Hi firefly.
Don't worry honey...ask anything you want. I'm just happy to have a visitor!
Back when I did Atkins for the first time, in the early 90's, they did not have all these new, smaller Atkins bars. They only had the big ones and they also had the shakes...but not a huge selection in the grocery stores/drug stores and you had to go to GNC, etc. to get any selection. I fell in love with the chocolate coconut ones and began to allow myself one a day once I hit goal. And mind you...I was healthier and younger then....well, am still pretty healthy but my metabolism had not yet taken the huge hit it took in 2005 from a medication.
So back then, I could use Equal sweetener with no problem and didn't even really worry exactly how many packets I used....though I was not using a huge amount or anything.
Ultimately....the main thing responsible for me maintaining my weight for about 12 years was this rule I had that if I gained 5 lbs....I immediately went back on induction and lost it. But I did learn a lot during those 12 years...one of which was the bad road I ended up on eating those choc-coconut Atkins bars. What happened was that they began to become the thing I looked forward to eating...I thought about them every day...several times a day. Going shopping was an excuse to go and buy them.
And it was not that I was necessarily gaining weight from only them....it was that eating them began to put me into the "thinking of sweets" mode....which segued into the craving sweets mode....and I was likely headed for binge mode.
Long story short, I eliminated them altogether....and have not used them at all this time at all.
There is this one particular dish I make...where I take a block of farmer cheese and add in diced cucumbers and tomatoes and sprinkle with onion powder....that I literally drool in anticipation of. I also really look forward to steamed broccoli with butter and some cheddar and feta sprinkled on it....also a nice omelet with cheddar and shredded bacon....etc. I feel like I REALLY taste the fresh ingredients...kinda difficult to explain...but the processed, sweet stuff (the bars, etc.) seem to blunt my taste for the really great, fresh, REAL and whole foods.
To me, things like sugared breakfast cereal or Twinkies...would taste like crap if I ate them. That generally happens when you become accustomed to fresh, whole foods. But by the same token, eating the Atkins sweets, for me, begins to deprived me of the fabulous taste of those fresh veggies, etc.....all the enjoyment I get from eating all the healthy and approved foods. Not to mention....putting me in danger of going into craving and binge mode.
Hope that made some sense. I'm a person who would rather avoid/prevent problems than try to come up with ways to try and climb over/around them. I read so many times here about how those on calorie-counting plans factor a candy bar or piece of chocolate cake into their daily calorie allotment.....and can't figure-out how they do it. That would spell big trouble for me....not necessarily in terms of threatening that daily intake allowed...but triggering my cravings for sweets....subsequently threatening to take me to binge mode.
It's funny....I can remember this really bad sweets mode I got myself into while I was frustrated and struggling to get Atkins to work for me again and running into so much difficulty. To cut to the chase...every evening I would crave sugar to the point where it was screaming in my head and I could not even go to sleep to prevent it. I would take an entire box of these chocolate-coated sugar wafers....and I would remember that the first few tasted like pure sugar/chocolate heaven and joy. They tasted so good! But once I ate the first few, I'd begin to just robotically eat the rest, hardly tasting them. It was like my taste-buds almost became anesthetized, once they experienced that pure chocolate-sugar rush. Yet I would continue to shovel them in....and then panic, seeing that over half the box was suddenly gone....and then in "beat myself up over it" mode....convince myself I might as well just finish the box...which I almost always did.
Or even more idiotic....leave a few in the box...thereby convincing myself that at least I'd managed to not eat every single one...so therefore, it wasn't quite so bad.
That behavior rates right up there with shaving tiny slices off a whole chocolate cake...convincing myself that all these tiny slices couldn't be that bad....even though I could clearly see that I'd shaved off half a cake or more. I would reason myself into all these optical illusions.
In my opinion....THE biggest factor (besides the elimination of constant hunger and cravings) in the success of doing Atkins....is understanding, as much as possible, HOW and WHY this WOE works.
Had I not understood this...I highly doubt that I would have stuck with it, for almost 4 years, trying to figure out why I couldn't get it to work this second time around. I would have just figured the diet didn't work for me...or work for me anymore. But my understanding made me see that the whole fat metabolism was a big equation....and that there was one critical piece of it that I was getting wrong (which was probably due to how the medication had altered my metabolism). I KNEW the equation was right....but just had to figure out which small part of it was off for me. I KNEW it was in my power to fix it....but I just had to figure out which tiny part needed to be altered. Had I not understood, I'd have given up long before....."one second before the miracle"..more or less.
And the reason why, since early last summer, I have not gone off plan even ONCE, not even for one second...is also due to understanding it. In my mind, I see my metabolism as a big fat-burning furnace. Literally see the fire burning.....and picture any type of non-allowed food as literally dousing the flames with a fire extinguisher. KNOW that it will set me back a day or two just to get that fire burning again to the same level.
For ME, I wanted to get to goal ASAP. So I refused to set it back even a day. But for sarahinparis, for instance, she is willing to allow more time and to slow it down in exchange for planned luxuries. The critical thing is that she understands this. And so she won't lapse into "the diet doesn't work" if it slows down. She already knows it will and expects it to happen....knows exactly what trade-off she's making. Her understanding it is the key. It prevents making incorrect assumptions, prevents giving up or getting frustrated or discouraged....so she has a great chance of long-term success, IMO.
If you get yourself in a mode where you totally understand exactly what slipping-in just a tidbit of something not allowed will result in/cause.....you will be much less likely to do it if, like me, you want to get to goal ASAP. If you want that fat-burning furnace to be running at full blast....and actually picture it in your mind....you will do what you gotta do to keep it burning that way.
Picture YOU at goal. And then picture that fat-burning furnace getting you there.
And you literally have to re-train your brain from all the entrenched beliefs we held for so many years.....that fat is bad, that just a tiny amount of sugar can be fit into the daily allotment, etc. This is a totally different WOE. It's almost magical if you do it the right way.
You can eat all sorts of fattening and filling foods....and still lose weight. But take those exact same foods...but add a tsp. of sugar? And you gain weight. It's as simple as that, really.
And you begin to learn and to just sense how your body will react to everything you put in it. Will just sense how much cheese YOUR body will allow and still lose, how much extra allowed veggies you can eat and still lose, whether any sort of Atkins-approved sweets will kick in cravings, how many calories might be too much or too little, etc. You'll become an expert regarding how YOUR body works on Atkins. And by the time you reach goal, you will be able to sense exactly what you need to eat and not eat in order to maintain the weight loss.
If I am out somewhere and having a difficult time trying to find something allowed and I'm hungry.....I will get a small package of nuts or get some hard-boiled eggs or celery sticks, etc. at a convenience store....and just avoid the bars...and anything processed, really....altogether.
deena