Atkins Diet Guide

Don’t worry yourself over foods that you can, and cannot eat while doing Atkins.

You have your computer at hand. If you look on there you will find thousands of low carb foods.

I assume that you are still on the induction side of Atkins where food choice can be a problem.

Anyhow look up the foods as I said and you will find foods that you can eat and snack on.. Just remember to stick to your carb limit.

Its a great diet, so stick to it. If you fail one day, then make up for it the next…

Hope it all goes well for you.

You wouldn’t want to eat it every day, but you can have sliced pepperoni, or an ounce or two of good cheese, hard boiled eggs, or celery and a full fat ranch dressing "dip".
If you are in week 2, you still need to be careful about the carbs in your veggies, but you can certainly snack on any of the low-carb type…how about a snack of crisp cucumber slices and ranch or other full-fat, low-carb salad dressing dip. Sounds yummy to me.

Hi,

After reading your question I saw you were interested in optimizing your nutrition [(-:] so I thought I would give you some pointers I have learned the hard way from my own bad ‘uninformed’ choices so you could learn about good advice and bad advice.

A ‘reference’ diet plan is given below in PS1 that I have found to be the best possible nutrition for me to cure my heart disease problem from too many carbs for too long. It is also the best diet to help with my present health issues – that I know are cholesterol and calcium related because these foods are triggers for me now.

I used to be an old advocate of Atkins diet before I knew what I now know, so nowadays I do not recommend Atkins high protein and fat diet for long term but would always recommend a "high- nutrition" 96% VEGAN diet replacing most meat with lentils – but many people will not do this. Sooo even though I give a diet plan in PS1 below, let me share a little first to help you understand how losing and gaining weight can best be done to be stronger and healthier for the long term.

You may already know this but if not let me first explain that keeping to a plan that fights against bad habits that might be on the verge of seriously tearing down your body is sometimes pretty tough – but being fit and strong versus being overweight and/or sickly is all about (1) how many calories you eat versus how many you burn and (2) IF your calories are primarily the BEST QUALITY PROTEINS or primarily junk sugar-carbs.

Please consider that it is not just how few cabs and fats and how much lean protein you eat in order to become ‘stronger,’ but how many absorbable non-toxic vitamin and minerals are obtained from the protein or fats you would eat.

For instance, egg whites have 89% protein, but egg whites are similar in its nutrition per calorie as to eating sweet corn that usually has only about 15% protein. So even though the higher protein egg whites ‘look’ good IF ALL you look at is the protein content, it is really not much better for you than sweet corn.

Not good if you understand that they identified the pellagra problem in the 1930’s south was the result of the high calories and minimal amounts of vitamins and minerals caused by a diet of primarily sweet corn. [See: <> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pellagra <>] This disease has identical long term health effects as the scurvy and beriberi problems that are also a result of eating too many calories with not enough nutrients. They cured pellagra in dogs by giving them liver and brewers yeast, but the problem with these are the long term effects of cholesterol in the liver and the short term toxic effects of elemental copper in the brewers yeast that is the rust residue from the vats the yeast is grown in.

A similar lesser nutrition choice would be when eating tenderloin versus spinach. Boiled spinach has about 56% protein to beef tenderloin’s 61% protein, but spinach has almost 700%, or seven times, the vitamin and minerals of tenderloin calorie per calorie. The problem with spinach is that the spinach calories would cost about ten times the cost of beef calories. Spending $50 per day to eat several pounds of spinach may make any animal as strong as an elite triple-crown race horse, but few people can afford to spend that much for their food – so meat protein is what people typically consume. Even so, many longevity experts like Roy L. Walford, M.D. and Joel Fuhrman M. D. encourage their clients to eat 200 calories of leafy greens a day – which ‘might’ cost about $10 per day but it is a small price to pay when considering the strength, longevity, and good health it would promote. Dr. T. Colin Campbell would also agree with this regimen.

Take a few minutes to understand ‘good’ nutritional advice versus poor advice and I hope you will have learned something from my ‘mistakes’ that will soon help you along your way.

<><

My best to you and for your good health,
A1
[(-:]

PS1 – This is my diet plan since I became a 96% VEGAN:
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Your body’s fat with no water in it has 9 calories per gram which is about 4091 calories per pound of fat. The number usually used for body fat is 3500 calories which ‘assumes’ 14.4% water in an average person’s fat, but this would depend upon if you ate salty or spicy foods a-lot before you would start a new regimen. Protein is 4 calories per gram whether you eat it or burn it from your own body, so if you burn your own your muscles will never have a-lot of cells that are decades old ‘if’ you stay active. I choose to lose 2 pounds a week of fat by reducing 500 calories a day and adding exercise five times a week. Walking is 80 cal/mile for a 150 pound person and 110 cal/mile for 200 pounds. Also, you will lose a lot of water weight when you eliminate salt and spicy foods, probably about four to five to ten pounds the first two weeks.
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To minimize the meat-cholesterol in my own diet I have seen that the requirements of B12 can only be obtained from eating 6 ounces of beef heart every week for 16% Cholesterol, or 11 oz of beef round steak every week for 11% Cholesterol, or 1 oz of beef liver every week for 4% Cholesterol and never chicken since for B12 it would require a whopping 175 ozs per week and a whopping 201% cholesterol a day. Soo I suppose I am a 96% VEGAN in order to satisfy the USDA’s B12 Recommended Dietary Allowances (RDAs) that ‘they’ recommend be obtained directly from food sources.

I am still researching this topic because the Schilling test for B12 anemia seems skewed against VEGANS and people that may actually have an abundance of B12, and so would dump any excess from a test into their stools, as would be normal when a healthy person’s body would automatically dump excess nutrition or toxins their body could never adequately assimilate. [SEE:<> http://www.innvista.com/health/ailments/anemias/labtests.htm <>] Also, consuming a VEGAN B12 supplement linked with cyanide might provide a quick buzz or temporary stimulant, but my body might not ever heal from the ‘upper’ it would be causing. [SEE:<> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyanocobalamin <>]

I am always seeking for researchers who might have better insights than myself so please feel free to email me. [(-:]

Even so, for today I still crock pot for 12 hours ground up beef heart and am eating one ounce a day with lentils and spinach in one meal to improve the meats passage through my gut to the stool, and to buffer my digestion/elimination since eating meat alone ‘used_to’ cause reddish stools for me. One day a week instead of beef heart I eat one ounce of beef liver, which adds up to ~200+% the B12 recommended by the USDA with only 20% of the maximum recommended cholesterol.

For each 1400 calorie day I eat 100 calories of squeeze drained spinach with a light_sugar_vinaigrette, 600 cals from 15 ozs of organic lentils w/ 100 cals of tomato marinara, or since I might be allergic in my gut to nightshade tomatoes I recently began using onion flake-powder instead of tomatoes, [SEE<>http://www.tomatocasual.com/2008/03/01/tomato-allergies-part-i/#comment-10748 <>], 75 calories of boiled celery, 175 calories of boiled broccoli, 100 calories of sesame seeds, and no_more_than 200 calories of ‘meat’ which is about 4 ozs, and rarely rarely boiled chicken, since chicken has only ~68% the nutrition per calorie of properly grown lentils and only 7% the B12 for the equal calories from beef round steak. Beef heart has ~127% the nutrition per calorie of ‘organically’ grown lentils and organic spinach has ~500%, five times per calorie of lentils.

Again, I hope this helps you or others to understand good choices.

A1

PS2 – I posted ‘my_story’ and why I know what I know at:

During the first 2 weeks, you can have several cups of salads. Jicama, cucumber, celery & radish marinated in sesame oil & hot pepper flakes with rice wine vinegar & artificial sweetener. Make a stir fry with Bok Choy, bean sprouts, bamboo shoots, celery, mushrooms, shirataki noodles & your fav meats. I love eggs and could eat deviled eggs every day. You can smother omelets & meats with mushrooms & peppers & cheese. Meatzza – Meatloaf with pizza toppings (pepperoni, mushrooms, peppers, mozzarella) I prefer very thin sausage patties fried crispy with pizza toppings. Pork rinds & celery sticks are great crunch and can be eaten with dips (avocado/mayo/cayenne is my fav) & tuna/chicken/turkey/egg salads. I love love love my rotisserie and it makes the meats extra tasty. I cook a turkey every couple of months and make soup with the bones (add vinegar to leach minerals) and turkey salads. I’ll cube up some turkey meat mix in a couple of raw eggs add cheese (and broccoli after induction) with cayenne powder & nuke a couple of minutes for nearly instant meal. Flax seed should be eaten 2T daily even in induction.

Ground flax seed (2-3 Tbsp) 1/4 cup of water, cinnamon, artificial sweetener, mix in a raw egg – let sit 10 min to absorb liquid, put some cream cheese in the middle and nuke for 1.5 min. for hot cereal or 2 min. for more of a muffin type thing. Great low carb, high fiber treat.

After the 2 week induction, you add 5 grams of carbs per day every week and add a much greater variety of non starchy vegetables. Change your mindset – eat what you like to eat, just adapt it to low carb -
replace bread with lettuce
replace pasta with cabbage
replace rice with cauliflower
replace potatoes with brocolli
I eat all my favorite Chinese, Italian, even Mexican foods with low carb foods. Cabbage makes an excellent pasta substitute (for me) Make a lasagna with blanched cabbage leaves & thinly fried eggplant instead of noodles. Sugar free pasta sauce over fried cabbage. My fav is chicken cacciatore, I add greens & flaxseed or chia seed for body and also add pizza toppings – pepperoni, mushrooms, lots of mozzarrella. Alfredo sauce is also low carb.

I don’t cook often. I usually make huge batches of food & freeze most of it. I cook meats 20-30# at a time (for just me) I have gone into the forums for recipes (especially when I first started low carb) I was shocked that fried "rice" made with grated cauliflower tasted just like it’s name sake. Shirataki noodles are traditional in Japanese sukiyaki and low carb. I’ve heard faux mashed "taters" made with cauliflower & cream cheese can fool non low carbers. "potato" salad using cauliflower instead.

Hope I’ve given you a start, I just don’t cook much but many recipes abound. Adapt what you’ve always eaten first (I bet someone has a recipe for it or low carb version) and then start exploring.

Chia seeds sound so expensive but 1# will make 10# food (when you can splurge some – Amazon.com has couple lbs. for $16 shipped to you.

I also order off Amazon – Lowrey’s Pork Rinds 18 for $15 – they pop like popcorn and are portion controlled.

Faux tapioca – 2 cups of water, 5 scoops of low carb whey protein powder, stir together & add cup of chia seeds, after they have started to absorb the water, add in 2 cans of coconut milk (or cream and added water during induction) & artificial sweetener if you like and mix it all in. Can be eaten after an hour but will be better tomorrow. Cream a pkg. of cream cheese into a can of pumpkin and add to the faux tapioca for an even more nutritious pumpkin pie pudding.

(berries are lowest glycemic) Cheesecake – strawberry ice cream (frozen berries, cream, a stick blender) – pork rinds great crunch – i eat lots of fish for snack (fish "steaks" or mackerel in tins are favs)- avocado/mayo/cayenne dip – olives

Pumpkin soup
* 1 (12 ounce) package Jimmy Dean sausage
* 1/2 cup onion, minced
* 1 garlic clove, minced
* 1 tablespoon italian seasoning
* 1-2 cup fresh mushrooms, chopped
* 1 (15 ounce) can pumpkin
* 4 cups chicken broth
* 1/2 cup heavy cream
* 1/2 cup water

Directions
1.Brown sausage, drain, then add the onion, garlic, Italian seasoning and mushrooms and sauté until done.
2. Add pumpkin to this mixture and mix well.
3.Then stir in the broth and mix well.
4. Simmer 20-30 minutes.
5. Stir in the heavy cream and water and simmer on low another 10-15 minute Taste and add salt& pepper as needed.