 lb a month after that if you do it 100%(one day off it though can ruin a week of good effort) breakfast try a high protein whey shake made with unsweetened soya milk as it is lower in carbs than cows milk or just grab a couple of slices of lean ham and a hardboiled egg to nibble a bit later in the morning,

[ladybirder]

Meg, 1lb a week means almost 4 stones a year weight loss. 4 STONES. That's a massive amount. And the experts say the quicker you lose it the quicker you put it back on again. So listen to the good advice on here and keep on carrying on.

[Meg888]

Thanks for your good sensible answers. I'm just being childish & impatient! I'm running out of ideas of what to eat though, I enjoyed not having that bloated feeling & I've not had one hunger pang at all while I've been on it. I was even at a party at the weekend, and not one nibble nor sausage roll passed my lips!

[TopKat]

Just to add a couple of things - first of all, your initial weight loss was fine for this kind of diet. Some of it will have been water, but ALL diets include some water loss at first. The 2lb gain may well be due to the vodka - your body will process alcohol first and it should be completely avoided if you want to stay in ketosis and keep loosing weight. Also, you must make sure you're having enough fat - more fat calories than protein calories - as your body will make glucose from the protein if there isn't enough fat and then you won't lose. And do have something for breakfast, preferably something fatty like a piece of cheese as this will really help. Check out this website for more on how/why the low carb/high fat diet works http://garytaubes.com

[rov1100]

The method is not to way yourself daily as you get fluctuations throughout the week. Better to do it the same time every week. For someone who has used this low carb diet I found you lose about 3lbs a week. This is using a Atkins diet + exercise.

[pastafreak]

Listen to Topkat-he/she knows their low-carb. Your loss has been great! It's not uncommon to have a stall as your body adapts. I wouldn't get to worried about it.
I have to disagree with rowan regarding carbs in cheese. Most cheese-in particular hard cheeses-are very low carb with just one gram of carbs per each 100gm portion. You can still have carrots or other 'coloured' veg-but pair them with poultry or fish,and have green leafy with red meat or fatty meat.
If you want to try a proper plan...try this....http://theharcombediet.com/

I started it a year ago-and lost over 1.5 stones in about 2 1/2 months. I still do it,and I'm never hungry. There is an online forum with lots of help...and ideas/recipes.

[rowanwitch]

Its mainly because cheese is a food people underestimate how much they are eating... the very dense hard cheeses are the worst for this as a little weighs a lot... I lost 4 stone in 16 weeks low carbing wouldn't do it that strictly again.

[Meg888]

Thanks for all your answervs. I think where I may have been going wrong then, on this particular diet is avoiding fats, at first I was lo-carb & lo-fat - until I took some advice from here. I'm not eating a lot of food either, as I've never felt hungry, but I have had 2 meals per day. Is there a certain amount of carbs that I must not exceed in a day, I've never found this anywhere on the web (unless I'm prepared to subscribe to something like the Atkins site).

[rowanwitch]

usual start point is around 20g per day going up to 30 g after 2-3 weeks and increase by 5g increments per day for a week at a time until weight loss slows down for many people this will be somewhere around 45-60g or stick at 20-30 if you have a lot to lose

[pastafreak]

I don't really count carbs-instead I don't eat fats and carbs together....and I limit starchy carbs-getting my carbs from green veggies,berries and some whole grains.
The plan I am on is based on the premise that glucose from carbs causes your body to release insulin,which in turn causes the body to hold on to or store fat cells. Keeping the two separate allows the body to burn fat instead.
It's worked so far,and has never felt restrictive. I tried Atkins briefly years ago-I was bored to tears within 10 days.

Also-remember it's not unusual to hit a plateau or stall...particularly if you are near your natural weight.