Long-Term Atkins Weight Loss Is Staying Off
One of the most common excuses I hear from people in the media and from nutritionists, dietitians and doctors is that being on a low-carb program such as the Atkins diet is not good for long-term weight loss and weight maintenance. But clearly that adage is yet another myth being promulgated all for the sake of destroying the positive successes of those of us who are livin' la vida low-carb.
While my low-carb story is still in the early stages of being formed since I only began the low-carb lifestyle in January 2004, some are quick to dismiss my success as an anomaly and that I'll soon gain back all of those 190 pounds that I lost. It's absurd and yet it is what it is. There's nothing I can say or do to change that perception in people's minds.
But there is something I will GLADLY do. I can share with you the stories of others who have been on Atkins or another low-carb routine for much longer than the two years that I have been. In fact, I recently blogged about a man who lost 200 pounds on the Atkins diet TEN YEARS AGO and is still living a healthy and vibrant life today -- the low-carb way!
I have two more inspiring stories of long-term Atkins weight loss success to share with you and to encourage you that this really is a healthy, delicious and nutritious way you can eat for the rest of your life.
This e-mail came from a senior citizen who has been livin' la vida low-carb since 2000:
"Keep up the great work! This will be my sixth year on Atkins. I lost more than 65 pounds in the first 4 1/2 months. I actually lost more but stopped weighing myself after putting on more weight than I wanted to know about.
I have kept the weight off and will stay on it the rest of my life (I'm 63 years old). I was addicted to carbs for more than thirty years and never knew why I couldn't stop eating. My willpower was about 2% and my craving for carbs was 98%. I didn't stand a chance!
Almost six years ago a "fat" female friend of my wife's told me that she was thinking of starting on Atkins and loaned me her book. To make a long story short, as they say, she never got around to starting Atkins. The biggest mistake she ever made.
In 4 1/2 months as well as losing more than 65 pounds I lost 38.9% body fat. Without exercising! Unlike other diets, I lost little to no muscle. I found this to be incredible. Even though I'm the oldest person at work, I'm the strongest person there! I have also been exercising since my weight loss.
Five days after I started Atkins my stamina increased considerably! My secret was making certain that I took enough potassium as well as any other vitamins recommended by Atkins.
The only way anyone can fail while doing Atkins is by NOT READING HIS BOOK! Unfortunately I found that MOST PEOPLE DO NOT!
A number of my friends are doing Atkins with great success!
The more people "read the book" the easier it will be to succeed and the more likely they are to stay on it!
I cannot reiterate enough how important it is to READ THE BOOK! If you are gonna do Atkins, then you need to read Dr. Atkins New Diet Revolution
from cover to cover to understand what it is all about. If you are unsure of which low-carb program you want to do, then I recommend you get Jonny Bowden's Living The Low-Carb Life to help you figure out which program would be best for you. He does an EXCELLENT job reviewing the various low-carb plans for you.
THANK YOU and CONGRATULATIONS to my reader who has been so successful on the Atkins diet for so long. Hearing you talk about your body fat coming down brought a big smile to my face since mine dropped from around 50% down to 11%! But I thought all you lost on a low-carb diet was water weight?! LOL!
The other e-mail I received today was from a woman who used to weigh 283 pounds standing at just 5'4" tall. YIKES! She is now within less than 20 pounds of reaching her goal weight of -- GET THIS! -- 133 pounds! You got it! She's almost lost ONE-HUNDRED FIFTY POUNDS on low-carb over the past three years. Unlike my weight loss, hers has been a slower-moving process, but an effective one nonetheless. Here's what she had to share:
"I read your blog today for the first time thanks to Dana Carpender.
My weight loss is not as dramatic as yours but substantial nonetheless. As of December 1, I had lost 139 lbs in 33 months. I decided in December to allow myself to go off my diet and experience some of the foods I thought I had missed over that time. I found that, with the exception of homemade chocolate, cakes and cookies, they didn't taste near as good as I had remembered. I gained 9 lbs but felt it was worth it for the experience. I have gone back on track and lost 3 lbs. Sugar, in the form of home baked goodies will always be a problem.
I started my journey in March 2003. I was undergoing chemotherapy and radiation for breast cancer which I have since seen go into remission. My onocologist told me that in addition to my risk factor of age (I was then 50), I increased my risk due to my obesity. Not finding the treatment for breast cancer to my liking I decided when I got back on my feet I was going to lose the weight. I wasn't real hopeful as I have said all this before. By June 2003 I felt as good as I was going to get if I didn't do something about the weight. I took my starting weight and found I had already lost 10 lbs.
I decided to go on Atkins as I could only do Weight Watchers for about a year before I give up and gain it all back. I lost another 47 lbs by October with no exercise. In October, Curves opened in my area and a friend talked me in to joining. I am so glad I did. I am not a person to exercise on their own. My weight loss stopped for 7 months.
I switched to the Curves diet, still low-carb, and started writing down every thing that went in my mouth-both calories and carbs. It didn't take me long to realize I had either been eating to much or to little. I need to lower calories as well as carbs to lose. I lost very slowly after two windfalls and 11 months ago slowed to 2 or 3 lbs a month. I am going to lose the 9 I gained in Dec and then on to the last 10 lbs. For me it has been a long, slow road and I thing people, especially women need to know that it isn't always going to come off in a year or even a year and a half. For women like myself who have yo-yo dieted for most of their adult life it may take twice as long as it does for those who are first time losers.
In Mar 2004, I took my golden retriever in for his annual check up. She said he was 30 lbs over weight. So I added waling to my exercise routine. Now I know there are people who like to walk but I find it about as much fun as watching grass grow, however Sam didn't get any exercise-zip-zilch-nada! Therefore in order for him to lose weight I was going to have to expend more energy than just cutting back his dog food. He lost 30 lbs over the next year. I am sure it was good for me as well, that doesn't mean I liked it.
Every day is a challenge. I would love to be able to lose 1 pound a week but it doesn't happen for me. I am now at about 40 carbs a day and between 1200-1400 calories with one 1800 calorie day every 3 days.
I feel terrific and the individual who says you have no energy on low carb is just plain nuts. No energy is when I eat a high carb food and wind up going to sleep 15 minutes later.
One thing that has helped me tremendously has been faux mashed potatoes. The key to making cauliflower into a credible mashed potatoes is NO EXTRA WATER! To do this you must wash and trim one head of cauliflower then run it through a salad spinner until you have removed as much excess water as possible. Place in microwave bowl DON'T ADD WATER And cook until done Puree in either a food processor or I use a hand blender, add 1 slice American cheese and continue to blend until melted. I eat this once a day with sour cream.It also freezes well so when ever I can get cauliflower on sale I make up a bunch to keep in the freezer. Even when it thaws there is very little liquid, unless you defrost in microwave. I simply allow it to defrost in refrigerator.
If you actually took the time to read this thank you. I wish you continued success with maintaining your incredible weight loss.
WOW, what a story! And THANK YOU for sharing your own incredible weight loss journey on low-carb! This is a continuing journey and I am so glad to be able to share these with my readers.
So what about you? Have you been on the Atkins diet or another low-carb program for three or more years? Would you like to share you story with others to encourage them in their decision to make this their lifestyle change? Send me an e-mail at livinlowcarbman@charter.net.
While my low-carb story is still in the early stages of being formed since I only began the low-carb lifestyle in January 2004, some are quick to dismiss my success as an anomaly and that I'll soon gain back all of those 190 pounds that I lost. It's absurd and yet it is what it is. There's nothing I can say or do to change that perception in people's minds.
But there is something I will GLADLY do. I can share with you the stories of others who have been on Atkins or another low-carb routine for much longer than the two years that I have been. In fact, I recently blogged about a man who lost 200 pounds on the Atkins diet TEN YEARS AGO and is still living a healthy and vibrant life today -- the low-carb way!
I have two more inspiring stories of long-term Atkins weight loss success to share with you and to encourage you that this really is a healthy, delicious and nutritious way you can eat for the rest of your life.
This e-mail came from a senior citizen who has been livin' la vida low-carb since 2000:
"Keep up the great work! This will be my sixth year on Atkins. I lost more than 65 pounds in the first 4 1/2 months. I actually lost more but stopped weighing myself after putting on more weight than I wanted to know about.
I have kept the weight off and will stay on it the rest of my life (I'm 63 years old). I was addicted to carbs for more than thirty years and never knew why I couldn't stop eating. My willpower was about 2% and my craving for carbs was 98%. I didn't stand a chance!
Almost six years ago a "fat" female friend of my wife's told me that she was thinking of starting on Atkins and loaned me her book. To make a long story short, as they say, she never got around to starting Atkins. The biggest mistake she ever made.
In 4 1/2 months as well as losing more than 65 pounds I lost 38.9% body fat. Without exercising! Unlike other diets, I lost little to no muscle. I found this to be incredible. Even though I'm the oldest person at work, I'm the strongest person there! I have also been exercising since my weight loss.
Five days after I started Atkins my stamina increased considerably! My secret was making certain that I took enough potassium as well as any other vitamins recommended by Atkins.
The only way anyone can fail while doing Atkins is by NOT READING HIS BOOK! Unfortunately I found that MOST PEOPLE DO NOT!
A number of my friends are doing Atkins with great success!
The more people "read the book" the easier it will be to succeed and the more likely they are to stay on it!
I cannot reiterate enough how important it is to READ THE BOOK! If you are gonna do Atkins, then you need to read Dr. Atkins New Diet Revolution
from cover to cover to understand what it is all about. If you are unsure of which low-carb program you want to do, then I recommend you get Jonny Bowden's Living The Low-Carb Life to help you figure out which program would be best for you. He does an EXCELLENT job reviewing the various low-carb plans for you.THANK YOU and CONGRATULATIONS to my reader who has been so successful on the Atkins diet for so long. Hearing you talk about your body fat coming down brought a big smile to my face since mine dropped from around 50% down to 11%! But I thought all you lost on a low-carb diet was water weight?! LOL!
The other e-mail I received today was from a woman who used to weigh 283 pounds standing at just 5'4" tall. YIKES! She is now within less than 20 pounds of reaching her goal weight of -- GET THIS! -- 133 pounds! You got it! She's almost lost ONE-HUNDRED FIFTY POUNDS on low-carb over the past three years. Unlike my weight loss, hers has been a slower-moving process, but an effective one nonetheless. Here's what she had to share:
"I read your blog today for the first time thanks to Dana Carpender.
My weight loss is not as dramatic as yours but substantial nonetheless. As of December 1, I had lost 139 lbs in 33 months. I decided in December to allow myself to go off my diet and experience some of the foods I thought I had missed over that time. I found that, with the exception of homemade chocolate, cakes and cookies, they didn't taste near as good as I had remembered. I gained 9 lbs but felt it was worth it for the experience. I have gone back on track and lost 3 lbs. Sugar, in the form of home baked goodies will always be a problem.
I started my journey in March 2003. I was undergoing chemotherapy and radiation for breast cancer which I have since seen go into remission. My onocologist told me that in addition to my risk factor of age (I was then 50), I increased my risk due to my obesity. Not finding the treatment for breast cancer to my liking I decided when I got back on my feet I was going to lose the weight. I wasn't real hopeful as I have said all this before. By June 2003 I felt as good as I was going to get if I didn't do something about the weight. I took my starting weight and found I had already lost 10 lbs.
I decided to go on Atkins as I could only do Weight Watchers for about a year before I give up and gain it all back. I lost another 47 lbs by October with no exercise. In October, Curves opened in my area and a friend talked me in to joining. I am so glad I did. I am not a person to exercise on their own. My weight loss stopped for 7 months.
I switched to the Curves diet, still low-carb, and started writing down every thing that went in my mouth-both calories and carbs. It didn't take me long to realize I had either been eating to much or to little. I need to lower calories as well as carbs to lose. I lost very slowly after two windfalls and 11 months ago slowed to 2 or 3 lbs a month. I am going to lose the 9 I gained in Dec and then on to the last 10 lbs. For me it has been a long, slow road and I thing people, especially women need to know that it isn't always going to come off in a year or even a year and a half. For women like myself who have yo-yo dieted for most of their adult life it may take twice as long as it does for those who are first time losers.
In Mar 2004, I took my golden retriever in for his annual check up. She said he was 30 lbs over weight. So I added waling to my exercise routine. Now I know there are people who like to walk but I find it about as much fun as watching grass grow, however Sam didn't get any exercise-zip-zilch-nada! Therefore in order for him to lose weight I was going to have to expend more energy than just cutting back his dog food. He lost 30 lbs over the next year. I am sure it was good for me as well, that doesn't mean I liked it.
Every day is a challenge. I would love to be able to lose 1 pound a week but it doesn't happen for me. I am now at about 40 carbs a day and between 1200-1400 calories with one 1800 calorie day every 3 days.
I feel terrific and the individual who says you have no energy on low carb is just plain nuts. No energy is when I eat a high carb food and wind up going to sleep 15 minutes later.
One thing that has helped me tremendously has been faux mashed potatoes. The key to making cauliflower into a credible mashed potatoes is NO EXTRA WATER! To do this you must wash and trim one head of cauliflower then run it through a salad spinner until you have removed as much excess water as possible. Place in microwave bowl DON'T ADD WATER And cook until done Puree in either a food processor or I use a hand blender, add 1 slice American cheese and continue to blend until melted. I eat this once a day with sour cream.It also freezes well so when ever I can get cauliflower on sale I make up a bunch to keep in the freezer. Even when it thaws there is very little liquid, unless you defrost in microwave. I simply allow it to defrost in refrigerator.
If you actually took the time to read this thank you. I wish you continued success with maintaining your incredible weight loss.
WOW, what a story! And THANK YOU for sharing your own incredible weight loss journey on low-carb! This is a continuing journey and I am so glad to be able to share these with my readers.
So what about you? Have you been on the Atkins diet or another low-carb program for three or more years? Would you like to share you story with others to encourage them in their decision to make this their lifestyle change? Send me an e-mail at livinlowcarbman@charter.net.
posted by Jimmy Moore at
1/08/2006 03:44:00 PM
1 Comments:
What a wonderful story, Jimmy, and really touching too. This is an excellent example of so many women that have yo-yo dieted for most of their adult life on that caloric curse: the low-fat lie. As a direct and proven result of this locked, horrific negative spiral, which necessitates continuously cutting further back on calories, their metabolisms have become so incredibly resistant to weight loss. Millions of women in the Western world suffer and, as a result of the Calorie Lie, fight a lost battle for most of their adult lifes. This is so incredibly sad and even more cruel, because it is completely unnecessary.
But thanks to programs like the Atkins nutritional approach and people like YOU, JIMMY MOORE, they are still able to lose the weight AND keep it off!
This also more or less confirms the often-observed effect that women have slower -but steady- weight loss and, sometimes, due to aforementioned yo-yo dieting for years, sometimes more difficulty kickstarting and losing it.
However, if ones sticks to it, it WILL come off. One cannot fool Mother Nature, and when one works with ones body, no matter how resistant it has become to weight loss, in the end you WILL prevail.
What a wonderful diet indeed - it gives people not only health but also control over their lives back.
This also confirmes many weight-loss successes I have personally seen coaching several obese women in the UK. Great long-term success, not to mention dramatic improvement of the serum profile as well as dramatic reduction of a plethora of risk factors. And of course, that weight loss is not merely "waterweight". That's just another (very old) lie from the vast quantity of old, tried-and-true "standby critizisms" that the low-fat phobists developed for the Atkins-bashing arsenal.
The water-weight blah-blah is one of the oldest, actually, and since long refuted by scientific research. Of course ON ANY DIET there is initially some water-weight loss, but it has long since been proven that the Atkins nutritional approach is a fantastic, extremely effective fat-burner and, hence, dramatically improves BMI. I have personally seen people improve the BMI ratio with 50%! That's half their weight GONE, and every ounce of it all fat, not waterweight! They also tone up wonderfully, even at older age due to the added lean muscle mass.
It is a simple and scientifically proven fact that low-carb dieters have a great and effective metabolic advantage - and the low-fat phobists are quite simply out of arguments. They already had no scientific backing whatsoever for their claims, and that is precisely why they have to resort to imbecilic fantasy stories and misrespresentations as well as outright lies.
It's therefore extremely important and useful that you keep publishing great sucesses like this. It shows your readers and the uninformed, mislead general public that low-carb does work, is extremely healthy and effective, as well as completely safe.
"En passant" proven long term safety of low-carb: if the countless experiences like these are not proof enough, then remember the Inuit, the healhtiest people on Earth. Or the Mackau. Or so many other ancient tribes and populations that -until the introduction of Western foods and dietary habits- were in perfect health, with no CVE's, cancers, obesity or diabetics, on a ULTRA-low-carb (often almost ZERO carb), natural and traditional diet.
Why do I literally never hear one of those critics say ANYTHING about these well-documented facts? LOL!
Keep up the good work Jimmy! The truth shall set us all free!
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home