I thought you might be interested in the results from my first three weeks on Atkins:
Dropped 12 pounds from 240 to 228.
Lost (almost) two inches on my waist. Curiously, my hips and chest are just about the same size as when I started — too large :).
Energy level is constantly high.
Mood swings gone. Entirely. No more “three o’clock crash” at all! I go to bed around midnight, and wake up right around 7 AM (Mmm, there are some fun things about being out of work) and I’m perky and chipper the whole day through.
Eczema (very dry, cracking, bleeding skin): virtually gone. My case was never very serious to begin with, but very annoying. As far as I’m concerned, this is a very, very dramatic improvement.
Irritable Bowel: The jury is still out on this. I’m still in Induction, which tends to cause mild diarrhea. Since I was normally moderately diarrheic on a pretty regular basis before ever starting, it doesn’t feel that different (except I’m going a whole lot less). It will be interesting when I introduce more fiber to see what happens. However, I do not get the, erm, “explosive” qualities unless I overdo it on certain artificial sweeteners.
Headaches: Gone. Haven’t had one. Almost had one one day while we were on vacation (a very slight ache), but that also happened to be the time when I was fudging a bit too much on my diet. Drinking more water and steering clear of carbs I’m not familiar with cleared it up.
I’m still irritable occasionally. I’ll have to see what happens as time goes on. I seem to be irritable less often than before, but that’s a really tough call.
So far, I’m really impressed. I’m eager to see what the long-term effects are!
Congrats!
12 pounds! Good for your. Thats 4 pounds a week. Atthis rate, you will be 180 again by february. But what about that stuffing on thanksgiving?
NOTE: Occasionally irritable? Ever been tested for Hypoglycemia?
Not tested…
No, never been tested for hypoglycemia. In this case, though, I’ve self-diagnosed myself, due to many symptoms (principal among them, obesity) with insulin resistance. It totally runs in my family. You have to look really hard to find any 50+ year-old members of my family that don’t have Type II diabetes.
Anyway, it’s pretty cool. Some days, I have to work really hard to actually get all the way up to 2400 calories while I’m on the Induction phase of Atkins. Once I’ve hit about 210 or 200, I’ll move into “Ongoing Weight Loss”, which is a slower rate of loss. At some point right around 190, I’ll go into “Pre-Maintenance”, at which point I will be consuming a level of carbohydrates with which no nutritionist would have a problem (based on what I’m losing now versus what I eat, I’ll probably be on a 80-120 carb/day maintenance plan).
Just discovered Fitday. Wow, talk about an awesome site for tracking your nutrition! I look forward to finding out what nutritional deficiencies I have in my current way of eating, and finding foods to improve them. I’ve only started recording my journey with a new way of eating there starting today (prior to that, I used the Atkins web site, but they don’t offer public journals), but I plan to keep a pretty detailed journal until I’ve hit my goal weight, or near there.
As always, the overriding reason for me to eat this way is to avoid the Type II diabetes endemic to my family. Weight loss is just a really fun perk!
My fitday journal is at http://www.fitday.com/WebFit/PublicJournals.html?Owner=redgiki. And I really, really don’t expect to lose an average of 4 lbs per week, particularly once I ditch Induction to move to ongoing weight loss in order to get used to regular eating habits using the same techniques I used on the “diet” part of the eating plan. It’s important to me that I keep it up for a lifetime, not just as a fast way to lose weight.
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Matthew P. Barnson