Atkins Diet Made Easy
by Tim Pheil LPN
Many of us have weight problems due to medications. Hopefully this will help with those with weight issues.
This is the rundown on the Atkins diet. For those who know me, know I don't do anything without thoroughly researching first. My wife and I have been on the diet for 3 months. I have lost 35 lbs. and my wife 30 lbs.
The Atkins Diet Simplified:
First your body can only store carbohydrates and sugars as fat. Protein and fat are either used as fuel for that day or discarded. Its a lot easier to to use the stored fat as fuel than to convert the protein and fat to usable fuel. So if you stop intake of carbs and sugars, then your body can't
store them as fat.
The only book you really need to start is Dr. Atkins' New Diet Cookbook. This contains the list of free foods, the basis of the diet, the induction diet and about 200 recipes. We bought the Dr. Atkins' Three-Book Package: New Diet Revolution; New Diet Cookbook; New Carb Gram Counter. There is more information about the how the diet works in the Revolution book, but nothing earth shattering. Now we love the Dr. Atkins' New Carbohydrate Gram Counter this is a pocketbook you can take with you to the store. It contains all carb info on the brand name foods.
As for as the induction diet, I don't follow it. I simply only eat the free foods from the list for 2 weeks to get my body in to Ketosis and Lipolysis (fat burning). I then limit my intake to 20 gms of carbs a day and no sugar. Now the Atkins book states you should be over carb cravings in 2 days. WRONG. I had strong carb cravings for 2 weeks. And was fine without them after a month.
Note the Atkins diet isn't meant to be a short term diet. You can lose quickly, but you will gain it back when you stop the diet. Its meant for the long term. And after years of study it has proven to be healthy. My General Practitioner has been on low carb diet for 20 years for control of her diabetes.
The wonder of the diet as long as your eating the right foods you can have as much as you want. You need never be hungry.
Being on the Atkins diet as never been easier since so many are on it the food industry is bending over backwards to provide us with low carb options.
Helpful Hints:
Just because its low carb, doesn't mean it tastes good. I've had protein bars (Carb Solutions; Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough) that I wouldn't feed my dog. But so far I have loved anything from Carborite. Slimfast low carb stuff is pretty good too.
Give up on pasta. I know they make low carb, but its NASTY! If you want spaghetti so much, cut up those rubber bands you've been saving off the newspaper for a year and use them, they'll definitely taste better. Here: macaroni and cheese: Cauliflower florets, 4 cups shredded cheese, 2 cups low carb milk or Half and Half, slow cooker for 8 hours. Tastes the same, texture is slightly different.
Recently a new low carb pasta has come out. Dream Fields. It is
wonderful. Its made of the exact same ingredients as regular pasta. But some how
they have made the carbs indigestible. They won't say how, my guess is company secret.
Try the carb solutions spaghetti or cheese sauce for REAL: spaghetti and mac and
chesse.
Diet Shakes: Atkins is good but around $2 a piece. EAS makes a good shake at about $1 a piece at Costco, my wife like these. You can also get Whey Protein Isolate at health food store. They say mix it with water, I wasn't impressed with the taste. I use Half and Half. The only problem is it takes lots of stirring. I shake it in a small container or use a blender. With milk the chocolate is quite good.
Milk. Hood makes a low carb milk that is fantastic. Its basically flavored buttermilk. Now I know that sounds nasty, but its not. The flavor is exact nonfat, 2% and whole, in fact its better because it tastes thicker. And the chocolate is
excellent.
You can also drink Half & Half or full cream. We have an Outlet here that sells supplies for other businesses (i.e. restaurants, coffee stands ...etc). They carry Half and Half by the 1/2 Gallon and also carry the Sugar free Torani Syrups (used by Coffee Stands). We use these for making our own Mochas and Sodas.
For making your own sodas I use Liss America Bar Soda Siphon mostly because my father had one, a friend uses iSi Soda Siphon. We both like them. You can buy the cartridges at any grocery store. I have found that either a jigger or a shot glass of syrup per 16 oz glass of seltzer is about right. To make a cream type soda just use half seltzer and half Half & Half. Another trick is to use juice concentrates to make *Healthy* Sodas for the kids.
I don't know how the East coast is, but on the West Coast it is near impossible to find diet fruit sodas (orange, grape ..etc). Its strange, the groceries carry all this low carb stuff for us, but can't figure out that we have to have diet soda and maybe were sick of Colas.
Atkins food products are hit and miss. My wife, the ketchup fiend prefers Atkins catsup to regular. But the BBQ sauce is horrid, taste like oil and vinegar dressing.
Atkins Cereals and High Protein Total are pretty good, but they all have that funky soy aftertaste.
Just because its sugarless doesn't mean its low carb. I checked sugarless pancake syrup. It had 40 gms of carbs per tablespoon. We got the Atkins Syrup. Now taste isn't bad, but its like water, not syrup. Make your own with water, maple flavoring and splenda. Smuckers now makes a maple syrup that is
wonderful.
Use low carb bread for french toast and Both Atkins and Krusteaz make a good pancake mix but it is $5 a box. Krusteaz now has a full product line of Low Carb mixes (Breads, Brownies, Cakes ..etc)
We have tried MiniCarbs brand of baking mixes. Its pretty much Metamucil with Wheat Gluten to hold it together and some flavoring. Now it doesn't taste bad. But imagine if you took in a half a bottle of metamucil what the results would be. The brownie mix even uses 1/2 cup of oil for moistness.
Everybody is getting on the Low Carb bandwagon. Some of the low carb breads are OK. Atkins makes a white bread that is great but $5 a loaf. Homepride makes a white bread loaf which is very good but at half the cost.
But good luck finding it, If you run across any, buy a bunch and freeze. Safeway now has their own brand,
its as good as the Atkins brand. They also have hamburger and hotdog rools that
are good.
Osolo makes very good sandwich rolls and muffins.
They say some countries use Jimica as a potato substitute. Not me. I tried french fries, way too funky. Now "mashed" garlic cauliflower is a very good mashed potato substitute.
Betty Crocker has their own low carb products out. Stand outs are Chocolate
Chip Cookies, Brownies and Garlic Mashed Potatoes.
If you like breading on your fish or meats Atkins Baking Mix is a good coating but a can is over $10.
Carb Options is a new brand. They have had the companies that already make products like Skippy and Seven Seas make low carb versions of their products. All are excellent.
Snacks: Atkins makes "Crunchers" that are pretty good. Hain makes "Puresnax" which are pretty much the same ingredients but less than half the cost. I prefer the Hain. Now the one product you can have right off the shelf is Pork Rinds. But everybody else has figured this out so good luck finding the BBQ ones. One site said to crush them and use them as a crunchy coating for fried foods.
Treats: Good Humor makes a line of low carb ice cream treats that is very good. Atkins Indulgence Ice Cream is excellent. One word of warning about the Atkins Ice Cream Bars is once the chocolate shell falls off and warms up, it becomes very liquid. For some reason the chocolate covering doesn't like to adhere to low carb stuff as it does to regular.
Basically any candy bar you love Carborite
has made a low carb versions. Even Gummy Bears and Jelly Bellys. They now coming out with low carb versions of your favorite cookies.
We keep cans of nuts at the bedside. They higher the fat content the better according to Dr Atkins. That is why Macadamia nuts are his favorite. These make for a nice snack while watching TV in bed.
Tricks:
Its all about the food prep. You need good equipment beside your everyday pots and pans.
Food processor. You need a good one. If you get a $40 department store model you burn it out processing cauliflower and other vegetables. I would suggest either a Cuisinart or a KitchenAid. Low carb baking calls for a lot of nut flours (i.e. almond and pine nut) but these are very hard to find. With a food processor you can just fine grind them for the recipes.
I use ours for "mashing" frozen cauliflower for making mock mashed potatoes and shredding cauliflower for mock rice.
A favorite treat is Instant Ice Cream (frozen fruit, whipping cream and splenda).
A Food Slicer. Your going to be eating a lot of meat and cheese and a slicer makes it better and cheaper since you can buy the cheese in bulk, slice it then freeze it. Now the problems with the low end ones are their either a real bear to clean or they are under powered. My first slicer was the Toastmaster 6128 which was easy to clean but under powered. I have replaced it with the Chef's Choice 630. I love this slicer. I can slice all day on it and all the parts go in the dishwasher.
Our favorite use is to take a left over roast beef and thin slice the
meat for french dip sandwiches.
Don't buy spices or mixes in the packs and little bottles. Go to the restaurant supply and buy in bulk. I once figured out that the Au Jus powder I buy in bulk at Costco if in the little packets would cost over eight times as much.
Rotisserie. Since you are cooking lots of meats and fish, a rotisseries makes it tasty and easy. A rotisserie chicken needs no seasoning. Even cheaper cuts of beef are good. We have an Oster Rotisserie which is good but small and they don't make it any more. But now that the family is bigger we need to be able to cook more than one chicken at a time. After researching we bought the George Foreman GR82B George Jr. Rotisserie which I'm very satisfied with since it will do 2 chickens, I just wish it could do a large turkey. Apparently the Ronco Showtime Rotisseries used to break easily and were very hard to get parts for, that's why we went with the Foreman. The new Popeil Showtime Rotisserie Platinum Edition has fixed those problems and is made in America now. It will handle a 15 lb turkey versus Foremans 10 lb.
We have a George Foreman GR44TMR Double Knockout Grill. Its nice and makes things easier but not really necessary.
But my favorite equipment has to be my Camerons Stainless-Steel Stovetop Smoker. I love to BBQ. But up here in Wa. its a little impracticable in 2 feet of snow. This not only smokes but cooks your meat. Don't worry the smoke stays in the cooker. Its the easiest way I know to cook meat. Kind of set it and forget. Thick meat 1 hr. Thin meat 1/2 hr. If I had a criticism it would be that they offered a taller one for bigger meat or 2 levels of cooking. And at at $30 it cost less than most grills.
Fast Food
Subway, Carb Wraps. Very good. The turkey has a nice spicy sauce.
Small though, about the size of a 6" sub. They also have Atkins Salads.
Arbys, Low Carbys. Sandwiches either in a bowl or in a wrap. The
wraps are HUGE. Very good, now they are 17 grams. But you won't be hungry after.
They are twice the size of Subways but the same price.
TGI Fridays now has a low carb menu.
In & Out Burger, Double Protein Burger. If your lucky
enough to live near one (we aren't) they have a great hamburger with big pieces of lettuce for buns. Its supposed to be
wonderful.
Hardys, Is supposed to have a lettuce wrap burger also.
Mc Donalds is now offering healthy items. The salads with the meat
and Lo Cal dressing would be fine on Atkins.
Burger King in a landmark move offers a Wopper in a bowl sans bun.
This genus idea must have come from the very elite of company executives.
Papa Murphys now has Delite Pizzas with slices at 9gms a piece.
Wendys and Jack in the Box don't offer anything.
If your wondering is there a market the answer is easily yes.
Subway reports profits up 300%. While Burger King reports profits down 80%.
Subway also reports that 4 out every 5 entrees sold are an Atkins product. If
your noticed a lot of Burger King ads recently your correct. BK is going after
the people who still eat burgers on a bun. If notice the ads their always about
having it your way by adding extra ingredients to the burger, never taking away.
BK is using a variation of the "hidden fees" pricing. You can have it
your way at 40 cents an ingredient and even more for cheese and bacon. You can
truly have a $6 dollar burger with out having to go a restaurant. Just go thru a
BK drive thru.
Cook Books:
That should be all you need to start the diet. With the diet you tend to lose weight quickly the first couple weeks. This rate will slow down. Plus you will reach what is called a plateau. This is when your weight stabilize at a certain level and you don't lose for a while. Keep on the diet, your body will get used to this weight and begin losing again in a few weeks. If you go off the diet. You have to go thru the 2 week induction again to get your body back in to Ketosis and Lipolysis again. I know these plateaus can be frustrating but just keep on it.
