Atkins Diet is hard to follow long term, but really works

by Peg
(Trenton, NJ)

I've done Atkins Diet twice now. Each time I last about 3 or 4 months before I start falling off and eating carbs again.

For those who don't know Atkins, you start off eating just 20 carbohydrates (from veggies) a day, for 2 weeks. You cut all flour, grains, pasta, wheat, sugar, and fruit for those 2 weeks.

I've dropped 20 lbs in 2 weeks from this. It's water weight at first, but it really does work after that.

After the 2 weeks you add 5 daily carbs every week. So week 3 you can have 25 carbs, week 4 you can have 30, until you stop losing weight.

Then you drop 5 carbs and continue that until you lose all your weight. So if you stopped losing weight at 60 carbs, you would drop back and keep your daily carbs at 55 almost the rest of your weight loss journey.

Since I'm extremely overweight I try to stay on that super strict phase way too long. I lose about 40 lbs and then start going off the diet. Then the more bad carbs you have, the more you crave and it's a bad cycle.

I think overall, (if you stay away from all "low carb" and even Atkins's brand products) it's a really healthy, natural way to live. You’re eating whole, real foods all of the time.

It’s hard to resist when going out to dinner for special occasions. And it always seems that you have 6 birthday parties to attend right around the times you’re feeling weak!

I just have to learn to slow down and do it the right way. Make it a lifestyle like they tell you to!

Do you need a little more help with your weight?