Mom41975's Journal, 27 March 2012

You don't have a lot to lose and you may not have been retaining a lot of water. People who lose big on Atkins at first usually have a lot of water weight and are very overweight. Your doing fine. Maybe eat lean cuts of meat and check labels to see how much fat is in something. Don't feel low about losing weight. That's a great thing. You should be jumping up and down shouting "I lost, whoo hooo!!! Keep realistic weight loss expectations. Every time you lose weight it's a new journey. Many things factor in to our weight loss. Do another week on inductions and see what happens. What have you got to lose? (pun intended, lol). 

First thing I'd suggest is grabbing a copy of the "New Atkins for a New You" book (usually under $5 from the Amazon New/Used marketplace), then head over to www.atkins.com and sign up for 1) their free introduction kit, and 2) sign up for their web site to get access to their forums (extraordinarily helpful!) as well as all their on-line program "lessons" and Phase overviews. Just glancing at your daily foods, I noticed a couple of things: you're not getting nearly enough calories per day! I know, it's almost impossible to wrap our heads around "you have to eat more to lose more" but it is true. Unless your doctor has recommended such a low calorie diet, you should be getting around 1500-1800 calories per day, not 1200 or less. Also, your ratio of fats/proteins/carbs is a bit off. You should strive for 60-70% of your daily totals to be from fats, 20-30% of your daily calories to come from proteins, and only 10% of your daily calories to come from carbohydrates. Of the 20 grams of net carbs per day, 12-15 grams should come from vegetables (which you seem to be having no problems incorporating into your diet, hooray!) Perhaps try substituting a little of your veggie carbs (since you're getting actually over the allowed amount per day) with some more fats, like olive oil and butter? Other than that, you're off to a GREAT start! You also don't have very much weight overall to lose, so your loss will be significantly slower than someone who has over 100lbs to lose. Shoot for about a pound to two pounds a week as a healthy rate of loss, and be sure to take measurements because they tell you a far more accurate story than the mean 'ole scale tends to, lol :) 

I want to thank you both (Suzi161 & Roobert) for the great advise and tips. I do however, have a problem, I'm still waiting for the free introduction kit from Atkins when I signed up online 2 weeks ago. So basically I'm having a really hard time trying to put together my daily menu to stay in the ratio factors and have my calorie intake higher then what I've been consuming. I've been on the atkins website and did look over their menu plans for induction, however most of the stuff I don't like :( Is there anyway possible of getting more calories without go over the ratios?