A bit of sugar enough to hurt?
 

I'm on/was on Atkins, but I haven't really been on the Atkins "plan" for a few weeks now. I just eat low carb/high fat. I've been staying at a friend's house for a week and I've mostly been living off of chicken, veggies, salad, boca/morningstar burgers, greek yogurt, salami, and cheese. A typical meal is a pile of broccoli and butter, a salad with Italian dressing and a boca burger with cheese melted on top.

However, I forgot my sugar-free syrups like DaVinci's and I can't STAND plain greek yogurt so I put some real sugar into the yogurt container and mixed it up. I've also had a few glasses of orange juice across the past few days. I'm a bit worried about the sugar and I don't have a scale to see the damage done. I don't want to waste the yogurt because my friend paid for it so I'm still going to eat it. Does anyone think it'll hurt too badly?

I doubt it will do that much damage even if you retain a little water your weight should come back down after a few days of eating on plan. I usually don't eat sugar but when I do it doesn't really effect my weight but everyone is different. You should be fine a little sugar here or there never killed anybody unless of course they were diabetic. XD

Juice is highly caloric and very carb heavy for the plan you're on, so you may have slipped out of ketosis, but I doubt you've gained anything from small slips. Remember though, the nutrient content of plans like Atkins is key, so the small sugar slips are a bigger deal than on a more calorie based than nutrient based plan.

It really depends on what you mean by hurt. In the scheme of things, even a whole week of nothing snickers bars is far from a tragedy. You would probably gain some weight, feel like crap, maybe your skin would break out - but it's one week.

I'm not saying that you should say "What the heck, it's only a week, so I'll eat as much as I can," because every week, every day, every single choice "count," for something - but you have to decide what that is.

What are your goals for this week slighlty off plan? Will you be upset by a weight gain (even if you're pretty sure it's only water weight gain from the extra carbs)? Are you expectiong or wanting to lose weight this week? If you get home and see a gain, will you see it as a tragedy or just a minor detour in your journey?

Only you can decide what defines "hurt too badly." And even if you define it (less than two pounds gained, and for all the gained wieght to be lost again within a week) - none of us can determine whether you will experience that. Our bodies really do vary enough that what might cause you a one pound gain, might cause one of us a two pound loss or a seven pound gain.


Your experience will have to be your guide. And if you don't know the answer yet, after the end of this week, you'll have more information, because only experimentation will tell you how your body will react.

For me, drinking a glass of fruit juice and sugaring my yogurt would tend to drive my sugar & carb cravings (and my generic hunger level) skyward. I might be able to get away with it for a day or two, but eventually if I wasn't extremely careful, I'd experience calorie and carb creep (well since I've already gone of plan, a few more off-plan treats won't hurt...). Being hungrier, I'd probably eat more even without realizing it. I'd be "off plan" so I might be less likely to journal (I have an extraordinarily bad habit of dropping my journaling when I go too far off plan. It's a habit I'm trying to change - recording everything I eat, even if it was a single bite off-plan - even if I don't know how to "count it" on my exchange plan).

Unfortunately trial and error is all any of us have. The important thing is not to let this experiment derail you, no matter what the results. If you do gain, most if not all will probably be water weight that will be easy to get rid of after 4 to 6 days back on plan (drinking a little extra water will help).

You'll have to determine though whether or not the off-plan eating was worth it. You might decide "yes, and I'd do it again without changing a thing," or you might decide "not really, and in a similar situation in the future, I'd do x, y, or z differently."

Either way your experiment is a success (in that you successfully learn what to do, or what not to do in the future).

Thank you guys. I was actually hoping to lose this week, mostly because I'm staying in a house full of naturally thin people and I've been going off of their eating schedule. Last time I came here I went slightly off plan and lost 10 pounds by the time I got home. I did expect to be slightly off plan again these 2 weeks because it's very difficult to cook in someone else's house. I mostly bought convenience foods so I could microwave and eat quickly. I would feel awkward being constantly upstairs boiling eggs and frying bacon.


My friend is very supportive of my diet so if he saw me trying to eat some chips or something he'd call me out on it and be like, "hey, don't eat that. You'll regret it." I'm thankful for that because otherwise being away from home and out of my comfort zone might cause me to be like "well I'm on vacation. Time to eat some chips!" His family also knows that I eat low carb and are really understanding. Last night his dad boiled some chicken and offered to let me have some so I made a stir-fry with it. That was nice.

I'm not going to stress about it anymore. You're right in saying that it won't do any permanent damage to add a bit of sugar to my yogurt or drink a glass of juice. If I gain a pound or two I can get it back off in no time.

I also have absolutely NO intentions of going "permanently off plan" no matter what. My weight loss is my #1 priority and I am going to see it through til the end.