Hiya everyone. My boyfriend has done the atkins diet before and now he is trying it again and is taking me along with him. We are starting on Thursday (Friday and Saturday are my days off so i can get the apparent initial feeling awful over and done with without missing any work). Problem is I am completely unsure of what I can and can't eat. All sorts of things I thought I could have I can't and vice versa. Thankfully I am still allowed my diet Irn Bru (I would seriously go insane without it), but I thought I was allowed any fruit, meat and veg. Can anyone give me some sort of simplified idiots guide and a hefty dose of encouragement? I also intend to document my progress on youtube so if anyone wants to see how I get on subscribe to hippieglitter.

I've been doing Atkins for close to 7 years now and the best advice I can give you & your boyfriend is to read the book (Dr Atkins New Diet Revolution 2002 or prior versions) before you attempt this way of eating so you understand exactly how & why this works.
You may want to check out http://www.veronicaatkinsfoundation.org/ for some good advice.
Feel free to post often and ask a lot of questions
You CAN do this!
All the best to you!!

Visit the official Atkins website. They have online 'classes' you can take and sign up for their website and they will send you a little booklet with everything you need, a carb counter book, a coupon for the latest book and some atkins bars. You won't get it before Thursday but it will be nice to have. My hubby did Atkins last year and I learned pretty much everything from the website and he lost over 100 lbs. I am joining him this time around and have lost almost 8 lbs in a 2.5 weeks (and I had 2 off days).

Take it one day at a time and if you mess up jump right back on!

Good luck and welcome!

(oh and I said i learned pretty much everything about his diet because I cook and shop for him lol so I learned about it and told him, but it was his idea to do atkins. I did calorie counting, he lost 130 lbs i lost 40..so this time I am trying it his way lol)

I think it depends on the person. My husband ate them daily when he lost 130+ lbs and I have read the new book and it doesn't push the products it actually says eat 2 max if you can even handle it. It does warn that they might not be for everyone.

Definitely read up and research. Plenty of resources out there explain the acceptable foods lists, and phases. Here is some advice I have found works well for me (I successfully lost 80 pounds before on atkins then had a baby and the diet went out the window. Worst idea EVER, lol)

1. Dont weigh yourself everyday. In fact, I only weigh once a week. If you dont get in the habit now, you will drive yourself crazy later. If the people on biggest loser can wait a week to weigh in, so can we!

2. This sounds odd, but keep a calendar of your bowel movements (unless you can keep track in your head). This diet, depending on the amount of cheese you have, tends to effect your system. If you know you havent had a BM.. dont weigh yourself. It can add up to 4ish pounds to the scale. But save yourself the heartache of mysterious gains and keep track of BMs. I use a code for mine in a journal so that noone else knows what its for except me.

3. Get yourself a scale that shows water %. That way when it hits your time of the month.. you will be able to tell there is water gain. You can pick one up at walmart for under $30.

4. For induction.. to get the most bang for your buck eat whole foods. No lunchmeat, no atkins products, and nothing you cant read the label and see exactly what is in it. Also, make sure to limit your cheese intake.. this is directly related to the BM part, lol.

5. Try not to eat out. I know that will be hard, but you cannot really tell what they use. You would think getting a peice of chicken at a restaurant would be a no-brainer. However, you dont know what they put in the marinade or the grill baste. Dont risk it, its really not worth it.

This is a side note, but I didnt cut out caffiene. I couldnt part with my coffee and tea. However, it also hasnt effected my loss. It may or may not effect yours. Some of things like caffiene and artifical sweeteners, you will need to do a bit of trial and error.

Anyways, thats my 2 cents. Good luck and you will LOVE seeing the numbers fall on the scale. Cant wait to hear more on how you are doing.

There is only one thing I would differ on opinions here with everyone else: I WOULD (and do) weigh every day. We all know that our weight can fluctuate wildly; I weigh every day, and then I take an average. I have chosen Monday as my averaging day: so I weigh every day; total up the number of pounds, and divide by how many days I weighed (because ooops, sometimes I do miss a day). THEN, I take that average and minus it from the week before.

This is a trick I learned when I was doing the Heller's CAD program years ago. I have held onto it all through the many dieting systems I have tried since then.

If rises and falls over the 7 days would really affect your phyche, then don't do it. For me, seeing NO results on my "weigh-in day" due to maybe eating a bit too much salt, or not drinking enough water the day before, is more crushing than seeing it vary from day to day. Mostly I go in a downward direction, so I can live with going up .5 once or twice a week: I know it's normal.

As with any advice given here, take what you like and leave and the rest: it's NOT one size fits all after all.

Phoenix!

I also weigh every day.

Thank you everyone, this has been really helpful. My bf and I have done our first weigh in with photos and I will do my first yt vlog tomorrow. We have decided to only weigh in once a week. With the actual diet looming and seeing my bf's shopping list it is actually quite scary for me. Lunches are going to be hardest on me, I work in shopping centre so there is always food around me and its **** if I have to share my break with skinny person eating McDonald's, plus the biscuits that are always there. Can anyone suggest any Atkins friendly snack foods?

Cheese sticks, beef sticks, salami rollups, pepperoni, and celery with cream cheese are some.

I weigh almost every day too. Right now I'm avoiding the scale because AF is on its way so I'm retaining water up the wazoo though I dont think its as bad as previous months so that's good.

I 2nd all Linsy's snacks. I also added almonds after the first two weeks (still doing 20 carbs but added nuts). If you like chips/crackers take a peice of deluxe american cheese (that kind has 0 carbs) and cut it into 16 squares and put it on some parchement paper or something nonstick and put in the microwave for 1 minute. They make the best lil crackers/chips. My hubby loves them! also he likes pickles and olives. If you get whole pickles they are usually 0 carbs some of the cut up ones have a carb because of preservatives. Also meat and cheese rollups are yummy too! oh and hard boiled eggs!

Oh yeah, deviled eggs too! I've also seen a really popular recipe where people take whole jalapenos, remove the seeds, fill with cream cheese and then wrap with bacon and bake until the bacon is crispy. There's also another variation where you can bake the cream cheese/jalapenos and then sprinkle bacon on top which looks really good as well.

Ok, 3 days in. On the upside I have lost 5lbs (I know I said I was only weighing weekly) but my bf weighed this morning to discover he had lost so I couldn't resist. Not going to change my tracker til weekly weigh-in though. On the downside all I can think of are chocolate digestive biscuit and mango's, my sweet tooth is really suffering. I get up in the morning and I'm starving but I can't think of anything we have that I would really enjoy eating. Jelly is my saviour but I don't even enjoy that as much as I would just one biscuit. Simon says when I've lost a stone he will bake me a cake and we can have day off.

1. Dont weigh yourself everyday. In fact, I only weigh once a week. If you dont get in the habit now, you will drive yourself crazy later. If the people on biggest loser can wait a week to weigh in, so can we!

As I have a goal of 75 lbs in 8 months and never really done any diet or exercise. I am doing the Wii Fit daily. One of the things on it is a daily weigh in, I just remember the goal I have set and don't look at the daily weight much.


5. Try not to eat out. I know that will be hard, but you cannot really tell what they use. You would think getting a peice of chicken at a restaurant would be a no-brainer. However, you dont know what they put in the marinade or the grill baste. Dont risk it, its really not worth it.

This is a side note, but I didnt cut out caffiene. I couldnt part with my coffee and tea. However, it also hasnt effected my loss. It may or may not effect yours. Some of things like caffiene and artifical sweeteners, you will need to do a bit of trial and error.
Thanks for the info on caffiene. I work 2nd shift and have cut down my intake over the last two weeks. Now I make my tea 1/2 and 1/2. I had a sip of my fincee's diet coke today TOO SWEET for me LOL

Anyways, thats my 2 cents. Good luck and you will LOVE seeing the numbers fall on the scale. Cant wait to hear more on how you are doing