Day 10. Yum yum yum I found my Chocolate fix!!! :oP

Ok if you can remember a couple of posts back, I was moaning about the price of Atkins bars here in the UK and I wanted to find out other cheaper solutions, and I wanted more food ideas...to help me stay longer on the induction period. So again I went in search on YouTube and found these hilarious YouTubers; Jimmy & Christine Moore…. Now these Atkineers have been doing the low-carb lifestyle for quite a while and have made an amazing transformation. Therefore they have plenty of helpful wisdom, advice and tricks you can pick up…. Check them out!!!

Although from their videos only some of the foods can be bought in the United States i.e. Stallone Puddings & GoLive bars, it did however encourage me to return to my local health store... and am glad I did.

I searched through quite an extensive list of bars in the store but couldn’t find a low carb bar… there was plenty of protein with carb bars, but non without or little of :o( However I did stumble across Chocolate and Strawberry Whey Protein, so all was not lost….and I ended up buying the Chocolate Flavor tub (Soon to return for some Strawberry flavor :oP). Your not going to believe this, but just 1 scope is 2.4 carbohydrates with 0.3 as sugar. That seems amazing, but that has also got me thinking.

Which carbs do you count? Is the 2.4 carbohydrates the net carb or is it just the sugar content which is 0.3? So I think I will pose this question to Jimmy & Christine to find out. Hopefully they will answer. I also need them to clarify how to calculate a net carb ;o) I will post the results here if they kindly answer :oD

But still the good news is... I now have another desert added to my low-carb list ;o)

Onto the meals of the day:

Ok people here is Jimmy's reponse about how to calculate net carbs, njoy and don't forget to check out his video's and website, and thanks once again Jimmy :o)

"GREAT QUESTIONS, Jon, and I'm happy to help. Basically, net carbs are the number of carbs that count towards your total carbohydrate intake that will impact your blood sugar levels. You calculate this by taking the total carbohydrate and then subtract dietary fiber and sugar alcohols. YOU MUST COUNT ALL SUGAR GRAMS AS CARBS! So, if the total carbs is 16g and you have 8g fiber, 2g sugar, and 6g sugar alcohols (like maltitol, erythritol, sorbitol, etc.), then the NET carbs would be 2g (16 minus 8 for the fiber minus 6 for the sugar alcohols to give you 2g net carbs). Make sense? :D

Contact me anytime at livinlowcarbman AT charter . net with any other questions. THANKS for watching and KEEP UP THE GREAT WORK on your low-carb lifestyle. I'm proud of you."

Jimmy Moore
LivinLaVidaLowCarb.com

Day 9. Lots of fibre in, Lots of fibre out!

Hi people, sorry for the late post… Been busy with projects and stuff. I did record all my activities food and exercise though. See below for more details:

Ok today I wanted to mention about constipation and bloated-ness. The last couple of days I’ve started to feel a little irritable in the bowls area (By the way the “bowls” word makes me cringe… I just hate this word) but anyhows… it’s a normal thing to get these symptoms when on the Atkins diet, and some of you may not know how to get around this. Dr. Atkins book does suggest to consume --> Psyllum Husks <-- and so therefore I took a trip to the local Health Food store and bought some.

I also found some information on Psyllum Husks from Wikipedia just so you can read about it, see below:

"Psyllium seed husks expand and become mucilaginous when wet and are soluble in water, but they are indigestible in human beings. The husks are dried and chopped or powdered for use..

The characteristics of psyllium seed husks make them useful for any treatment that requires improvement or maintenance of transit time in the gastrointestinal tract, because the inert bulk of the husks helps provide a constant volume of solid material irrespective of other aspects of the diet or any disease condition of the gut. Over-the-counter laxatives and fiber supplements such as Metamucil, Serutan, Effersyllium, and Isabgol have psyllium husks as their main ingredient, in finely chopped or powdered form. The husks can be consumed as-is (with plenty of water or other fluid) with much the same effect. Psyllium can also be added to food or drink to boost the fiber content of the diet, and some cereals (Bran Buds, Heartwise) contain it.

Psyllium husks are used to relieve constipation, irritable bowel syndrome, diverticular disease, and diarrhea. They are used as a regular dietary supplement to improve and maintain regular GI transit. Some recent research is also showing them to be promising in lowering cholesterol and controlling diabetes."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psyllium_seed_husks

My experience with Psyllium Husks is a positive one, it works a treat digestive wise… however what I don’t like about it is the ingestion part. On the packaging it says about its pleasant taste, but don’t be fooled, lol! You can buy Psyllium in two forms, powdered or capsule. I choose the powered form and the first try was a little unpleasant… basically silly me filled a whole glass of water, then took a teaspoon full and tried mixing it in (As suggested by the label). To my horror it was all lumpy even though I stirred for a long time and then consuming was gross. Anyhow, here is a hint on the best way to mix this.

What you need to do is… put 1 teaspoon of husks in a cup. Add like 3 tablespoons or a drop of water and mix until it blends with the water, then just add more water to dilute it and mix some more. Voila no lumps and its a lot easier to digest ;o) I hope this helps.

Today I also resumed my jump training :o) and did two hours of rock and roll badminton, wow am feeling great, so don’t believe the myths that this diet cannot give you energy :o)

Day 8. Results Day… :oS

So Week 1 out of the way and how did I do, You maybe pondering…!?!?! hum… well Fantastic… My weight now is 97.5 kg (15.4 Stone, 216 lbs) down from 101.6 kg (16 Stone, 224 Ibs) . I have lost a whole 4.1 kg (0.6 Stone, 8 Ibs) yippee. That’s equivalent to 4 bags of sugar all weighing 1 kg each. Amazing huh! Who would have thought you could lose so much weight, eating yourself thin… :o) I guess the next goal is to try and replicate or better my success.

To be honest I didn’t find this week that difficult to stick to the diet, I had my doubts at the start and yeah I had a little of the Induction blues mid week, but that seems to of past now. Perhaps as the heart grows fonder I may incur stronger sugary bad cravings, but if the weeks fly like this one or easier, then I could be on a road to victory sooner than I think, fingers crossed. “Focusing on the Goal!”

Some things I need to work on though are more variety of recipes, possibly more on deserts too :oP. I went to the local supermarket two days ago, and I found it incredible how expensive Atkins Chocolate Bars are for their size. £2 for just 1 small bar, Outrageous!!! So if anyone has some really simple ideas then feel free to place them in the comments section below.

Here is a really easy desert my dad suggested to me at the start… Sugar Free Jelly with Cream :P yum! Easy to make and hardly any net carbs :o) Just the way I like it at at the moment… although be cautious because it does contain aspartame, which can cause headaches and other issuses, it can be abit of a weight retainer too and can encourage carb cravings. You find alot of aspartame in sugar free foods and drinks, like Chewing Gum, Jelly, Diet Fizzy Drinks etc.. so read the label and watch out for this.

Anyhow here are my stats…. And wow am amazed that you can see my sizes have changed, especially in the legs department ;o)

And here is the table of the grub I have consumed for today:

I have to say today has been incredible, not only did I achieve successful weight loss results, I had plenty of yummy food to eat, and I am feeling great.... and and and… I had an awesome time at volleyball, I played pretty well! Which also reminds me, I will be resuming my jumping training tomorrow morning, as my knee feels much better :o)

Right O I think I will leave it there….Night Night or Good Morning depending on what time you read this :o)

Wishing everyone who is also following the Atkins Diet (Or any diet) the same or better success, keep up the hardwork, you know it will eventually pay off :o) and Don't Give Up!

Day 7 Week 1 of Induction Passed :o)

Howdi, well the seventh day is here, which means the end of week 1 and I guess Judgment day tomorrow :oS and wow hasn’t time flown. Am feeling a little tired at the minute, but this is down to the really long but good day I have had, + its almost near midnight, and I just got back from playing 3 hours of Badminton. (I belong to a regular club you see :o) So I might keep this a short one tonight!

So I had another creative day in the kitchen, and I made a delicious mouth watering Chicken & Vegetable Stir Fry, it was soooo yummy too, that I think this could become a regular thing. Let me also tell you a little story.

Once upon a time, there was this little boy, who always hated mushrooms, as the years passed he grew into a handsome young fella, and then one night out shopping he saw these funny white things in a supermarket called mushrooms, and having noticed they where on the acceptable Atkins list, he decided to randomly just buy some. Just out of curiosity he fried a few in a pan, to then soon discover an amazing taste, and ever since, he has been hooked on them especially all of today :oP That ladies and gentleman if you didn’t already guess was me, except the the handsome bit :o)

Oh… and Thanks once again Dr Atkins for this wonderful discovery.

Ok ok, I know what your thinking… I know my stories suck and don’t give up your day job! but hey I just wanted people to know this. Am now in the mood to trying a lot of foods on the Atkins acceptable list too. In fact I don’t know what some of them are… shame on me, for instance Artichoke Hearts, Pak Choy, Okra, Chard, Kale, Kohlrabi, Spaghetti/Summer Squash, Hearts of Palm etc.. Wow I have not lived…There’s others I do know however and I have never tried… so perhaps its palette/shopping exploring time :o)))

Talking about food here is Day 7 of my food dairy:

Hey you know what? I haven’t deviated or cheated from the plan either, I have kept to 20 net carbs on average this week so yippee :o) Therefore I expect some good results tomorrow. K nn, and will keep you posted.

Day 6. Induction Flu Over… I think!!!

Hey, I had a fantastic meal today, as you can see in the table below. Yes I was Wine-ning and Dinning at home but without the wine. I chomped down some lovely salmon fillets which I bought from the local store earlier, with asparagus, cauliflower (alternative to potatoes) and hollandaise sauce, wow what a meal, and I even ate less than 20g of net carbs, amazing huh!!!

My Induction Flu is over too… after the advice I got from Bowulf on you YouTube yesterday, I think I know now how to tackle Induction hassles, all you have to do is drink, drink and drink :oD lots and lots of water ;o) In fact a rare thing happened this morning I naturally woke up earlier than usual before my alarm clock and I was feeling great… I hope this is the end of my Induction Blues :o)

I want to mention about another person I found on YouTube yesterday, who is also a fellow Atkins devotee/missionary. She goes by the name of FatGirlThin and she caught my eye when tapping in “Atkins” on the YouTube. I think this lass has a unique character, and is a real breath of fresh air, plus tones of positivity flows from her, and she is hilarious. It’s a real pleasure to watch/listen to her…kind of like an alternative to a chocolate or sweets :oP So check her out when in need of some sugar!

Not only this, she even dishes out loads of valuable advice… like try to choose a Multivitamin without iron in it, after all this makes sense as we get plenty of this from our Atkins diets (from meats etc). Plus over doing Iron is bad for your health, but don't worry I won’t bore you with the specifics :o) Am sure FatGirlThin won’t mind a few inspiring comments either, so check her out and say Hi :o) She just got to Week 3 of her plan… and she’s a loser, in the sense of weightloss of course ;o)… so congratulations on her part :o)

Here she is.... so enjoy!

Right well am gearing up now for the end of Week 1. Without giving to much away, let me just say, I can’t wait to tell you my results, hehehe!

Anyhow time for bed, take care, peace out!

Day 5. Health & Safety

Last night I didn’t sleep well, I woke up around 3am feeling slightly sick and dehydrate even though I had a lot to drink before bed and during the day, ie. 3 pints of water before bed. I also felt uncomfortable in the lower back and stomach areas. Kind of like a bloated feeling. To be honest I was a little concerned, but this morning I felt fine again. Its probably down to my body changing dietary behaviors.

11:30 lunch satisfied me for most of the day, even after volleyball up until dinner time @ 18:00, I just wasn’t feeling hungry. Am amazed to be honest, how suppressed my appetite is at the moment with a good breakfast and lunch.

Hey I kind of broke the Atkins Induction code this morning as well, but don’t tell anyone…! I did this by having a small bowl of fruit and fibre flakes with Soya milk. Although Soya milk is not so bad because of its high protein and fat content (+ low carb properties), fruit and fibre flakes on the other hand are. Basically fruit and fibre Bran Flakes contain a wee bit of net carbs, in fact I worked it out to be around 10g to my very small portion. You may wonder why I ate them, but let me tell you, it wasn’t because I was craving, just because the way I was feeling during the night. I nearly managed to keep to my 20 net carbs daily limit just slight went over my limit by 2 carbs… opps, as you can see below:

I want to mention how I am feeling at the minute, although I feel fine, I do have this constant bloated congested uncomfortable feeling in my stomach, nevertheless saying this I still haven’t met any energy loss, lack of concentration or had any mood swings :o) Nevertheless I will keep an eye on how I feel.

Ok Just a short post today, because I have plenty of University work to do. Ciao for now :oD

Hey hey.. I just found this neat little video on youtube and it may be of interest, it sure explained a few things to me... this guy also does other video's too about Atkins Advice check them out here Bowulf Youtube vids ... njoy peace out :o)

Day 4. How to find Inspiration :o)

Hi everyone, I have a special treat for you all today, especially if you’re an Atkins fan or in need of some inspiration/motivation to help you with your lifestyle change. Well I was roaming the net earlier, and upon my procrastination I found this really cool site… http://www.lowcarb.ca/

On this site I found many fascinating insights into the world of Atkins, to name a few:

• The home page for instances splashes all kinds of latest news, research about Atkins & Low Carb Diets in general;
• It also has loads of fantastic receipts you can check out, along with Low Carb Tools;
• A really cool, welcoming Support Forum where you can meet other fellow dieters and converse more tips, tricks and goss;
• And my favorite area of the site is all the Success Stories, & Success Gallery.

Why I like the Success Stories and Galleries so much, is because you can see many people who have started a low carb diet and met their ideal weight with positive results. It will really blow you away some of the stories and pictures. Its impressive how low carb diets change peoples lives for the better with ease. Also getting yourself involved with the forum will really help with your motivation to reach your goals, because in times of gloom others will be happy to give you support.

I know in the future when I need perking up or when I am carb craving the Success Gallery will definitely give me strength to stick with the diet. Check out this website and see for yourself http://www.lowcarb.ca/

By the way to contribute, view and comment on the Support Forum or view the Success Gallery you will need to register. It don’t take long to fill out and its free, so go for it! Where it says referred by, place my naming tag there which is “ultm8”. Hope to see you there :o)

Also during my daily search I found a cool site called the Ticker Factory (http://www.tickerfactory.com/), and here you can grab a cool Weight Loss – Diet Ticker, which displays and records your stats online for you. Whilst your on your weight loss mission you can enter your stats, and get the results posted in a graph and have this cool HTML graphical ticker placed on your website or even on your Facebook so all your friends, family can see your progress. Check out mine on the right side of the page :oD

Anyhow I guess its time to show you what I’ve eaten today:

Oh and one more thing, I sneakily stood on the scales this morning first thing, to see if my progress is paying off, and oh my…. But you will have to wait till Wednesday until I reveal all :o) hehehe!

Day 3. My 1st Carb Craving :oS

Howdi folks, Jon the belly overloaded guy here :o) You may be wondering about my title today, well yes, I had my first and real craving. If you know me well enough, then you know I am a sucker for chocolate, I LOVE CHOCOLATE! and today for the first time, I was craving for it… but I will say, it wasn’t enough to make me buy some though ;o) So congratulations on my part for standing the line.

You maybe speculating how this came about… well because of one main reason; a dear wonderful close friend of mine decided it would be funny, by eating chocolate in front of me and tempting me with it. Don’t worry though I made sure to get the last laugh with a nice but true saying “A moment on the lips, a life time on the hips!” muhahah!

So what lovely food did I pack into my satisfied belly today, you may be asking??, well here it is:

I wanted to mention a few things about the way I calculate my food today. You may or may not have wondered how I have done this, but here comes the small lecture :o) So make sure your sitting comfortably, pens at the ready and here we go…

Well if your already clued into the Atkins diet, then you should know during the Induction Period you can only eat 20g of net carbs daily. That’s all fine and dandy, but for some this is a puzzle in finding out what foods and even drinks contain what?!?!? And so one might question, where does one find out such nutritional information. Well let me tell you…. a couple of ways are:

For a nice online net carb calculator check this out: http://www.atkins.com/carb-counter Its free, and the greatness of it is, you can reference a variety of food & drinks, to help you calculate more precisely how many net carbs you have consumed a day, plus it also has other nutritional information tagged to it such as: fat, carbohydrate, protein values etc.

Notice you can also download the entire list in .pdf format, so for people without a constant internet connection (like myself) it makes life a little easier :o)

Or alternatively if your not computer minded, you could go out and while getting some exercise, buy this book, Dr. Atkins' New Carbohydrate Gram Counter or alternatively if your running low on time and want to skip the exercise thing, you could just click the link above and buy it here, lol ;o) You will need an Amazon account though… If you don't have an Amazon account, dont worry, its fast and easy to set up, just click the New customer link at the top of the page? and in a few minutes, voila you'll be a new customer :o)

If your lucky some of the Atkins books at the back also contain net carb tables, so check your Atkins books first :oD

So you have your net carb calculator, but your still unsure how to figure out the rough amount of net carbs to eat… you may still further ponder! Well this is how I go about it, first off I get a brief idea of what I want to eat, and then I look up each item of food which I will eventually mix together, and then I try calculating (roughly) the total food and its carbs content. Some foods are around the 0.2 mark, I tend to round off to either 0.5 or a whole carb. Basically that’s all there is to it. I tend to overestimate more than anything, this way I don’t end up over consuming on carbs. Also buy yourself some food scales from your local store.... or perhaps from amazon, check these scales out click here :o)

Day 2. Has anyone seen my Appetite??

Welcome back, today was another jolly good day, and dam I seem to have lost my appetite for food…For me I am normally a big eater but ever since Day 1 of Atkins I just seem to have lost my hunger pangs…Its awesome, instead I just feel really satisfied all day, its actually nice not thinking about food and hunger all the time. I haven’t noticed a decrease in my energy levels or concentration levels either.

For people who are not aware of the Atkins way…well normally during the Induction phase of this diet, your body has to learn to adapt to a high protein/fat diet instead of a high carbohydrate diet. Because of this change in the dietary habits, this can cause individuals to become lethargic and fatigued for the first 2 weeks or so. But luckily for me so far (fingers crossed) this won’t be the case :o) Yey!

Hey as promised to, you can see the food I have consumed for the day :oP

I also got 2 hours of badminton play in today as well, and I must admit my change in eating habits hasn’t effected my game either, especially because I won loads of matches :o] hehehe!

Right enough said, till tomorrow be good and post ya laters ;o)

Day 1. The Beginning :o)

Hey hey, well today I started my new eating plan and I was a little enthusiastic and worried at the same time. Enthusiastic to get started, to begin losing weight and discover my new me, and a little worried just incase this eating plan doesn't go to plan, or incase I get bored of the food etc! But whatever happens I promise to give it my best shot and document it all the way.Anyways this morning I did my initial weigh in... And guess what... am a whole 16 stone exactly or 101.6 kg or 224 pounds :o( Just so you blog followers know, my the eventual weight I am inspiring to achieve is 12 Stone or 76 kg or 167.6 pounds.

This is what I need to lose to achieve my target weight:

Stone 16 - 12 = 4 Stone
Kilos 101.6kg - 76 = 25.6kg
Pounds 224 - 167.6 = 56.4 pounds

I plan to take a recording of my weight weekly, just so I know that I am heading in the right direction with my food choices. Along with this I am also hoping to try and take a weekly picture and provide my measurements in the Chest, Waist, Hip, Upper Arm and Thigh areas. As shown below, unfortunately these are my measurements…

On a daily basis I will be providing snippets of what I have been consuming. I will break this down into categories, like Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner, Possible Snacks and beverages, and I will try to give a brief description of each phase followed by the net carbs consumed. With this I will also supply information on what Supplements I have taken, Water drunk and Exercise participated in. Again as shown below :o)

Well first day over and I have survived day 1 of induction even with net carbs to spare, so Atkins surely can’t be that bad…. In fact from breakfast this morning I noticed something unusual for me. That is, for the first time in a long time I have felt actually stuffed and satisfied, breakfast just filled me up and I didn’t need anything else to eat til 2 to 3pm ish, and by the way I had breakfast at 8:40am, so for me that’s impressive because normally I have a huge appetite :oP I was amazed actually how my eating habits have already changed, and how suppressed my appetite feels now. Luckily I haven’t had any carb cravings yet … I must say though I am not looking forward to this.

It does feel good however, that I have finally started Dr Atkins. During last week, in preparation for this diet, I had a mission to consume all my carbohydrate products and to empty all my cupboards. So this should also help prevent me from not straying off my objective :oP I also enjoyed 2 hours of activity, playing volleyball, and my performance didn’t seem to be affected by my change in eating habits thus far. So all positive signs at the minute plus I managed to keep to my 20g of net carbs a day. Dr. Atkins would be so proud ;o) Anyhow, rant over for today, take care and see you tomorrow.

Pre-Adventure Spiel!

Hi Peeps,

If you found this blog via my other blog Jons Vertical Jump, then Welcome to my newest project - documentary, and if you found this blog some other way... welcome still, stick around, have a read, post some questions and also check out my other blog.

Ok Anyways, I set this blog up, for various reasons;

• Am unhappy with my weight & I want to change this!
• I've been interested on the subject of Atkins for a while now, and I want to test if this Dr. Atkins lifestyle really works
• I want to find out and also see how difficult it is to implement.
• A bit of weight loss may also help with my vertical leap project too.
• And last but not least, I hope to encourage others as well.

What has prompted me to write this blog, came about after purchasing some bath scales and finding out in horror my actual weight. Once upon a time my weight used to be set around 12 to 13 stone, and it never fluctuated any higher than this. But recently over the years I have steadily noticed an increase in my weight not just my age... and the thing is, this concerns me, especially as I exercise a lot but seem to still put weight on. To find out my current weight tune in tomorrow ;o)

So I have decided to tackle this issue head on, before a potential obese disaster. For many years I have stuck with a high carbohydrate diet, low in fats with lots of exercise, but as this seems to no longer work I thought I would try a new approach the "Atkins plan".

My Dad previously lost loads of weight using this approach, and around this time, I was studying nutrition at university which didn't support low carb, high fat diets. So initially I was against the idea of how low carb diets worked, and I was worried about my dads health on the following diet not only short term but long term as well. My dad however was trying to convince me at the time, that the Atkins style of eating was in fact a health choice. But me being set in my ways of thinking thought.... how can eating loads of fat and protein be healthy. Especially as the information I was studying was conflicting, saying that High Fat diets are the reason behind obesity, high cholesterol, high blood pressure and the very reasons for strokes and heart attacks. So for many years I was against such a plan.

Then one day my house mate bought three books from a shop. All three Dr Atkins books: Dr. Atkins' New Diet Revolution , Dr. Atkins Quick & Easy Cookbook & Dr Atkins Diet Planner. Out of curiosity I decided to take a look. This was the day, my opinion started to change and I found myself very interested in learning more. As a sports scientist I can see how the theory works and I started to realise why Atkins is so successful. I won't be going into much detail about this today, but to be honest, the proof is normally found in the pudding, and if you google or youtube: "Dr Atkins and does this diet work" you will find lots of information. Some information on peoples success stories, and some interesting reports for and against it.

Well for me, this is where my blog comes in. Starting from tomorrow I will literally be undergoing this journey of discovery, and documenting my story so you guys at home, can
form your own opinions of Dr Atkins Approach or Low Carb Diets.

I will try to do this in the form of an online day to day diary/journal, showing pictures, videos, what I am eating, measurements etc. I will also be trying to provide tips and tricks, and of course more information etc...

Anyways that will be all for today and I look forward to updating you tomorrow. So mean time, any questions feel free to post your comments and keep on visiting me, to see how I progress.