[buriedbeds]

Someone asked me this in a PM, but I figured it belongs in the thread:

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I've considered atkins(I have probably 40 lbs I could lose, would be happy with losing 25)- what do you recommend to learn about it/start it? I've been overweight my entire life, had some success dieting as a teenager, but gained most of it back over time- one of the problems I ran into was I hit a point where even w/ diet + lot of exercise, I was still overwieght, and couldn't lose any more it seemed. my genetics aren't good either, so while thats not the problem its certainly not helping.

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My advice on where to start is, to use an internet acronym, RTFM. The main thing that screws people up with Atkins is NOT READING THE BOOK. This drives me insane - people do their own little variant of a "low carb" diet, where they go an eat a ton of bacon and pepperoni and "sugar free" foods with tons of additives and sugar alcohols and then call it "Atkins," when the truth is that even Atkins bars are NOT really Atkins food. It's a product put out by a company that bought the man's trademark and then made things that would have him spinning in his grave.

Atkins - the guy - believed in eating whole, fresh foods, with lots of vegetables. He did not like foods with ingredient lists as long as your arm, nitrates, etc. etc. etc. If you stop eating refined sugar and starch, yes - you'll probably lose weight. But you're not doing Atkins.

So the place where I'd start is by reading his book, Doctor Atkins' New Diet Revolution (aka DANDR). It's a great book. The iTunes audiobook is what I used - I've probably listened to it 10 times. If you really want to do a low-carb diet in a healthy way, reading and following the book is my best advice.

The same goes for any plan - weight watchers, south beach, whatever. DO WHAT THEY SAY. I'm also on a weight loss support board, and here's what I wrote about the commonalities between people who fail at losing weight. Note that none of them have anything to do with the mechanics of the diet:

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I've noticed over my time here that people who don't succeed have certain basic things in common. (1) They give themselves excuses when they do something off plan ("there wasn't any food in the house," "I was at a restaurant and I had to get..."), (2) They make up excuses *to* go off plan ("It's my birthday," "I'm under a lot of stress," "I don't have time right now..."), (3) they delude themselves into believing and try to convince everyone else that they know more than the plan does, and they make up their own "variation" instead of sticking to what an expert - whichever one, from south beach to atkins to whatever - has to say, and (4) they get combative instead of being open to advice from other people.

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-bb.