Now that you have a basic understanding of how the proper balance of carbohydrates, fats, and protein impacts your weight, blood sugar, and overall health, you probably don’t want to wait another minute to begin to put this knowledge into practice at the dining table. Will eating this way for the rest of your life be hard? Not really. Does it require a different mindset than the one under which you have been operating until now? Absolutely. We won’t lie to you. In addition to knowledge, in order to permanently maintain a healthy weight you also definitely need a dose of determination. You will probably be able to eat many foods you may have thought were off-limits, but it is crucial to understand that you still need to control your carbohydrate intake, especially of high glycémie foods that could play havoc with your blood sugar. By moderating your intake of high glycémie foods, you keep cravings that could undermine your determination under control. If you’ve experienced the weight-loss phases of Atkins, your cravings for sweets and starchy foods should have diminished somewhat, but adding new foods can provoke them anew. However, if you proceed carefully and mindfully, you can remain comfortably in the driver’s seat. With time and practice, it does get easier.
If you’re an old hand at doing Atkins, you already know that the Pre-Maintenance phase is designed to serve as a dress rehearsal for your new way of eating. When you’ve reached your goal weight and found your ACE (Atkins Carbohydrate Equilibrium), you’ve arrived officially at Lifetime Maintenance. Far from a lifetime sentence of limited food choices and preoccupation with the scale, this phase can be a life-expanding opportunity, one in which you get to savor delicious foods, all the while keeping your weight under control and optimizing your health. And that kind of control over your diet and your weight gives you a confidence and pride that spills over into other aspects of your life. That’s why Atkins is also about opening your mind to the world of possibilities that life offers and to embracing a healthy, vital lifestyle in ways that complement your new way of eating.
Over and over again, we hear from Atkins followers who have dramatically changed or even saved their lives by losing weight the controlled carb way. Not only do they feel better about themselves in general and their bodies in particular, they often embark on new careers, enter new relationships, find new athletic pursuits, and experience myriad other life changes. Our files are full of such inspiring stories.
Take Barton Landfair, for example. Once a size 5 body builder, more recently Barton had abused alcohol and drugs. Although she had been able to kick drugs, in 1999 she was still drinking a bottle of tequila a day. She had also abandoned her weight-lifting regimen. All had taken their toll. At thirty-six, Barton weighed more than 200 pounds and wore a size 18. “I had no energy to pursue my work as an artist or even to take care of myself,” she recalls. “All I wanted to do was watch TV.” She began to turn her life around in April of that year when she started doing Atkins. “I stopped drinking that day,” she says. “Limiting my carbohydrates seemed to take away my craving for alcohol. And before, I would get depressed before my period and close all the windows in my room and lie in bed. Six months into the program, all that had changed. I finally felt healthy and in balance.” It took Barton about a year and a half to reach her goal weight of 135 (she is 5 feet 7 inches). “When I started doing Atkins, I also rediscovered exercise,” she says. She became interested in the body-shaping benefits of yoga, which she now practices daily, in addition to light weight training and working out on a step machine. “As I’ve gotten leaner, my whole outlook has improved and I’m more successful,” she says. “I plan to have a solo show of my art in about a year. I’ve been absolutely sober and, other than vitamins, I don’t take any pills. I’ve surprised a lot of people who didn’t think I had it in me to change. But I was determined to succeed right from the start, and today I can say with confidence that I’ve turned my life around.”
You will meet even more people in this book who’ve had life-changing experiences. While every one is an inspiration, they are just the tip of the iceberg. These individuals will probably never meet but if they did, all would undoubtedly agree that losing weight was only part of their personal success story. They have also regained their self-respect and their passion for life. Atkins is not just about being able to eat eggs for breakfast without gaining weight or feeling guilty, it’s about taking control of your life—and making a host of healthy choices.
One of the beauties of doing Atkins is that you can individualize it to fit your food preferences and lifestyle. Do you like to eat six small meals each day? No problem. Do you travel a lot and find yourself often eating in restaurants? You can easily navigate menus without increasing your waistline. Do you make meals for a horde of hungry teens who aren’t interested in sharing your way of eating? The Lifetime Maintenance phase is so flexible that most people won’t even notice you are on a special program. Do you prefer to have your main meal at lunch? Go ahead; just be sure to have a light meal later in the day. Whatever your lifestyle, you can adapt Atkins to your needs.
If you’ve lost weight with Atkins and followed the four phases to the letter, you have gradually added back different carbohydrate foods. That means that you already have an idea of how much variety awaits you at the dining table. On the other hand, if you basically stayed on Induction most of the way through the weight-loss process (don’t be embarrassed—you’re not alone in having bent the rules in your desire to speed up weight loss), now is the time to gradually reintroduce a greater array of carbohydrate foods. It’s always a good idea to introduce new foods one at a time. That way, if one food once again provokes cravings or other symptoms, you can identify which is producing such results and discontinue it.
Your ACE may be 60 grams of Net Carbs and your spouse’s or a friend’s might be 100. The magic number can vary quite a bit from person to person, but it usually ranges between these two extremes. Some lucky—or more likely—young, active (and usually male) people can go as high as 150 or even higher. On the other hand, if you have a history of obesity and yo-yo dieting, it is unlikely that you will ever be able to get your ACE much above 60. Remember that the more you exercise, the higher your ACE, so if you are determined to get it up a notch or two, get moving! Literally. Be aware that other factors over which you have no control—namely genetics, basic metabolism, age, and hormonal status—also play a large role in how much carbohydrate you can consume while maintaining your goal weight. Among the many indignities of age is that our metabolisms tend to slow down with the passage of years. Menopause also can play havoc with a woman’s metabolism, which is why so many women who have never had a weight problem suddenly develop one in their early fifties. That’s also why some older women, particularly those who are not that active, may have to settle for an ACE of less than 60.
Our meal plans, which begin on page 161, reflect the span that most individuals fall within; the suggested menus are comprised of 45, 60, 80, and 100 daily grams of Net Carbs.
Now that you are at your goal weight, you can take a more flexible approach to your carb grams than you did while you were losing weight—so long as you don’t start to regain pounds. If your ACE is 60, for example, you can eat 40 grams of Net Carbs one day and 80 grams the next—as long as you average out to 60 grams a day over the course of the week. Of course, you can’t save all your carb grams for a week and then gobble them up in one sitting, but holding back a little one day and indulging a little the next is fine. This is particularly useful when you know a special occasion—a holiday dinner, say—is coming up. You can splurge a little because you’ve “banked” some carbs earlier in the week. Don’t go overboard with this approach, though. It’s easy to lose track and end up eating more carbs than you planned. And if this approach reactivates any cravings, discontinue it. As always, spread your carb intake across the day instead of blowing it all in one sitting.
How to Find Your ACE
If you’re new to Atkins, you probably haven’t the foggiest idea of what your ACE is. Relax; it isn’t that hard to figure out, although it may take you a few weeks to zero in on your individual threshold for carb consumption. If you do need to trim some pounds, it will take longer to find your ACE because you first have to establish how many carbs you can eat while you lose your excess weight. In either case, we suggest you start at 60 grams of Net Carbs a day. (Remember if you have more than a few pounds to lose, however, you should begin with the Induction phase of Atkins.)
To lose weight: Start with 60 grams of Net Carbs a day. If you start to trim down at this level, gradually increase your intake in 5-gram increments so long as weight loss continues. Remember that the more slowly you lose, the more your new eating habits become ingrained and the more likely you are to keep the weight off. When you reach your goal weight and maintain it for at least a month at a consistent level of carb intake, you are at your ACE. However, if you don’t start losing after a week at 60 grams a day, drop down to 50 grams and see if that gets your fat-burning engine in gear.
To maintain weight: If you maintain your weight after eating 60 grams of Net Carbs a day for several days, try going to 70 grams. Keep inching up slowly so long as you do not gain weight. If you do put on a few pounds, back off 5 or 10 grams and you should have found your ACE. On the other hand, if you initially gain weight after a few days at 60 grams a day, cut back to 50 and see if you can maintain at that level. Continue to play with the number of carb grams until you are neither losing nor gaining. At that point you have found your ACE!
One of the best things about doing Atkins is that it is the quality of the foods you eat, not just their quantity, that helps you manage your weight. Moreover, you can select from so many different delicious foods that you need never get bored. The best way to stay motivated on any dietary regimen is variety. So the best road to permanent success with Atkins is to become adventurous! Today’s supermarkets are full of interesting, great-tasting vegetables from all over the world—try them. Add some excitement and crunch to your salads with flavorful fresh greens such as arugula, radicchio, and fennel. In addition to cabbage, try kale, Swiss chard, collards, or spicy mustard greens—they’re all flavorful, low in carbs, and packed with high-quality nutrients. An exciting world of Asian vegetables—now available in most well-stocked supermarkets—await you in the form of bok choy, napa cabbage, pea pods, mung bean sprouts, and daikon. They’re great in stir-fries and in salads. Also explore vegetables popular in Hispanic cuisines, such as chayóte and jicama.
When it comes to grains, even if your ACE is high enough to have them fairly regularly, you should stay away from conventional (semolina) pasta and white rice. Brown rice is lower in Net Carbs, has a lower AGR, and is a more nutritious replacement for white rice. Your best bets in the grain department are the whole, unrefined grains such as rolled oats and barley. And although beans and legumes are fairly high in carbs, they’re also high in fiber, which makes them a good choice overall. Small portions of both legumes and whole, unrefined grains will provide you with needed nutrients without blowing your carb budget. These are foods that you may not eat every day, but are usually fine to have a few times a week.
To help you select foods that will provide a wide array of nutrients, including fiber, without compromising your weight, we suggest you adhere to the following guidelines. First, at the risk of stating the obvious, continue to count your grams of Net Carbs. Secondly, keep an eye on your intake by becoming familiar with the seven rungs of the carb ladder described in chapter 3 starting on page 38. Ideally, each meal should include adequate protein and healthy fats, plus some carbs. Over the course of the day, your carb intake should include:
4 to 5 servings of vegetables (Remember that a serving is typically a half-cup of cooked vegetables or a cup of raw ones. So a big salad at lunch could comprise 3 servings of veggies and constitute more than half your intake for the day.)
1 to 2 servings of fruit (Remember that a whole fruit is not necessarily a serving. For example, half a medium apple or half a grapefruit is 1 serving as are 2 fresh apricots.)
3 servings of dairy (Examples include 1 ounce of cheese, 1 cup of yogurt or whole milk, 1/2 cup cottage cheese.)
2 to 4 ounces of nuts and/or seeds
Depending upon your ACE, you may well be able to eat whole grains and/or legumes at least once a day. Following the Atkins Glycemic Ranking (AGR), select first from the foods in the #1 (eat regularly) category, less frequently from the #2 (eat in moderation) category and least frequently from #3 (eat sparingly) foods. Individuals with higher ACEs may also choose to eat more fruit, if they can do so without finding that it elevates their blood sugar. As long as you add new carbohydrate foods one at a time, you will find how varied your diet can be.
Remember, too, that you can mix and match foods, as long as you keep track of your total carb intake. Our meal plans offer lots of ways to trade out one food for another, all the while adhering to your ACE. Also refer to Carb Counting Made Easy on pages 199-203 for items you can substitute for those in the meal plans. Try some interesting new combinations—sprinkle your broccoli with sunflower seeds or chopped walnuts, for instance, or toss your blueberries with creamy fresh ricotta cheese. Your goal is to always eat as wide a variety of foods as possible. Don’t be saddled with conventional expectations about what to eat when. If you want to emulate the Japanese and have miso soup with tofu and scallions for breakfast, go ahead. Or if you want to add some interest to your breakfast of scrambled eggs by tossing in last night’s leftover asparagus, feel free.
Let’s look at the meal plan on page 171 as a way to get a handle on what you might eat in a typical day. For comparison purposes, let’s assume you are a woman with an ACE of 45. Let’s also assume that you have a spouse who has an ACE of 100. For breakfast, you can each enjoy Zucchini Frittata and a sliced tomato. He could add a slice of rye bread toast, a half-cup of grapefruit or honeydew melon, and a decaf latte. Come lunch, you can each have a Chicken and Sun-Dried Tomato Quesadilla. You’ll have your quesadilla with a cucumber and radish salad. He can have his with Mexican Chopped Salad and some chickpeas. For dinner, serve Baihian Halibut accompanied by sautéed spinach and a large green salad. He also gets some wholewheat pasta. For dessert, enjoy some strawberries and cream. If either of you prefers, you could have a couple of apricots, some cherries, or Lime Granita instead. (Recipes begin on page 211.)
Okay, you now know how many grams of Net Carbs you should be eating each day. You also are getting a grasp on why some carbohydrates put a greater burden on your system than others. You’re all set to do Atkins for life, right? Maybe. But before you get too cocky, let’s look at some of the pitfalls ahead, along with strategies for staying on top of them. (We’ll look at one of them, the role of exercise, in designing your healthy lifestyle in the next chapter.)
You never need to go hungry on Atkins, but nor should you ever go beyond the point of satisfying your hunger. This is a polite way of saying don’t stuff yourself. Of course, it’s pretty hard to gorge on a controlled carb regimen, because all those salad greens, vegetables, and protein dishes fill you up fast and sate your appetite. Even so, if your past eating patterns included lots of overeating and binges, you may carry this pattern over when you’re doing Atkins—just with different foods. How can you break the pattern? You must nip overeating in the bud to remain in fighting trim—permanently.
The first step is learning to distinguish real hunger from the simple desire to eat. This isn’t always easy, because we all use food to satisfy an array of emotional needs. You may eat to cheer yourself up, reward yourself, calm yourself, because you’re tired, or just to cope with boredom or dissatisfaction. Whether you’re having a lousy day or a great one, be mindful of how your mood affects your food choices. Once you become aware of the mood-food connection, you can cut back on emotional eating. You’ll probably find that with greater awareness, you’ll eat less or even eliminate this nonproductive behavior altogether and do something else you enjoy—like taking a walk, reading a magazine, or phoning a friend. And if you must eat, make a it good, low carb choice.
After all, your goal isn’t just to manage your weight but to learn a more rational and realistic way of eating—and that means eating until you feel comfortably satisfied, not stuffed. Sometimes it’s hard to tell when you’ve reached satiety—you might still feel hungry even though you’ve eaten a hearty meal. The problem here is that your brain hasn’t yet caught up with your stomach. If you find that once you start eating you have a hard time stopping, you may be waiting too long between meals and allowing your hunger to shift into overdrive. If you have not gone too long between meals but are still hungry after eating dinner, try this tactic: Once you’ve finished your basic meal, wait about twenty minutes to see if you still feel hungry. If you are, have another portion of the protein part of your meal or an Atkins-friendly dessert such as berries with whipped cream. But more likely, in that short time your blood sugar will rise slowly as you digest your food; the fat and protein send satiating signals to your brain and your hunger will diminish. When you wait, the desire for a second helping or dessert simply passes.
If hunger comes upon you between meals, remember that snacking is perfectly permissible on Atkins. In fact, it’s a great way to keep hunger from getting the upper hand and putting you in a position where you might make bad choices. In addition to all the delicious snack recipes in this book and on www.atkins.com, you can always resort to a handful of nuts, some olives, a piece of cheese, or a slice of ham wrapped around a stalk of celery or a cucumber spear. This approach can also be helpful if you get the after-dinner munchies. However, eating right before bed could interfere with getting a good night’s sleep, so a cup of hot herb tea to soothe and fill you up might be a better choice.
The next important step to avoid overeating is to get a firm grasp on portion size. In order to keep track of your carbs, you need to have a sense of a standard (meaning not supersized) serving of each food. It’s all too easy to underestimate the size of the portion in front of you, which means you end up eating more carbs than you realize. Many people who have had a weight problem over the years have simply been eating too much food for so long that they assume gargantuan portions are the norm. If “I can’t believe I ate the whole thing!” is a familiar echo in your ears, you may be an overeater. And you are not alone. In this land of plenty, restaurants—particularly fast-food places—tend to serve supersize portions. Your mother probably told you to eat all the food on your plate because she was worried about your health, but the reality is that as a society we need to learn to push back before we do eat the whole thing to be healthy.
A few statistics are instructive: The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Economic Research Service estimates that the average daily caloric intake in 1994 increased by 14.7 percent, or about 340 calories, from 1984. It remained stable between 1994 and 1997, the latest year for which there is data.1 According to this same source, in 1957, the size of a hamburger at a typical fast-food restaurant was 1 ounce. By 1997, the typical patty size had jumped to 6 ounces! A typical serving of soda was 8 ounces in 1957; by 1997 it had moved up to 32 ounces. When your parents went to the movies in 1957 they may have shared a 3-cup bag of popcorn; today, when you order a medium bag of that classic snack, you get 16 cups. Just one more example: That 1950s muffin weighed in at less than 1½ ounces; the 1990s muffin had bulged to 5 to 8 ounces.
To buck the trend, take a good look at your serving sizes. Just as in the past your body got used to eating overlarge portions and came to expect that, with every meal, you can get used to eating smaller portions, particularly when it is full of satiating foods high in protein and healthy fats. Conversely, if you find you’re putting weight on again after achieving your goal weight, your problem might be that your portion sizes have crept up. Listen to your body. It is sometimes wiser than your hunger-driven brain. When you eat moderately, you feel good after a meal, not bloated and sluggish.
A good way to get a handle on portion sizes is to spend a little time in the lab—meaning your kitchen. Using a measuring cup and a kitchen scale (or even a postage scale), measure out the standard portions of some of the foods you eat most often. Take each portion and put it on an empty dinner plate to get an idea of how it looks. Now that you know what a cup of cooked cauliflower, for example, really looks like, you’ll be able to estimate your carb intake much more accurately in the future. Do the same with protein foods such as meat, poultry, and fish to ensure that you are not eating excessively large portions.
There’s another important step for breaking out of past eating patterns: no more junk food. That means no more conventional cookies, snack cakes, doughnuts, sodas, or candy bars. These foods are incredibly high in carbohydrates and are generally full of dangerous trans fats and chemical additives—and incredibly low in anything resembling nutrition. The problem is that they surround you. Just think of the array of sugar-and white-flour-filled choices beckoning you at the supermarket checkout line. Without question, they are seductive. Nobody ever lusts for asparagus or cabbage, but cravings for a candy bar or pretzels are legion.
It’s not easy to break the junk food habit, but you can do it. If you have lost weight doing Atkins, you probably followed our advice to get rid of whatever junk food was in your home. If you are new to Atkins, it is quite simple, get rid of anything that has sugar or white flour. Quite simply, if it’s not there, you can’t eat it. Now that you’re doing Atkins for life, there is less reason than ever to have junk foods around. In Lifetime Maintenance, the different mindset now is that you have to accept that you’re giving these foods up forever, not just until you achieve your goal weight. That’s because as surely as night follows day, if you resume your habit of eating junk food, you will once again become addicted and your weight problem will be déjà vu all over again, to paraphrase Yogi Berra. And that’s not even mentioning all the ingredients in junk foods, starting with trans fats, that can imperil your health. If your kids complain, use the opportunity to teach them better eating habits by giving them a good snack such as nuts, a chunk of cheese, or a piece of fresh fruit instead. Junk food isn’t any better for them than it is for you. Some parents find that a workable compromise is to allow their children to eat such foods only when they are out.
Simple sugar lurks in many foods, disguised by the manufacturers under misleading names. When you’re deciding if a food is a good controlled carb choice, look for the hidden sugars on the food label. No matter what it’s called, sugar is sugar and has at least 4 carb grams per teaspoon. Even when a food seems low in sugar or other carbs, check the portion size on the food label carefully. The amount of carbs is given by the serving size, and that serving is often much smaller than you realize. You could end up getting a lot more carbs than you want. Here are the various aliases for sweet carbs:
| • Brown sugar | • High-fructose corn syrup |
| • Corn sweetener | • Honey |
| • Corn syrup | • Invert sugar |
| • Corn syrup solids | • Lactose |
| • Dextrose | • Maltose |
| • Fructose | • Malt |
| • Fruit juice concentrate | • Malt syrup |
| • Glucose | • Molasses |
| • Raw sugar | • Sucrose (table sugar) |
Some people are able to have a taste of cake, regular pasta, or a few french fries and stop there. If you don’t have that degree of self-control, it’s probably better for you to stay away from the very foods that once did you in. Realistically, does this mean you will never again have a piece of birthday cake or dip a conventional crispy cracker into a dip at a party? Of course not, but you do have to know where you stand in terms of such deviations. Some people have the metabolic and psychological ability to have, say, a tiny piece of cake or a couple of crackers and stop there. Then there are those who know that if they have even a taste of such foods, they may veer out of control. Most of us land somewhere in the middle. Fortunately, the ever-growing array of controlled carb foods means that doing Atkins needn’t mean a lifetime sentence of never enjoying a sweet treat, like Mom’s pumpkin pie, or the satisfying crunch of a savory chip.
Some beverages can be your friends in the health and weight control game. Others are just the opposite. The next time you feel hungry between meals, stop and think about when you last had something to drink. If it’s been more than a couple of hours, your hunger might actually be thirst. Instead of eating, drink some filtered or bottled water—always the best choice because it has no carbs. If you want something fizzy, try seltzer or sparkling water with a slice of lemon or lime, unsweetened essence-flavored club soda, or a diet soda sweetened with sucralose (Splenda). Or make your own sodas using sugar-free flavored syrups. Try not to overdo the fizzy drinks, though. The bubbles fill you up quickly and could keep you from getting your daily tally of eight 8-ounce glasses (64 ounces total) of high-quality fluids.
Sugar-Free Sweeteners
By replacing sugar and other sweeteners such as syrup with a sugar-free version, you get the sweetness without the carbs. Sugar-free sweeteners are very intense, so a tiny amount goes a long way. Our preference is sucralose (Splenda), but acesulfame K (Sweet One, Swiss Sweet) and saccharin (Sweet ’N Low, Sweet Twin, and generic brands) are other options. Which sweetener you prefer is a matter of personal taste. The Food and Drug Administration does not recognize the use of the herb stevia as a sweetener, although it can be sold as a dietary supplement in health food stores.
Sugar-free iced tea and lemonade are also good choices. Avoid beverages sweetened with sugar, corn syrup, or other caloric sweeteners; instead opt for those with sucralose. (See Sugar-Free Sweeteners.) Orange juice, grape juice, apple cider, and other fruit juices are relatively high in natural sugar, and they don’t have any fiber to slow their absorption. Drink them rarely, in small portions, and with food to slow absorption. It’s also a good idea to add pure water or sparkling water to just a couple of ounces of fresh fruit juice.
If you prefer a hot drink, go for decaffeinated coffee or tea or herbal tea—or for a change of pace, have some clear chicken or beef bouillon. Lighten your coffee or tea with cream, and sweeten it with your favorite sugar substitute. Hot drinks are very satisfying—meaning they can take the edge off your appetite. If you have a tendency to overeat, try having some broth or a cup of herbal tea about half an hour before a meal—it may help you feel satiated sooner. If you feel the need for something sweet after a meal, try a cup of hot decaffeinated tea or herbal tea instead of dessert.
The high level of caffeine in many popular beverages can be a problem for some people. Excess caffeine may cause a drop in your blood sugar, which could result in cravings for sweets. Caffeine is found not just in coffee and tea but also in cola and even some herbal teas. Many people enjoy the taste and health benefits of green (and black) tea without such side effects. If you find that caffeinated beverages deplete you of energy, make you feel shaky or jittery, or send you on a search-and-devour mission for doughnuts, switch over to decaffeinated versions.
When you have reached the Lifetime Maintenance phase and are eating more carbs, you will be eating less fat than you did in the weight-loss phases of Atkins. Protein will still provide from 30 to 35 percent of your energy needs. It is important not to cut back too much. The amino acids in protein are the building blocks for muscle, so be sure to consume an adequate amount, as the meal plans that start on page 161 indicate. In addition to a healthy diet, supplemental vitamins, minerals, and other nutrients ensure that you meet your nutritional needs. Each person has different nutritional needs, which can best be ascertained by consulting with a nutritionist, but at the most basic, you should be taking a daily multivitamin/mineral as well as eating food with omega-3, omega-6, and omega-9 essential fatty acids and supplementing as needed. Adequate mineral intake is especially important if you find yourself perspiring profusely while working out, which could deplete your body’s store of calcium, magnesium, potassium, and other minerals—also known as electrolytes. A personal fitness program—the subject of the following chapter—is the final essential ingredient for optimal health.
Understanding Where Carbs Hide and What Influences ACE
1. Which of these products might contain hidden sugars?
a. Bacon
b. Breakfast cereal
c. Bottled iced tea
d. Barbecue sauce
e. Ketchup
f. Salad dressings
g. Fruit juice
h. Cough syrups
i. Chocolate milk
2. All other things being equal, who is likelier to have a higher ACE?
a. A 29-year-old man or a 49-year-old man?
b. A 49-year-old woman or a 49-year-old man?
c. A dog walker or a truck driver?
d. A woman taking birth control pills or a woman who is not?
e. A man taking antidepressants or a man who is not?
f. A person taking insulin or a person taking metformin?
g. Someone whose parents are obese or someone whose parents are slim?
h. A person with a broken ankle or a person with a broken hand?
ANSWERS:
1. All of these foods could contain sugar in one form or another.
2. The people who are most apt to have a higher ACE are:
a. The 29-year-old. Younger people usually can consume more carbohydrates without gaining weight, b. The man. Men typically have a metabolic advantage because they don’t have as much estrogen and their bodies have more muscle mass. c. The dog walker. He is probably getting more exercise than the truck driver, d. The woman who is not taking hormones. Estrogen can increase insulin resistance, which in turn can contribute to weight gain. e. The man not taking antidepressants. Many antidepressant drugs can interfere with weight control, f. The person taking metformin. Unlike insulin, this medication does not seem to interfere with weight control, g. The person with slim parents. A person with a genetic predisposition to put on weight will likely have to eat fewer grams of carbs. h. The person with a broken hand. He or she can presumably still walk or engage in some form of exercise that the person with a broken ankle cannot.
Terry Free bet a friend that he could lose weight in just two weeks by doing Atkins. He did, and then some. A year later and almost 80 pounds lighter, he’s the big winner.
Being overweight had been a problem for me since I was nine or ten years old. I had fallen into a pattern of eating to excess, especially when I was bored or unhappy. By the time I was in junior high, the kids had begun to call me “Fat Albert” because I looked like the Bill Cosby TV character.
I’m thirty years old now, and over the years I’ve tried several diets. I lost 60 pounds on one program, but was hungry all the time. I just couldn’t stick to it, and eventually gained all the weight back, and more. It didn’t help that I live in a college town, where junk food is always readily available—and sometimes, the temptation was overwhelming. Before I learned about Atkins, I’d eat whatever I wanted whenever I wanted, just like a kid. It wasn’t uncommon for me to eat a large pizza with two cans of soda, followed by a pint of ice cream for dinner. I could even down an entire gallon of milk in a day. I ate out a lot, and buffets were really big with me.
In February of 2002, two friends told me they had started doing Atkins. I had never heard of it, but they were losing weight so I thought I’d give it a try. I asked another friend, who only needed to lose 10 pounds, to try Atkins with me, if only for two weeks. “Let’s show these other two guys up,” I said. He agreed, so I went to the Atkins Web site and bought a copy of Dr. Atkins New Diet Revolution.
At the end of the two-week Induction phase, I had lost 12 pounds and my friend had reached his 10-pound weight loss goal. “Hey, giving up bread is a little hard, but not as bad as I thought,” I said to myself. So I decided to keep going and began to set reasonable, short-term goals for myself. The next step for me I called “30 by 30”—to lose a total of 30 pounds by my thirtieth birthday, or about 18 pounds in the next six weeks. I was ecstatic when I made my goal on the exact day, April 7. Then I decided to set my next goal. I knew I would be seeing my entire family at my cousin’s graduation, approximately one month after my birthday. I decided to try to lose 12 more pounds, again about 3 pounds per week. When the graduation day arrived, my relatives came to pick me up at my apartment. When I opened the door, my mother’s mouth fell open and she almost started to cry. By then, I had lost 45 pounds, 3 more than I had even intended. “Are you starving yourself?” she asked. So I explained the Atkins program and all its health benefits.
By this time, a day didn’t go by that someone didn’t ask me how I’d lost the weight. I had become a phenomenon. It was such a hoot and a holler when people didn’t even recognize me. I work as a phone sales rep for a mail order medical and dental supply company, and people in the office began to bring me clothes that no longer fit them or their family members. I didn’t want to buy any new clothes until I reached my final goal weight of less than 200 pounds. I had to lose 25 more pounds and thought it would take me about eight more weeks, by about the Fourth of July. On July 1,1 hit 199 pounds. I made a banner, brought it to work, and hung it over my desk. All it read was “199.” People kept asking me what it meant, and when I told them, they just couldn’t believe my accomplishment. Now, several coworkers are doing Atkins, too, and I’m sort of a coach for them. I’ve lost another 7 pounds for a total of 77 pounds lost. I’m 5 feet 10 inches and weigh 193 pounds, a weight I can really live with.
ACE: 45
Age: 30
Height: 5 feet 10 inches
Weight before: 270 pounds
Weight after: 193 pounds
Weight lost: 77 pounds
Total cholesterol before: 215
Total cholesterol after: 175
Started doing Atkins: February 2002
The whole time I was on the weight loss phases of Atkins I exercised, though not strenuously. I walked two miles to work five days a week, and at least two days a week I also walked home. Once a week I went roller-blading. I also recently bought an abdominal exercise machine to help me tone up my middle. Before I took off the weight, I’d sometimes take a nap after work and sleep ten or eleven hours per night on the weekends. Now I’m never tired, and six hours of sleep is plenty. Luckily, before Atkins I had no major health problems other than slightly elevated cholesterol and blood sugar levels. Now those numbers are just fine.
As I maintain my weight, I don’t even think about being on a diet anymore. I’m cooking for one, so grocery shopping is easy. I know which aisles to go down and which to avoid. I grab hard-boiled eggs or string cheese for breakfast. At work during lunch, I might have a turkey wrap with mozzarella cheese or a taco salad with all the seasoning but no chips. For dinner I might fix controlled carb pasta with packaged Alfredo sauce and bacon bits, skillet-browned chicken, and sugar-free gelatin for dessert. I try to have a salad once a day for lunch or dinner.
Being able to wear regular-size clothes is the best part of shedding pounds, so when I reached my goal weight I splurged and went shopping. They just don’t make cool clothes in those big sizes! My waist measurement has dropped from 44 or 46 inches to 32 or 33 inches. I went from XXXL shirts to just a large. I’ve always been a pretty happy-go-lucky guy, but now I am more genuinely so. I don’t get depressed by wondering if people are thinking, “Gee, that guy is fat!” I just can’t count all the benefits. I feel two million percent better in every way.