Hi all,
I'm Natalie Lara. 20 years old from sunny Brighton in England. I've created this blog to not only record my own progress but in the hopes that other strugglilng dieters might see this and can hopefully share tips or learn from a few of my mistakes that I'm sure to make whilst embarking on this carb-free journey.
My main aim of the atkins diet is to go down to 9st 7lbs successfully on the Atkins and keep the weight off. From there, I would like to tone my way back down to 9st, a weight at which I really believe would be my optimum weight.
Although I'm only 20, I've always struggled in some way or another with my weight. As a child, I had no weight issues whatsoever. Was always very active and muscular, it was when I hit my teens that I started to gain weight. By age 13, I spent most of my time on the computer (Not much has changed, eh?) and was spending a lot of time at my grandmothers house. Being an iranian housewife her entire life who spoke absolutely no English, she would often put lots of different foods in front of me. Lots of Cola - I doubt she had a clue how bad it all was for me. Being 13 and always maintaining quite a low weight, I didn't either and gained a lot of weight. I can remember the turning point being when I was in H&M with my mum trying to put a pair of size 12 trousers on and not being able to get them over my legs, I think it even made me cry. From there onwards, my mum, who's always been very thin and eaten perfectly, helped me to lose weight. She also bought me the dance game that you could get on the playstation, which I made an effort to play on almost every single night after school. I soon lost all of the weight and at 15 years old was a healthy 9st..... But I still thought I was fat.
Now looking back on it, I wish I could go back in time and shout "You stupid girl, you're fine the way you are, you just need to tone up a bit!!" But I was utterly convinced 9st meant you were hideously fat and I think it was because of all the skinny girls I went to school with, plus a lot of personal insecurities. But as fat as I felt, the truth is, I really wasn't. I knew my thighs and belly were a tad chunky, but I'd always had an extremely small upper body, and sometimes could be a size 6-8 on top but a 10 - 12 on the bottom (Very rarely did I fit in a pair of size 8 jeans though!!)
At 17 years old, I was working full time for a local gas contractors, and our office was exactly opposite a gym. It was January, I had my first ever girls holiday booked for Lanzarote in 4 months time and I decided to get healthy and get fit. My starting weight was 9st and after very healthy eating (Including very little processed food, lots of protein and rarely eating dairy or junk) and 3-4 times a week at the gym, by April 2007 - I was 8st 4lbs. I felt amazing. My legs were pure muscle, my face was so defined, my skin was amazing and clothes actually looked good on me. I've always struggled with a belly, but it was so flat. If only I had just stayed like that.
This lasted all of about 6 months. I realised after coming back from my holiday that the lack of a goal, as in, a holiday, a prom, a brides maids dress I have to look great in - that I had very little motivation to go to the gym. I would make the occassional flimsy attempt at the gym and because I'd worked out so much and my metabolism was so high, for about 6 months after, I could get away with eating whatever I wanted and still looked very small. Then the pounds started to pile on, and on and on.
I had a brief moment of "getting on the right" track last year. I knew it was bad for me but felt that cutting my calorie intake down to 1000 a day to force my body into having to give the fat up was the only way I would be able to lose weight. The only reason I went so extreme was after a visit to the doctors where I went in with a chest infection and the first thing he said to me was "Can you stand on these scales... OK you are overweight." I left the doctors that day feeling very ill and fat and couldn't even get a bar of chocolate to cheer myself up without feeling horribly guilty!! At 5"3, although I was only around 10st 4lbs at the time, that's still 4lbs over the maximum weght I am meant to be at my height. You may be thinking personally, 10st really isn't a lot, it is a lot more when you're squashed into a 5"3 frame like myself. My extreme 1000 calorie a day diet had a couple of unexpected effects on me. At first I was starving, but strangely didn't mind it. I felt like after eating a meal, I felt more active and energetic just having something small and not feeling completely sluggish. I also had several people telling me how good I looked which for me is always the best side effect of weight loss!! I think I managed to get just under the 10st mark.. Went and got re-weighed, was told that although I was the higher end of the scale, I was no longer overweight. Although this was a nice feeling, the problem with a diet like this, as soon as you eat something really tasty - or your weakness - which for me most of the time is alcohol - you find it hard to jump back on the band wagon. If you could feel starving comfortably then this would be a great way of losing weight (Not the healthiest idea though!) But like most people, I need a diet where I'm not hungry. Otherwise, sooner or later, I will crumble.
My awful eating habits have gotten worse and worse over the last year. I'm now at 11st 4lbs - the stretch marks all over my body are horrible. I feel like I'm sinking into my face and I'm losing definition in my face. When I lie on my side in bed, I feel horrible because you can really see how big your belly is getting and I've noticed how tired I get doing the simplest of things like walking up and down stairs (Especially at work) which can be embarressing around others. Overall, in the last 3 years - Almost to the month - I've gained exactly 3 stone. Something has got to give before it gets too late!
I had tried again recently and been killing myself at the gym 3 times a week, knackering myself out preparing all these homemade breakfasts, lunches and dinners that were super healthy and packed full of veg and vitamins etc.. And after 1 month of killing myself, had only lost 2 pounds. I know 2 pounds is still good but for your first month where you're meant to lose more, I found this pathetic. I think my main problem is, when I used to go to the gym at 17 years old, there was only half a stone of weight on me that I really needed to lose - Now there's 3 stone and it just feels plain embarrassing. I'm sure I must be building muscle under all this flab and I know the more muscle you build, the more weight you lose, but at this point I just feel so covered in it that I need to lose the initial bit of weight first before I embark on the gym, or even the prospect of it, again.
I needed something that was not only proven to work, but was going to mean I lose weight steadily and don't have to wait for months to see the results. I remember my mum buying The Atkins New Revolution years ago, she didn't have much success with the diet, but that's just because she is quite small anyway and has her own personal food favourites she didn't want to give up. I stumbled across Atkins again recently entirely by fluke.
I was watching 4OD on my laptop (Brilliant fun if you're bored, have no money and the weather isn't good!) and I was going through all the documentries and it just popped up. I remember watching this particular documentry regarding Atkins a few years ago, entitled "Atkins: Fat or Fiction?" - Following one woman's struggle through the diet, explaining the way the diet works and showing some success stories and it just really seems like the perfect diet for me.
I'm a huge meat lover. When I was at my smallest, I'd often eat the same things day in and day out and it never bothered me. I would eat chicken every night and people would say "Gosh don't you just crave a spaghetti carbonara one night or a toad in the hole another night??" and I would be quite content with my chicken! As well as that, I used to eat eggs every morning - So the fact that the atkins included two of my most favourite foods spurred me on. Being able to eat as much as you want - Anyone who's ever been overweight will understand - This is like our Disneyland, Birthdays & Christmas all at once - being told we can eat as much as we want and we'll lose weight for it! And the vital part of wanting to do the diet, it seemed to make perfect sense to me.
As far as I understand it, when we eat carbohydrates, this is where we get our fuel from - To sleep, to get up and go to work, to do anything really. When you take carbohydrates away, your body is forced to use its back up source of fuel - Your body fat - So it stands to reason this would force you into ketosis. I know it's much more complicated, involves a lot to do with blood sugar levels being stabilised by the lack of carbohydrates and energy levels naturally increasing etc, but I believe this is the basics. And that's good for me, because all these other "fad" diets whereby you eat apples or you have to stick to tuna, or you have to have brussell sprouts 24/7 don't seem to make sense to me other than the fact that they are either low fat or low calorie. So, after making this decision to go on the diet, luckily my Mum still had her giant orange Atkins book which now belongs to me and I've started the diet today.
For breakfast, I had 3 fried eggs and probably about 6 rashers of bacon. On the side I had a tablespoon of cream cheese. It was absolutely divine. I was completely full after breakfast, oddly enough, something I never usually experience and I was off on my way to work!
I always drink 2 litres of water per day anyway, a habit I devoloped a couple of years ago which I think everybody should do. So by this point I've drank a litre already. For lunch I had some chicken which I got from a chicken I cooked last night, probably around a 1/4 of the size of the chicken was in my lunchbox. On one side I had cream cheese, on the other side I had full fat mayonnaise. I'm not a huge mayonnaise lover, I find the taste very overpowering - always have done - But if I have a sandwich etc, will opt for light mayonnaise as it's less powerful - Not something you can do on the Atkins.. It has to be full fat! So I did give it a go but didn't really eat a lot of it. The cream cheese is completely gone! And for a snack, i've had 2 cheese strings - Another personal favourite that I normally would snack on at least 3/4 times a week anyway. And after checking the carbs very carefully, I had 1 and a half pre-cooked frankfurters (The ones you get in the packs of about 8). Again, this is a very overpowering taste and about half way through the second frankfurter, I gave up completely on it and put it in the bin. Atkins does state to only eat until you're full and then stop. So this is what I have done. I also prepared a tiny bit of cucumber and lettuice, but I only had a very small bit of this... Maybe 3 small slices of cucumber but that was about it. And after all of this I am feeling pretty stuffed. It got to about 1pm and I kind of forced myself to have lunch as I was at work and didn't want to eat too late. Already, my appettie is getting a good seeing to!
I was going to look up the effects that Atkins has on you in the first day, as at about 12:30 I started to notice a very very bad migrane settling in. I normally experience a lot of numbness with my migranes too and had experienced a small amount of numbness in my left hand this afternoon. This was another reason I thought lunch might be well needed. The numbness has disappeared but the headache hasn't. I'm not a coffee or tea drinker but I am a Coke Zero drinker. I will drink 2 litres of water a day but always have a 500ml bottle of Coke Zero and that's normally about it. I know you're really not meant to drink Coke Zero on the Atkins because it can slow weight loss down and can make you feel quite hungry as it's filled with sweetners. But I have spoken to my manager, who is also on the Atkins diet. She says she still loses weight by having one coffee and one Coke Zero per day, just doesn't go mad with it. If you think about it logically, it contains no carbs so there's no reason it shouldn't work any less than anything else.. We shall see if it works.
My migrane therefore cannot be from withdrawl of caffiene. I think it may be a side effect of withdrawl from the sugar and carbohydrates. It's incredible, I bet most of us don't even think we consume a lot of sugar and carbohydrates - Yet take them both away from me and within a day I've got an absolutely splitting headache. I'm trying to overcome it though... And will keep going strong and take each day by day.
I've decided that as most people lose weight so rapidly on the Atkins I will be doing a weekly, rather than fortnightly weigh in. So my first official weigh in will be Friday 11th June. If the scales said 11st - I would be extatic, however, even if they just said 11st 2lb I would be quite happy with that. I think if it says 1lb loss, then I'll be a little disappointed because I would have hoped the benefits of doing Atkins meant I'd lose weight slightly quicker than conventional methods. If I gain weight I'll be infuriated!
I also thought I'd put a small summary at the bottom of my blogs - to track my weight loss, moods and side effects - So I can look back and check my progress, and hopefully incase anybody is reading this - they can compare it with their own experiences.
Date/Time: Friday 4th June 2010 - 15:05
Weight Lost: 0lb (First day!)
Side Effects: Migrane - Possibly from carb/sugar withdrawls.
Mood: Positive/Anxious/Impatient.. Hopeful
:) Have a good day non-carbers!
x Natalie
I'm Natalie Lara. 20 years old from sunny Brighton in England. I've created this blog to not only record my own progress but in the hopes that other strugglilng dieters might see this and can hopefully share tips or learn from a few of my mistakes that I'm sure to make whilst embarking on this carb-free journey.
My main aim of the atkins diet is to go down to 9st 7lbs successfully on the Atkins and keep the weight off. From there, I would like to tone my way back down to 9st, a weight at which I really believe would be my optimum weight.
Although I'm only 20, I've always struggled in some way or another with my weight. As a child, I had no weight issues whatsoever. Was always very active and muscular, it was when I hit my teens that I started to gain weight. By age 13, I spent most of my time on the computer (Not much has changed, eh?) and was spending a lot of time at my grandmothers house. Being an iranian housewife her entire life who spoke absolutely no English, she would often put lots of different foods in front of me. Lots of Cola - I doubt she had a clue how bad it all was for me. Being 13 and always maintaining quite a low weight, I didn't either and gained a lot of weight. I can remember the turning point being when I was in H&M with my mum trying to put a pair of size 12 trousers on and not being able to get them over my legs, I think it even made me cry. From there onwards, my mum, who's always been very thin and eaten perfectly, helped me to lose weight. She also bought me the dance game that you could get on the playstation, which I made an effort to play on almost every single night after school. I soon lost all of the weight and at 15 years old was a healthy 9st..... But I still thought I was fat.
Now looking back on it, I wish I could go back in time and shout "You stupid girl, you're fine the way you are, you just need to tone up a bit!!" But I was utterly convinced 9st meant you were hideously fat and I think it was because of all the skinny girls I went to school with, plus a lot of personal insecurities. But as fat as I felt, the truth is, I really wasn't. I knew my thighs and belly were a tad chunky, but I'd always had an extremely small upper body, and sometimes could be a size 6-8 on top but a 10 - 12 on the bottom (Very rarely did I fit in a pair of size 8 jeans though!!)
At 17 years old, I was working full time for a local gas contractors, and our office was exactly opposite a gym. It was January, I had my first ever girls holiday booked for Lanzarote in 4 months time and I decided to get healthy and get fit. My starting weight was 9st and after very healthy eating (Including very little processed food, lots of protein and rarely eating dairy or junk) and 3-4 times a week at the gym, by April 2007 - I was 8st 4lbs. I felt amazing. My legs were pure muscle, my face was so defined, my skin was amazing and clothes actually looked good on me. I've always struggled with a belly, but it was so flat. If only I had just stayed like that.
This lasted all of about 6 months. I realised after coming back from my holiday that the lack of a goal, as in, a holiday, a prom, a brides maids dress I have to look great in - that I had very little motivation to go to the gym. I would make the occassional flimsy attempt at the gym and because I'd worked out so much and my metabolism was so high, for about 6 months after, I could get away with eating whatever I wanted and still looked very small. Then the pounds started to pile on, and on and on.
I had a brief moment of "getting on the right" track last year. I knew it was bad for me but felt that cutting my calorie intake down to 1000 a day to force my body into having to give the fat up was the only way I would be able to lose weight. The only reason I went so extreme was after a visit to the doctors where I went in with a chest infection and the first thing he said to me was "Can you stand on these scales... OK you are overweight." I left the doctors that day feeling very ill and fat and couldn't even get a bar of chocolate to cheer myself up without feeling horribly guilty!! At 5"3, although I was only around 10st 4lbs at the time, that's still 4lbs over the maximum weght I am meant to be at my height. You may be thinking personally, 10st really isn't a lot, it is a lot more when you're squashed into a 5"3 frame like myself. My extreme 1000 calorie a day diet had a couple of unexpected effects on me. At first I was starving, but strangely didn't mind it. I felt like after eating a meal, I felt more active and energetic just having something small and not feeling completely sluggish. I also had several people telling me how good I looked which for me is always the best side effect of weight loss!! I think I managed to get just under the 10st mark.. Went and got re-weighed, was told that although I was the higher end of the scale, I was no longer overweight. Although this was a nice feeling, the problem with a diet like this, as soon as you eat something really tasty - or your weakness - which for me most of the time is alcohol - you find it hard to jump back on the band wagon. If you could feel starving comfortably then this would be a great way of losing weight (Not the healthiest idea though!) But like most people, I need a diet where I'm not hungry. Otherwise, sooner or later, I will crumble.
My awful eating habits have gotten worse and worse over the last year. I'm now at 11st 4lbs - the stretch marks all over my body are horrible. I feel like I'm sinking into my face and I'm losing definition in my face. When I lie on my side in bed, I feel horrible because you can really see how big your belly is getting and I've noticed how tired I get doing the simplest of things like walking up and down stairs (Especially at work) which can be embarressing around others. Overall, in the last 3 years - Almost to the month - I've gained exactly 3 stone. Something has got to give before it gets too late!
I had tried again recently and been killing myself at the gym 3 times a week, knackering myself out preparing all these homemade breakfasts, lunches and dinners that were super healthy and packed full of veg and vitamins etc.. And after 1 month of killing myself, had only lost 2 pounds. I know 2 pounds is still good but for your first month where you're meant to lose more, I found this pathetic. I think my main problem is, when I used to go to the gym at 17 years old, there was only half a stone of weight on me that I really needed to lose - Now there's 3 stone and it just feels plain embarrassing. I'm sure I must be building muscle under all this flab and I know the more muscle you build, the more weight you lose, but at this point I just feel so covered in it that I need to lose the initial bit of weight first before I embark on the gym, or even the prospect of it, again.
I needed something that was not only proven to work, but was going to mean I lose weight steadily and don't have to wait for months to see the results. I remember my mum buying The Atkins New Revolution years ago, she didn't have much success with the diet, but that's just because she is quite small anyway and has her own personal food favourites she didn't want to give up. I stumbled across Atkins again recently entirely by fluke.
I was watching 4OD on my laptop (Brilliant fun if you're bored, have no money and the weather isn't good!) and I was going through all the documentries and it just popped up. I remember watching this particular documentry regarding Atkins a few years ago, entitled "Atkins: Fat or Fiction?" - Following one woman's struggle through the diet, explaining the way the diet works and showing some success stories and it just really seems like the perfect diet for me.
I'm a huge meat lover. When I was at my smallest, I'd often eat the same things day in and day out and it never bothered me. I would eat chicken every night and people would say "Gosh don't you just crave a spaghetti carbonara one night or a toad in the hole another night??" and I would be quite content with my chicken! As well as that, I used to eat eggs every morning - So the fact that the atkins included two of my most favourite foods spurred me on. Being able to eat as much as you want - Anyone who's ever been overweight will understand - This is like our Disneyland, Birthdays & Christmas all at once - being told we can eat as much as we want and we'll lose weight for it! And the vital part of wanting to do the diet, it seemed to make perfect sense to me.
As far as I understand it, when we eat carbohydrates, this is where we get our fuel from - To sleep, to get up and go to work, to do anything really. When you take carbohydrates away, your body is forced to use its back up source of fuel - Your body fat - So it stands to reason this would force you into ketosis. I know it's much more complicated, involves a lot to do with blood sugar levels being stabilised by the lack of carbohydrates and energy levels naturally increasing etc, but I believe this is the basics. And that's good for me, because all these other "fad" diets whereby you eat apples or you have to stick to tuna, or you have to have brussell sprouts 24/7 don't seem to make sense to me other than the fact that they are either low fat or low calorie. So, after making this decision to go on the diet, luckily my Mum still had her giant orange Atkins book which now belongs to me and I've started the diet today.
For breakfast, I had 3 fried eggs and probably about 6 rashers of bacon. On the side I had a tablespoon of cream cheese. It was absolutely divine. I was completely full after breakfast, oddly enough, something I never usually experience and I was off on my way to work!
I always drink 2 litres of water per day anyway, a habit I devoloped a couple of years ago which I think everybody should do. So by this point I've drank a litre already. For lunch I had some chicken which I got from a chicken I cooked last night, probably around a 1/4 of the size of the chicken was in my lunchbox. On one side I had cream cheese, on the other side I had full fat mayonnaise. I'm not a huge mayonnaise lover, I find the taste very overpowering - always have done - But if I have a sandwich etc, will opt for light mayonnaise as it's less powerful - Not something you can do on the Atkins.. It has to be full fat! So I did give it a go but didn't really eat a lot of it. The cream cheese is completely gone! And for a snack, i've had 2 cheese strings - Another personal favourite that I normally would snack on at least 3/4 times a week anyway. And after checking the carbs very carefully, I had 1 and a half pre-cooked frankfurters (The ones you get in the packs of about 8). Again, this is a very overpowering taste and about half way through the second frankfurter, I gave up completely on it and put it in the bin. Atkins does state to only eat until you're full and then stop. So this is what I have done. I also prepared a tiny bit of cucumber and lettuice, but I only had a very small bit of this... Maybe 3 small slices of cucumber but that was about it. And after all of this I am feeling pretty stuffed. It got to about 1pm and I kind of forced myself to have lunch as I was at work and didn't want to eat too late. Already, my appettie is getting a good seeing to!
I was going to look up the effects that Atkins has on you in the first day, as at about 12:30 I started to notice a very very bad migrane settling in. I normally experience a lot of numbness with my migranes too and had experienced a small amount of numbness in my left hand this afternoon. This was another reason I thought lunch might be well needed. The numbness has disappeared but the headache hasn't. I'm not a coffee or tea drinker but I am a Coke Zero drinker. I will drink 2 litres of water a day but always have a 500ml bottle of Coke Zero and that's normally about it. I know you're really not meant to drink Coke Zero on the Atkins because it can slow weight loss down and can make you feel quite hungry as it's filled with sweetners. But I have spoken to my manager, who is also on the Atkins diet. She says she still loses weight by having one coffee and one Coke Zero per day, just doesn't go mad with it. If you think about it logically, it contains no carbs so there's no reason it shouldn't work any less than anything else.. We shall see if it works.
My migrane therefore cannot be from withdrawl of caffiene. I think it may be a side effect of withdrawl from the sugar and carbohydrates. It's incredible, I bet most of us don't even think we consume a lot of sugar and carbohydrates - Yet take them both away from me and within a day I've got an absolutely splitting headache. I'm trying to overcome it though... And will keep going strong and take each day by day.
I've decided that as most people lose weight so rapidly on the Atkins I will be doing a weekly, rather than fortnightly weigh in. So my first official weigh in will be Friday 11th June. If the scales said 11st - I would be extatic, however, even if they just said 11st 2lb I would be quite happy with that. I think if it says 1lb loss, then I'll be a little disappointed because I would have hoped the benefits of doing Atkins meant I'd lose weight slightly quicker than conventional methods. If I gain weight I'll be infuriated!
I also thought I'd put a small summary at the bottom of my blogs - to track my weight loss, moods and side effects - So I can look back and check my progress, and hopefully incase anybody is reading this - they can compare it with their own experiences.
Date/Time: Friday 4th June 2010 - 15:05
Weight Lost: 0lb (First day!)
Side Effects: Migrane - Possibly from carb/sugar withdrawls.
Mood: Positive/Anxious/Impatient.. Hopeful
:) Have a good day non-carbers!
x Natalie
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