Thursday, April 7, 2011

A Little Low-Carb Experiment

formerly Livin' a Little Low-Carb

Over the past few days I've decided to go low-carb. I picked up 'Dr. Atkins' New Diet Revolution' which I had never read all the way through and decided to actually read what it had to say. I got a large way through the first part of the book before I got a little impatient and flipped through to the 'Induction Phase' chapter. I understood a lot of what Dr. Atkins was trying to get across and decided that low-carb would be interesting to try again for a little while. I had done Atkins' once before and had lost 12 lbs. in 2 weeks, so I thought I would see how well I could do this time.

Image by amazon.com


I started 3 days ago, Sunday night with a dinner of organic sausage and eggs. That dinner seemed to really kick-start it because the next day I did started out a bit lighter and started the day out feeling good. On Monday I started the day with organic uncured bacon and eggs, and did pretty well eating high protein throughout the day. I had a few pitfalls as I snacked on natural chips and organic yogurt, and had a few glasses of Organic Pastures raw milk throughout the day, and I even had a small bowl of sprouted granola. Even with that my body successfully went into ketosis, burning fat for fuel, and I started Tuesday morning about 5 pounds lighter than I was Monday night.

I kind of fell off the band wagon on Tuesday as I accidentally ate a banana, which my brain kept telling me was off limits, but I had not yet read that far into Atkins' so I caved. Later I had a slice of sprouted cinnamon raisin bread, and by late afternoon I had a large bowl of organic oats and honey granola with Organic Pastures raw almonds. I felt the change in my body fairly quickly and could tell that my body was pretty much out of ketosis. At this point I went to the Atkins' book and read more thoroughly what was and wasn't allowed. I wasn't supposed to have fruit, bread, nuts, grains, or dairy products other than cheese, cream, or butter. I had consciously made an exception to the rules for the raw milk, but not so for the other foods. I had remembered upon previously glancing through the Atkins' book that I was supposed to limit to 20 grams of carbs, which I did well the day before, despite eating from the don't list, but not so much for Tuesday.

I started today at the same weight that I was Tuesday morning, thankfully, but not with further weightloss as I had idealistically hoped. I was a bit discouraged. We're a bit low on some of the tastier proteins that I enjoyed the days before, and I was bit more dependent on eggs and natural hot dogs than I'd prefer. I ended up starting the day with local, organic strawberries that were getting soft, that we didn't want to go bad. I then had scrambled eggs with with organic chicken sausage, bell peppers, green onions, tomatoes, and cheese. I had organic, grass-fed hot dogs with real relish and sauerkraut for lunch, snacked on yogurt with organic dark chocolate, and had chicken sausage and eggs for dinner. I'm feeling pretty good today, not as great as I did on Monday but, certainly better than I felt on Tuesday. I'm up late (yes, I know, sleep is important for health and weightloss!) but, here's hoping for some positive results Thursday morning.

Good Night/Morning!