Starting on the Dr. Atkins Diet

Hello everyone. It's been a really long time since I posted here. I promise that this time I will be posting lots of new articles, hopefully on a weekly basis. Well, since last year I have managed to keep off 5kg (11 pounds), so right now I weigh 80kg (176 pounds). I lost the weight last summer in the span of 3 weeks thanks to the Dr. Atkins diet. I had to put off the diet for a few months but now I'm starting again. I downloaded the book and it was really helpful and interesting. The diet is similar to other diets that I mentioned so far in this blog...practically you need to avoid carbs, if you want to loose weight carbohydrates should become your worst enemy. Forget the food triangle and focus on proteins and vegetables.


With the Dr. Atkins diet I was able to eat eggs and bacon for breakfast. Steak and mayonnaise for lunch and chicken salad for dinner. Once you know exactly what you can eat and what you should avoid it is really easy to make great tasting meals without feeling guilty. It's also really fun inventing new recipes that don't "break the code". I did invent some Atkins-friendly-recipes actually and I will be posting them here weekly so check back regularly.

How to loose weight quickly

Hey y'all, I'm really really sorry for not posting lately...mostly it was due to my internet connection cos I seem to be having major problems connecting to the internet from home lately plus I don't have a laptop right now since I needed to send it for repair and I'd rather not use my old PC since it crashes constantly. Therefore I'd rather post from the PC I have at work.
Anyway, if you scroll down to the post I left on 7th January, I mentioned a website I had found which tells you that you can loose weight without exercising AND by eating all you want one day a week. I found the website, if you need to read what this guy(Tim Ferris) says then click here. I just read it again this morning and it seems that I did not understand correctly what this guy was saying...and I've been doing it all wrong. For those wondering: yes I've been a real pig and ate a lot this past weekend cos I thought that since I kept my diet during the rest of the week it would be OK. However after visiting Tim Ferris' blog I've been feeling guilty. Tim Ferris says that during the week you cannot eat carbohydrates ...NO carbs. This is kinda similar to the south beach diet however instead of reverting to a regular carb-based diet after two weeks, Tim Ferris says that you need to continue eating protein until you reach your ideal weight (and you can eat all you want on Saturday).
For all those who have trouble knowing which foods are carbohydrate-rich and which are not I'll be listing them here:

• All bread (including brown-bread/whole grain)


• cereals (including low fat cereals)


• potatoes


• rice (including brown rice)


• anything that has lots of sugar(these have the worst kind of carbs: simple carbohydrates, which, unless you exercise immediately afterwards, are immediately assimilated by the body and are converted to fat )


• Fruit (Fruit has fructose which is refined sugar)

To make things easier for you to understand: avoid anything that has starch, flour or sugar. So you might be asking: What can I eat? It is important to eat things which have a lot of fibre and proteins. Eating some fats is OK unless you over do it (AVOID saturated fats). Vegetable oils such as sunflower and olive are actually good for you (again: don't over do it) and they can help you maintain a low level of cholesterol.
The following are things that the Tim Ferris' diet will allow you to eat:

• Lean meat


• Chicken (without the skin)


• Turkey


• Tuna


• Legumes (beans, lentils, peas and peanuts)


• Vegetables


• egg whites (you can leave one egg yolk for flavor)

Tim Ferris didn't really explain how this diet works so I'm going to explain it for you:
The body burns Carbohydrates for energy and all carbs not burned up by exercise or the body's basic metabolic rate, are converted to fat. When the body does not have anymore carbohydrates to burn, it will turn to stored fats. When the body runs out of stored fats (this happens in the late stages of Anaroxia and Bulimia(very bad and disgusting if you ask me)) it will start using proteins in the muscles as energy. Therefore what this diet does is to limit the carbohydrate intake so that the body uses up stored fat as the main source of energy. The intake of proteins maintain the muscles. All necessary vitamins are taken from the meat and vegetables.
As I've already said in a previous post, it's very difficult for me to follow such a diet because Carbs are present in every dish that I come across. However I will make an extra effort to change my current diet to suit a low-carb one.
I'll keep you posted on any developments ;)
laters.

dieting strategy - South beach diet

Yesterday was probably the most successful day of this dieting experience so far. The only things I ate were: Kellogg's Special K for breakfast; brown-bread sandwich for lunch; and a small plate of pasta for dinner; later in the day I ate a pot of non fat yogurt. I did not eat anything else. I also did a lot of exercise: at least an hour of walking, the abs-reps (video posted on January 5th), weights, cycling, and push ups. If only everyday was like this I'm sure that I would loose my excess weight by May. I haven't weighed myself yet cos I'm sure that any weight that I lost in the first few days have been gained back after last weekend's binging. I tend to give up on my diet when I see that I'm not loosing weight. So this time I'll be forgetting the scales and just focus on dieting.
I'm currently considering to try out the South Beach diet; which is probably one of the most famous diets ever...simply because it works. This diet was created by Dr. Arthur Agatston and has been published as a book. There are basically three phases in SB Diet. You eat normal portion sizes In Phase 1, but all carbohydrate are restricted. This is the strictest phase in the diet and will last for two weeks. It emphasizes lean meats, such as chicken, turkey, fish, and shellfish. Low-Glycemic-index vegetables are allowed as well as low-fat cheese, nuts, eggs. Dieters should expect to lose somewhere between 8 to 12 pounds. In Phase 2, some of the banned food are slowly introduced while weight loss continue to around 1-2 pounds per week. You should remain on it until you lost your desired amount of weight. Phase 3 is for maintenance and should be followed for life. Is all about maintaining your desired weight with a healthy balanced diet. Should your weight begin to climb, simply return to Phase 1. However I think that this diet will be particularly difficult for me and anyone else living in Europe since virtually every European dish has some form of carbs in it.

Weight loss tips - diet pointers

Hey there, It's been a while since I last posted...mostly it's because I was feeling really guilty about how much I ate during the weekend. On Friday evening I found a website which stated that at least once a week you can eat all you want...I can't find the link for it right now. Basically this guy said that during his weight loss experience he ate a very low fat and low carb diet throughout the whole week but on Saturday he ate "pure crap" all day long: chocolate, pasta, sweets...you name it. This seemed too good to be true but none-the-less I wanted to try it; so last Saturday was a guilt free day: I can't remember what I ate, I just know that I ate a lot. I didn't feel guilty until Sunday...cos I could not stop eating! Sweets, big plates of pasta, pizza, pork chops etc... I felt guilty as hell :'( To compensate I did a lot of exercise: lost of push ups, weights, cycling and I did the whole abs-reps which I posted as a video on the post before this one. Trust me those really work after 3 minutes you'll feel the burning sensation in your muscles which clearly means that the muscles are getting a good workout.
Yesterday all I did as exercise was 30 minutes walk...and moving heavy furniture all morning cos me and my colleague were transferred to a new office and we had to move everything there (btw, I hate the new office, it's so cramped, I hate it, I hate it.). Anyway, I ended up with a major headache , probably because of the new office, so I didn't feel like doing anymore exercise. I did keep the diet though. For breakfast I had a bowl of Kellogg's Special K, for lunch I had a low fat brown-bread sandwich and a small plate of pasta and some lean pork chops for dinner. I did not eat anything else, I'm so proud of myself :) hehe. I think that while you're on a diet, the best thing to do is to keep yourself occupied and not think about food. Here is a link with a list of things to do when you need to keep your mind occupied.
That's it for today, see you.

Weight loss diet - some exercising tips

How To Get Six Pack Abs In 6 Minutes On Your Couch.

I found the above video which shows you a series of exercise routines that will help you get a 6-pack if done every day. The whole thing should take about 6 minutes. The clip caught my attention because I don't have many exercising equipment and this exercise routine only requires you to have a couch. The routine follows a set of standard exercises that are usually done to increase muscle mass in the abdomen...so if followed correctly there is no reason why it shouldn't work. I will start this routine today although for now I will do 10 reps of each instead of 20...I will increase them to 20 eventually as I get fitter.

Yesterday I ate 2 slices of toasted brown bread with some light cheese for breakfast. At about 4.00pm I ate a plate of pasta with ricotta and tuna. I used tinned tuna which I put in a sieve and rinsed thoroughly with water to get any oil out (we didn't have the brine type). In the evening I was not supposed to eat anything but I saw my brother eat a pizza with ham and mushroom topping and I took a really small slice. Then I was tempted again by my younger brother when he brought some snack-packets and I took a packet of twistees (the diet version). Apart from that, I didn't eat anything else.

As for exercise I used the cycle for about 10 minutes, I know it does not sound like much but I was simply exhausted after 5 minutes and try as I might I could not continue. I also did 20 reps of weight lifting (5 kg (11 pounds)) on each arm and 10 push ups.

All in all I did well for yesterday considering that this is the first week of exercising and diet, and as I said I'm first focusing on loosing weight before starting to bulk up.
Cheers.

Weight loss diet - Better than i thaught :)

I do have some news today. To start with I weighed myself today (the last time was 2 days ago and I weighed 85kg (187 pounds )). Today I weighed 83.7kg (184 pounds) o_o WTF?! I don't know how it happened exactly but I ain't complaining ;). If things continue like this I will reach my goal in about 2 months time, awesome! I decided to focus on loosing weight first and then I will start bulking up my muscle mass after that. I'm hoping that by summer I'll be Baywatch material ;) lol.
Anyway, yesterday I didn't eat anything for breakfast cos I did not have the time, which is wrong, eating a healthy breakfast is important since it will increase the metabolism for the whole day, that's right, eat and loose weight, can it get better than this? While at work I ate 2 sandwitches, which I'm afraid were not very low fat. But it was 10.00 am which is more or less ok since complex carbohydrates are burnt up by the evening when they are eaten before 10.00am (unless you continue eating more carbohydrates or you over do it). When I got home from work (at 1.00pm since yesterday was a half day work), I ate a small plate of light beef and some potatoes; no bread this time. At about 6.30pm I started feeling really hungry and I made myself a light sandwitch (ricotta and diet prosciutto) and popped it in the sandwich toaster, after it was done I started eating and dared myself not to contnue eating it...but I couldn't. On the brighter side I cut it in half and threw half of it in the garbage, just keep in mind that while dieting it's better out than in.
Exercise consisted of the usual, 30 minutes walk, bike, push ups, press ups and weights.
That's it for today. laters :D

Weight loss diet - yesterday was not as good as I expected

Well yesterday I had started eating as I had planned to: a grapefruit for breakfast, light sandwich for lunch...but then I got home, and it was really cold ...you know how it feels, cold brings hunger pangs and you start yearning for a hot plate... and my mother greeted me with a big plate of pasta and then another plate full of turkey left-overs from new year's day dinner. I tried not to eat but I couldn't :( On the brighter side, I did do all the exercise I had planned to: I walked for 30 minutes, did push ups, weights, press ups and used that bike thing for 10 minutes. I ache all over today so I guess exercise is really working on my lately-totally-unused muscles. I will increase the amount of exercise as time goes by but I don't want to push it right now. I still need to get used to living a healthier life-style and so far it hasn't been that difficult...now I need to learn how to say no to food...
For those people who never saw a food pyramid I uploaded a diagram for you. It basically tells you which foods you need to eat least and which you can eat the most of. Example in the diagram on the left, the narrow end of the pyramid contains fatty foods (bacon, sweets, etc...) You must not eat a lot from this food group, however you should include a lot of the foods mentioned in the wider end of the pyramid(basically includes carbohydrates and starches). Referring to this pyramid helps you maintain a balanced diet.
So considering this diagram, I did keep a balanced diet: the grapefruit was a good source of Vitamin C as well as having a lot of fibre. Fibre was present in the brown bread I ate for lunch. The brown bread and the pasta were the main source of carbohydrates for the day. Turkey is high in protein which helps to increase the muscle-mass when you include training (which I did). Keep in mind that complex carbohydrates (such as the ones found at the bottom of the food pyramid) are the first to be burned up when you do exercise or you feel cold, if you don't do exercise and you eat a lot of carbohydrates, these will be stored in the body as fat; so when eating a lot of carbohydrates, you need to do a lot of exercise.
That's it for today. Tomorrow I will tell you what I ate today and keep you updated with anything I did. See ya.