Not really true. What you are saying. Yes, you lose some water weight. You also lose a lot of fat. And you don't lose a lot of lean tissue because keeping your protein levels higher help to preserve lean tissue with Atkins.

And no you don't "gain it all back" necessarily. Sure. Any time you don't modify your eating habits and keep them modified for a lifetime you are going to gain back what you have lost. This is true of every single diet out there. Not Atkins specific by any means. Atkins is NOT as restrictive as you might think. In fact in many ways it is the ideal diet because you modify what you eat, not necessarily how much. Yes you do tend to be less hungry without constant blood sugar fluctuations, but any calorie reduction is incidental, not required. With Atkins you can eat when you are hungry. You eat healthy food. Meats and Vegetables mostly. But you can also have fats and dairy and eggs and some fruit (mostly lower glycemic fruits). You do tend to avoid grains, and starchy foods as well has highly sugared foods.

I lost 50 pounds on it back in 2000 and kept it all off for about 3 years. I have gained back some of it, but I still have nearly 30 pounds of what I originally lost gone. I have friends who have lost as much as 100 pounds or more on it. Yes, if you go completely off and start eating like you used to you will start to gain. This (I repeat) is true of any diet you do. There is nothing magical about any diet that you may try. When you go off them and don't eat as you should you will gain BACK the weight.

I was only offering a suggestion to anyone who may wish to take the weight off a little faster. How you keep it off will really depend on how determined you are to keep it off.

Atkins works by depleting glycogen stores, and then tapping into your "reserve fuel" which is your fat stores to create energy. This means that you are burning your fat at a much more rapid rate. Read the book. If it doesn't make you want to try it then don't. But don't just listen to what people who don't know about it have to say, because then you are just repeating rumors, and you really don't know.

I've had people say right in front of me that "everyone I know who has ever been on Atkins has gained it all back and then some." What a lie! It really disturbed me because the person saying that was my own mother and she has two daughters who have lost considerable weight on Atkins and who have NOT gained "it all back" and certainly not "and then some" and yet her other daughter has been on weight watchers many many times, and yet has managed to always "gain it back and then some".

Ok I'm done. Take it or leave it. It works, it works quickly. Sure, there is some water loss, sure if you do it and then go off it you will gain back (almost immediately) some of that water weight. Carbs tend to cause your body to hang on to extra water. That is natural. But not all of what you lose is water. I know for myself there is no way I lost 50 pounds of water (only).

So just out of curiousity, do you guys know what professional body builders do when they are done gaining muscle and just before an event where they have to show off their muscles? They have two phases, one they call "building" and the other is their "cutting" phase. How do they "cut" the fat they put on during the muscle building phase without losing the muscle they worked so hard to get? They reduce carbohydrate consumption. Low carb. This preserves muscle because they still get plenty of protein, but it reduces their fat levels and retained water levels. This makes of a nice lean appearance with minimal muscle loss.

I'm a s l o w loser, too. It'll be a stretch for me if I hit the 50 pound mark by the time I hit the one year mark (February 11!). For a long time, I was discouraged by the pace that my weight was coming off... especially when I compared it to how much effort I felt like I was putting in. It was frustrating, even super-frustrating when I would read stories about folks who'd lost really quickly.

As I've gotten farther down the road, I'm actually starting to appreciate the slower pace. I've been a fat girl my whole life. And, I'm finding that as slow as my body is at changing, my head is even slower. I'm having to completely re-define my body image, my ideas about who I am (if not the fat girl, then who?), and the way I feel about myself. For me, this is big stuff, and getting to adjust to it slowly is a good thing. It makes me feel sure that it's gonna be permanent.

But man, Coley, I SO can relate to the movie montage. It plays in my head frequently, often when I'm running down the trail. Sometimes, I alter the soundtrack that plays while I'm morphing into a reasonably sized super model. Give it a try.

So, here's to losing the excess, at whatever pace. Cheers to you all!

paula

I love that you all took the time to join in here. I also love that I'm not the only one with the movie montage!

I'm happy with my diet plan but thanks for the info about Atkins. I tried it once but I ended up craving lentils and caved! I get on better with low calorie and low-ish fat but each to their own.

I will remember to use enormity in the right context next time..you see how great this place is? Educational and supportive!

I do think I've got to get my head round the fact that I'm not in a race I'm on a journey. In fact I think I need that tattooed on my hand to remind me! It really doesn't matter when I get where I want to go as long as I do. I have been reading the maintenance forum and it looks like there's a whole new journey once you get there. I'm ok with that because it'll be way better than worrying that I'll be hardly able to move by the time I'm 65. Way way better.

Thanks to you all I feel much more sanguine about it all today. I'm not gonna bet that its the last time I'll get frustrated but I'll bookmark this column and read it again next time!

You guys are a lucky charm! I've lost a pound! As I'm still STILL waiting for TOM to visit it should be more than that as I normally drop a few pounds afterwards.

And today I feel like this is so much fun why would I want to rush it? Me and my contrary brain!

Thanks again!

Actually, that's a good point. There are times at the moment where I get quite depressed about the prospect of not having to do this any more at some point. Not that I don't want to get to goal, but when I'm not aiming for something I tend to lose motivation (which is partly why I'm setting exercise goals to aim for, like races later in the year when I might not have weight goals any more). I love the feeling of fitting in smaller clothes or seeing numbers on the scale, and it's been such a fantastic process, with the support from the people on here and elsewhere, that it might be a bit of a let down to not be actively trying to lose weight.

Of course, maintenance is still a challenge, but I kind of like this one