Atkins Stage 2: Ongoing Weight Loss

[peanutte]

I think it must be different for different machines--in the case of a treadmill, you've got something under your feet which is constantly moving, and I do think that's dangerous. On an elliptical, you can just slow down or even stop for a few seconds to take it.

[junkfoodmonkey]

I'm back! 2.2 lbs lost on Atkins '72 for a week, which was nice, but I miss my veggies. '72 is too hardcore even for me!

Food today:
b: 3 eggs fried. 50grams starwberries, 50grams Fage (these I HAVE to weigh or I'll get severe carb creep!)
l: Tuna and veggies (onion and mushrooms) stir fry, with grated cheese on top
d: Beef brisket from the crockpot, cabbage and a little onion, sauted in butter.

[SinnyDipper]

2.2lbs is great JFM I don't think I could live without my veggies either, have always loved them but am positively addicted to them now!

Well, my (Aussie) size 12 trousers have been falling down all day even though they have a drawstring waist we didn't have a weigh in this week but will get back to normal on Thursday, I am hoping to see a loss, have been eating a bit more but definetely feel a bit smaller!

My menu for today,

B. 3 fried eggs and bacon
L. 1 oz cheese, a sweet one minute muffin topped with a small amount of sugar free jam and a big dollop of cream!
D. going to cook some spicy chicken burgers on the barbie and also roast a mix of mushrooms, red peppers, zucchini and asparagus.

[junkfoodmonkey]

Happy Monday everyone!

Menu today:

Already eaten:
b: One minute muffin made with almond flour, cinnamon and no sweetner. It went really big so I sliced it up and put butter on it - mmmmm... Strawberries and fage.

To come:
l: Crustless quiche - stuffed with tuna, 4 different types of cheese (leftovers from last weeks daily cheese allowance!) and spring onions. Small apple. Very small apple!
d: 2 Cumberland pork sausages (from the highest quality range in the store. Gotta get the best in sossies.) 2 fried eggs, fried mushrooms
s: piece of cheese

[peanutte]

I was getting bored with regular eggs cooking in a pan, so I made an egg muffin (aka "crustless mini-quiche") with 2 eggs, 1/2 T heavy cream, 1/2 cup of frozen spinach (thawed and drained) and 1/4 cup feta. I cooked it in ramekin sitting in a water bath on 325 for close to an hour. Whoa! So light and fluffy! Dang, that was all kinds of good.

[junkfoodmonkey]

Man that quiche was good! I had it at 12, was quite happy without even a snack all afternoon till I had my dinner at 6. I may have to go post the recipe.

[2big4mysize]

glad you enjoyed it. I like tuna salad but tuna anything else just doesn't taste good to me.

[peanutte]

I like tuna steaks (grilled rare, please!) and tuna salad (which I plan to make in a hollowed-out tomato later this week) but hmmm, tuna and eggs don't sound good to me.

[Starcat]

I like adding hard-boiled eggs to my tuna salad, so I think tuna and eggs are a fine combination.

[junkfoodmonkey]

Eggs go with nearly everything with me.

[2big4mysize]

I love eggs too, just not tuna

[eklektos]

You all were right. Those 2 pounds I gained from eating 2 tbsp of peanut butter really did go away, and took a friend or two with them! Yay! I'm down this morning to 142.5, which is a new low for me.
Now I just have to keep reminding myself that it will bounce back up and plant there for awhile before it's really, truly gone for good. But it sure did look nice on the scale this morning!

[junkfoodmonkey]

Weird eating today, cos of weird day. Had "brunch" instead of breakfast and lunch.

Brunch: Crustless quiche, hot, mayo, cheese, apple, fage
Dinner: 2 pork soss, 2 eggs, mushrooms. Berries and fage or cream.
Snack: piece of cheese.

[eklektos]

jfm, what's the nutrition info/carb count on fage? I truly love "real" yogurt. A friend recently gave us 4 free samples of Greek yogurt that I admit tasting. (The kids gobbled up the rest.) It was so very good I could see myself plunging headfirst into it, but the carb count was something like 12 or 15 g for about a 6-ounce cup, so I restrained for now.

[junkfoodmonkey]

Originally Posted by eklektos

jfm, what's the nutrition info/carb count on fage? I truly love "real" yogurt. A friend recently gave us 4 free samples of Greek yogurt that I admit tasting. (The kids gobbled up the rest.) It was so very good I could see myself plunging headfirst into it, but the carb count was something like 12 or 15 g for about a 6-ounce cup, so I restrained for now.

I'll check the label when I get home tonight and let you know. The carb count can depend on brand. The Total Fage - the best stuff! - is about half the carbs of my supermarket's own brand Greek yogurt.

[peanutte]

I've been all about those crustless quiches this week. I've made spinach and cheese ones three mornings in a row! It's a nice way to get some veggies in my breakfast, and the light, fluffy texture is a welcome change of pace.

I must say I am the lone freak on these boards who doesn't like Fage at ALL. I don't care for the thickness and tartness. It basically tastes like sour cream to me, and much as I enjoy a dollop of full-fat sour cream, I wouldn't want to eat it as a snack! My favorite plain yogurts are Brown Cow organic cream-top, Stonyfield Farms organic, and Cascade Mountains full-fat plain. I guess I just like my yogurt thinner rather than really dense. ME=FREAK.

[2big4mysize]

eklektos woo hoo on that new lighter you. You will need to repeat at some time your peanut butter experiment to see if it was the peanut butter or something else that cause the scale weight issues but you will know it is an experiment and not freak out should 2 pounds jump back on.

[peanutte]

Oh, der! Sorry, eklektos, I meant to say congratulations on things getting back to normal and moving in the right direction!

[junkfoodmonkey]

Originally Posted by peanutte

I must say I am the lone freak on these boards who doesn't like Fage at ALL.
...
ME=FREAK.

All the more for the rest of us.

[peanutte]

That's what I figured you'd say! ENJOY!

[junkfoodmonkey]

Eklektos, got the info for the Total Fage.

100 grams (3.5oz) = 130 calories
Protein 6.8g
Carbs 3.2g
Fat 10g (Sat fat 7.9)

But definitely check labels if you find a different brand, as I've seen it vary. Total is the tastiest I've had though.

I usually have 50 grams as a serving.

[eklektos]

(and other various happy dances)

This is too good to be true! 3.2g carbs for a 3.5 ounce serving?!
I have to be careful. I could get carried away and forget to eat my veggies.
But I am going to look for some for a special treat. Do you buy Fage at specialty groceries (like health food/natural food grocery stores)? I haven't seen it at the mainstream supermarkets.

[junkfoodmonkey]

Originally Posted by eklektos

(and other various happy dances)

This is too good to be true! 3.2g carbs for a 3.5 ounce serving?!
I have to be careful. I could get carried away and forget to eat my veggies.
But I am going to look for some for a special treat. Do you buy Fage at specialty groceries (like health food/natural food grocery stores)? I haven't seen it at the mainstream supermarkets.

Can't give you advice on where to buy as I'm in the UK. I get it at my supermarket. Try asking in the main lobby, there's plenty of Fage loving Americans there.

[junkfoodmonkey]

Today's menu

b: 3 scrambled eggs. Strawberries. Macarpone cheese
l: Crustless quiche (last piece - waaahh!!) piece of cheese. Apple
s: piece of cheese
d: Crockpot beef, green cabbage, red onion (veggies part cooked then sauted in butter and garlic with some Cheshire cheese crumbled on top.)

[2big4mysize]

JFM are you doing 2002 OWL or 1992 OWL? I'm asking cause you had apples which are a rung 7 food but no legumes which would come before the apple

[peanutte]

If you've already passed a rung, though, you can mix it up and have things from different rungs together, right?

I had some Brussels sprouts last night and I hadn't had them since re-starting Atkins--not that they aren't a perfectly legal food, it's just that I hadn't happened to buy any and they looked good at the store last week. Wow, were they ever good. I simmered them until bright-green and tender, and then drained off the water and sauteed them in the pan drippings from the chicken I was cooking. SO. GOOD. My boyfriend was giving me crap, because he'd not been home for dinner, since he had a book club to attend, and he said "You're so funny--of all the things I would think someone would cook, because she had the house to herself and could have anything she wanted for dinner--and YOU cook BRUSSELS SPROUTS." (He hates them and thinks they stink.)

[junkfoodmonkey]

Originally Posted by 2big4mysize

JFM are you doing 2002 OWL or 1992 OWL? I'm asking cause you had apples which are a rung 7 food but no legumes which would come before the apple

2002. I do have legumes sometimes, say if I make a chilli or something, but not all the time. Just not that keen on them. And I skipped alcohol rung entirely!

Apples are the only one I have from the "other fruit" rung and I do well with them. They don't make me hungry or anything, I think it's the fibre. I don't have them all the time. I might get a bag of them and have one a day for a week or so and then not have them for a couple of weeks or a month. And I buy the bags of the ones they call "fun size" that are marketed as ideal for kids lunchboxes, so they're tiny ones! If I had to get normal sized ones I'd probably half them. I'd always eat them with other food too, never as a snack on their own.

So yep, I have the apples, but within strict rules!

[peanutte]

One thing that is a little confusing to me, about the rungs, is that there are rungs I'm not interested in visiting right now--I never was a fruit-eater anyway and could go for months without eating fruit or drinking fruit juice. That's just the way I've always been. With the exception of Granny Smith apple slices spread with natural peanut butter, and the occasional Celementine (neither of which I have been eating, just to be clear), I could pretty much take fruit or leave it. (I'm going to be having some blackberries and cream today, though. I do like berries.)

So I'm inclined to skip that 7th rung and come back to it later. Technically that would be out of order...but why should I eat something I don't care to eat right now? I kind of feel that way about the starchier vegetables, too--I don't care about them right now, but would like to come back to that rung later. I'm happy with the variety of food I have now. The thing is, my weight loss is about half a pound to one pound a week, and I certainly don't want to slow that down when I still have 17 pounds to get to my first goal, and another 10 or so to get to my ultimate goal. I mean, that seems slow enough to me for this stage in my weight loss.

[2big4mysize]

Thanks for the clarification JFM

I didn't want to give you 2002 advice if you were a 92 person was all. if you have no plans to eat a rung as part of your maintnenace you can skip it entirely. Atkins was actually going to take the alcohol rung out since it has no nutrtional value but his death stopped that according to the Atkins Center in summer 2003.

Peanutte

you can go as slow as you want climbing the rungs

What they said about jumping and skipping rungs back in 2002 was not to eat rung 1 and 2 and then jump to 9 since the higher glycemic indexed foods would spike blood sugar and we were not prepared yet to have that kind of spike. sort of eased us into them with the slightly higher GI rank for each rung.

OWL is the great food experiement which many folk forget about. It allows us to test foods to see how our body reacts to them which is why doing the rungs in order if you want to include any foods from that rung in your maintenance plan is so important..
I only eat carrots, rutabagas, winter squash and sweet potatoes from the root veggies list but I did try irsih potatoes and discovered I'm a potato addict with relapsing tendencies if allowed any to cross my lips. parsnips are too sweet for me to control eating. Sweet potatoes need to be portioned before baking or I'm full up to my eyeballs in them. Learning those things while I still had ketosis appetite control was so much safer them learning them without appetite controlled.

I can tell you about OWLers who discovered foods that they had eatten their whole lives caused them weight loss issues and craving control issues such that they had to ban the food from their WOE for life and other who discovered through testing in OWL that only certain brands and/or varieties of a food could be consumed safely. Please use your OWL to test and retest so you know for sure you can handle them or not handle them so you don't get a surprise at goal and fail to stay a goalie cause you are off on carb binge triggered by some innocent food you can't handle.
I know celery and anything sweetened with SPlenda will trigger a carb binge wanting for me. I know too sweet tasting foods will do the same so I don't use any sweetners in my foods. I knw strawberries will trigger a binge but other berries don't. I know pineapple, mango, and or cherries set me off on a I want sweets but apples pears grapefruits oranges papya, and other exotic fruits don't. and I know my body doesn't care if it is whole grain, multigrain, or white it wants to eat bread by the loaf and crackers by the box, so I use flax buns only. I learned all of that in OWL and am so glad I didn't face a loaf of bread at goal and be off on a binge losing my goalie status.

Do yourself a favor and do you testing with control so you know WOW those clemintines cause me to want to eat a whole orchard better not have them again. or WOW I'm amazed I have not a single blood sugar issue after eating a clemintine and feel very safe repeating this some time in the future.

[peanutte]

I only eat carrots, rutabagas, winter squash and sweet potatoes from the root veggies list but I did try irsih potatoes and discovered I'm a potato addict with relapsing tendencies if allowed any to cross my lips.

I suspect I would have a problem with that, too. I love potatoes. I can make them for my boyfriend without giving in or tasting a single bit, but I'm not taking that for granted--if I ever feel they are becoming a problem, I will inform him that I won't be making them any more. He's really a sweetheart about respecting my triggers--the only problem is he finds it a little bewildering when I say "The smell of your microwave popcorn wasn't a problem for me last week but man, it's a problem for me THIS week". He takes it in stride...my triggers are not set, they evolve and rotate and change around, which makes it hard to predict. I could watch him eating his morning toast a million times and not give a crap, but one random morning the smell of his toast will make me go "OMG! BREEEAAAD" and then I have to kindly ask he toast his bread when I'm not around, if at all possible. But despite the occasional scent-triggered craving, I don't get myself cornered in a situation where I'm talking myself down off a ledge or anything like that. The only "binges" I have had--and they really weren't binges, just extra calories--have been a few (2) tablespoons of natural peanut butter one weekend, a handful of macadamias another weekend, and a few unnecessary hot sticks (spicy sausage sticks I get from Sprouts market) another time.

Okay so here's my little confession about maybe having broken the carb ladder rules: I have been allowing myself a Wasa Light-and-Crispy crispbread a few times a week; one of them has 3 net grams of carbs and I like to use them to put braunschwieger or brie on. Technically that would be from the Grain rung. But I didn't want to eat root veggies, particularly, at this time, or fruits, so I skipped to that. I won't eat bread or any other kind of whole grains for a good long time (if ever), so don't worry about that. I just like having the Wasa cracker maybe 3 times a week, and I don't have a problem with controlling my portion of those crackers. So on the one hand, I feel I'm not being the best example of how to do OWL, but this is what's working for me and it's not way off-course from the book, is it?