One catch too, I need to keep it off.

I've been running for at least 30 minutes (run/walk that is), almost daily, since around July 10th.

I've seriously cut back on the food/fats/calories/etc. I eat between 25 and 50 carbs after each run (personal trainer said so).

I haven't noticed much for results.

When I go out for my run tomorrow, I'm going to upgrade from 30 minutes, to 45 minutes.

I'm going to start doing more sit ups, and push ups too...


any other suggestions??


PS:I got done with my 30 min run, at about 10pm, and as I was walking home, I saw a couple mexicans making out.. On a bench behind a senior center, no doubt. lol.. just thought you'd like to know...     (I usally run in the mornings/afternoon)

Thanks!! But is there any way you can back that statement up??

A personal trainer I knows said I should eat about 50 carbs after I get done running....

I used to drink about 7 20oz bottles of Mountain Dew a day. (Gotta have that caffine to keep up in college)  When summer break arrived I stopped drinking soda and started drinking water.  By loosing those carbos I droped 16 pounds in two weeks and about 30 pounds all together.  Carbos are the key.

Yea! That does makes sense!

No more choking down all that damn bread!

Yuppie,

It is too early to expect results. Most people get discouraged if they don't see anything happening after a couple of weeks. Give it at least 6 weeks. Once the pounds start coming off you will notice things happening faster. You have to change your metabolism and it doesn't happen overnight. You don't loose weight by excercizing you loose weight by increasing your metabolism which in turn increases the calories you burn while at rest. Increased muscle mass also plays a big part in the calories you burn at rest. It takes a lot more energy to maintain muscle than fat. When I first started lifting it seemed like I was never making any progress, then all of the sudden it seemed like I was buying a new size of clothes every couple of weeks.

One mistake you are making is eating late at night and after a workout. I usually wait 2 hours after I lift to eat, just let my body wind down, and I never eat within a couple of hours of going to bed. I am usually not very hungry after lifting anyway. Try carbing up at lunch time and don't go on any trendy or crash diets they never work long term.

Drink lots of water. I went from 265 to my current weight of 230 by drinking water rather than eating crap and drinking soda (still have 30 lbs to go..).

Keep running, make sure you build muscle (it burns more calories), and drink water.

Remember, you should never lose more than 2 pounds a week. Otherwise your body will think it's starving and store everything in fat.

Pick up a copy of Mens Health while your at it...

Simple, just cut the fat intake down. Eat fruit for a snack, avoid full strength dairy products,and have abalanced diet, and before you know it, you'll have more energy, and just exercise more. A good 30min brisk walk is better than a jog.

You'll drop your 7kg with in a month to 6 wks.

Well now that your frig is damaged losing weight should be easy [:D}.

Sorry, but I couldn't resist.

sgtar15

SGB--where did you learn that protein is pure fuel?

The energy system of the body is based on the breakdown of glucose through to the final production of ATP.  Your muscle stores the energy as Creatine Phosphate and Glycogen (multiple strands of glucose linkages).  

Proteins are amino acids, and can be broken down to energy also, but have to go through a couple of extra steps to enter the Glycolysis/TCA cycle to produce energy.  Protein is the primary building block of muscle tissue.  

You are right about the Glucose/Carbs being stored as fat in excess.  The best way to loose weight is not to eat more calories than you are burning off.  It really doesn't matter if you are eating carbs, protein or fats after you exercise--if you take in more energy than you burn off, you will gain weight.  If you take in too little energy, then you will start to consume VITAL body resources (i.e. starvation).  What is proper for any one individual may not work for another.  

The benefits of exercise are twofold--1.  You are actively burning off more calories as you exercise than if you weren't exercising, and 2. you are increasing your basal metabolic rate (the basic rate at which your resting body uses energy)--thus allowing more burning of excess calories in the body even when you are not exercising.

Your best bet is to slowly decrease your caloric intake (but not by too much) while increasing your level of exercise.  To lose weight and keep it off, you should be just barely consuming less calories than you burn in a day of exercise and rest.  If you try to do it quickly, the body will just regain the weight as soon as you stop.

Me--I'm about 35 lbs. over what I should be--so so do as I say, not as I do.

And, I found that when I stop drinking the Diet Soda I usually do (need that caffeine!!!) and start drinking just H2O (I prefer it ice cold), I slowly loose weight--I eat less, sleep better and am actually more alert at all times, instead of just on the caffeine high).

You should buy the book "The Formula" by Gene and Joyce Daoust. It is based on the 40-30-30 food plan. 40% of calories from carbs, 30 from fat, 30 from protien. I swear by it. Lost over 30 lbs in a couple month. I promise you will see results in no time.

Maybe you should start kicking your fridge instead of punching it.  I recommend 5 rounds of 3 minutes to start.  Then you can add one round of 3 minutes every day until you can kick it's ass for a solid 12.  Non-stop kicking mind you.  And you probably should strap on some of those ankle weight just to make sure that you can hit it nice and hard.  Eventually it will break.  Then it won't be able to force feed you any more of it's contents.  

If you are REALLY serious about this, then you MUST add some kind of resistance training to your regimen. It will increase your results dramatically. Fitness is a triangle: Nutrition, Aerobic excersize, and weight lifting.....skimping out on any single one will reduce your chances of success.

Bulldog out

your all wrong. try Crack-Fast, the worlds quickest weight loss program
[img]www.ar15.com/members/albums/NYshooter%2Fimg0020b%2Ejpg[/img]

There's lots of ways. If you don't perform resistance training you will lose muscle, not fat only. This will slow down your metabolism and cause you to store fat. Keep running in the morning and start lifting in the afternoons you don't run. Cut the carbs way down. You only need substantial carbs if you're looking to put on serious muscle. I run 2-3 times a week and lift 4-5. I still try not to exceed 75 carbs a day. Your body will tell you what makes you operate best. But to lose the weight CUT THE CARBS. At least temporarily. Take the weight off and then gradually bring them back a little at a time. Also read Body for Life, Protien Power, and Sugerbusters. Then make your own decision.

OK.. thanks for the help guys!!

But as for the weight lifting/resistance stuff, me going to the gym is very non-convenante.

Could sit-ups, and push-ups [b]effectivly[/b] substitute the weight lifting??


Thanks...

(ps: spell checker wont come up - my spelling is not the greatest)

OK, this was my routine back inthe day when I use to compete in martial arts.

I would do 1hrs aerobic exercise.
Follow that up with 30-45 of weight training. Light weight hi reps. like 4 sets of 15. I would not work on the entire body just segmints at a time 4days a week. I.E. Shoulder and arms/chest and back/legs and glutes/
I did abs everyday though. You need to do more than cardio cause muscle mass will help you burn fat even if you're not moving.

As far as diet. I ate 5-6 SMALL lo fat or not fat meals a day. I.E. Fruit salad for breakfast med sized bowl. 2-3hrs later I would have a half a sandwich all the fixins but no mayo. I would eat it dry. then maybe some rice cakes.
Eat only about a qtr of what you would normally eat each meal. Drink lots and lots of water. My intructor use to tell me to drink half my body wieght in ounce.

I used Sunday to eat junk food. You need an off day or else you are not going to make it on a diet. Just don't go overboard on those day.

I kept a constant weight of 180lbs up until I stopped. Then I balooned to 210lbs. I still eat what ever I want. but concetrate on keeping muscle mass. I just don't watch my diet as much as I did. Without maintaining muscle mass I would be 300lbs. with my current diet.

Losing the 15 pounds is easy. The problem is you'll gain 20 pounds back. Do this a couple of times and you'll be 50 or more pounds overweight in a couple of years.

Forget all the diets. You need to change your nutritional and exercise program for the rest of your life.

First and foremost you need to limit your carbs and replace what carbs you are eating with low glycemic value foods.

Read this book and follow what makes sense to you and what works for YOU. It's not the gospel but it's on the right track. [url]http://www.syndrome-x.com/[/url]

Low GI foods: [url]http://members.nbci.com/hexaquad/health3e.htm[/url]

When I feel a bit too hefty, I go into "meat mode".  (Cholesterol levels not a problem for me - 180.)  

For dinner I have a nice lean NY steak (I don't eat the fatty edges and I soak all 'run off' into paper towel or napkin so it's 'dry'.)
Dinner is a NY steak, a Caesar salad (very lite dressing) and a diet Coke. On alternating nights I have a nice lean French Dip sandwich w/o too much of a bun. *NO POTATOES* or rolls, etc. - those are fat pills.

I have a bit of cereal every other morning, and a bagel for lunch.  Ideally I should have my larger meal at lunch but it just doesn't work that way for my schedule (or my hunger schedule).

When I do this for an extended period, I drop the pounds nicely - I lost about 18lbs doing this before being mugged by an array of fudge sundaes and a craving for potatoes.

It may not be for everyone, but higher-protein, lower-card intake can help you lose the lbs.

Try drinking about 8oz of Ganges water, works for hundreds of millions........

I weighed 185 back on May 5th this year.  By June 22 I weighed 160 (I'm only 5'10 and have a small frame).  

I lost the weight by eating less than 30 grams of carbs per day (and no sugar), drinking water, and taking a vitamin.  

Sometimes I lost 3-4 pounds per day.  Other times I would plateau and my weight would stay the same for about 3-5 days.  The end result was a weight loss of 25 pounds in 6 weeks. Like I said, I got off the diet on June 22 and I've since kept the weight off

Some people say the "Atkin's Diet" is not healthy.  

IT'S ALSO UNHEALTHY TO BE OBESE.

I still wouldn't go on Atkins for longer than 2-3 months, though.

The way I cut my weight was to start going to the gym and condition the muscles.  Once they're conditioned, they demand fat for fuel and will burn it even at rest.  But you have to get them into that state, which takes time, and you need to visit a gym, to work as many different muscles as possible.  And plenty of protien and aminos to help them grow.

For my diet I just stuck to food with lots of nutritional value.  Calories aren't bad as long as there's lots of nutritional value in the food.  Soda is horrible stuff because it's 180 calories and NO nutrition at all.

You probably have 25lbs. in your large and small
intestines. Colonics for a starter. High protein
diet to finish coupled with sit, push, and pull
ups. Drink nothing but water.

Dumbbells are not that expensive. Just buy one pair each of 10, 15, 20 and 25 lbs. You would be surprised how many excersises you can do with just those weights.

Plus they don't take up lots of room, no equipment to setup, and you can shove them under the couch when you are done.

Every cell in your body is powered by glucose and insulin. Your blood glucose level circulating in your blood has to be maintained in an extremely narrow range. Too little and you'll be dead in a few hours. Too much and you'll be dead in a few weeks or months.

Forget all that nonsense about "burning fat". The only thing you body can burn is glucose with the help of insulin. Your liver can convert the stored fat to glucose and can also convert it back and store it as fat.

The problem with carbs most everyone eats is they almost immediately get converted to glucose and flood your blood with glucose, which causes an insulin response. High levels of glucose and insulin are toxic to every cell in your body. We were never designed to eat the highly refined carbs that most of us eat everyday in vast quantities.

You need to restrict your intake of carbs. Use the GI to replace high GI carbs with lower GI carbs. Do not restrict your carb intake to the point of starvation. Your body will start to "eat" itself including your heart muscle.  

a personal trainer just emailed me this:

"Eating carbs does not make you fat. Sounds like Atkins
diet lovers (they eat excess protein and fat but no
carbs. Just stupid.) running and nutrition is one
thing I know something about. You need carbs to run.
you probably don't need much more than you'd normally
eat if you run for 30 mins but it's fat that makes you
fat, and excess sugar. not carbs."


What should I do??

Don't I need to eat carbs after I run, so, I don't burn muscle, but fat??

Ever since I lost my job about a month ago, I lost like 5 lbs from not being able to buy all the stuff I used to eat. I think I might be putting the ice cream man out of business.

pay particular attention to the statement in bold.  this is key.  we all know that we have to burn more calories than we consume in order to lose weight.  so we go workout.  but so many stop there.  by building muscle mass and increasing the energy demand for merely [i]maintaining[/i] that mass, we can lose weight more quickly.

i also once read that our resting metabolic rate is about 50% of our total daily metabolic rate.  so if you can increase your resting metabolic rate, you'll lose weight more quickly.

Carbs ARE sugar. Some get converted immediately while others take a little longer.

Are you trying to lose weight or build muscle mass?

added as an afterthought:

i don't know how you feel about weightloss supplements.  if you're not totally opposed to them, read on.  if so, skip to next post.

i've used one for the past month to help with my weightloss goals.  along with regularly working out and paying attention to what i eat, this product has been great.

i was a total skeptic at first, but seeing is believing (no, guys, no pics yet. sorry)  i've lost at least 10 pounds since i started taking it just a month ago.  my appetite is more controlled.  i no longer have cravings for sugary sweet stuff or high-fat foods.  i have more energy.  and i drink lots more water because my craving for the case of pepsi a week is gone.

i personally know a couple other people who have lost weight using this product.  many doctors use it to help their diabetic patients control their weight to better help them control their diabetes.
[url]www.trekallianceonline.com/jsppages/GoToBigBaseId.jsp?baseid=88[/url]

take a serious look at bill philips body for life book. www.bodyforlife.com  its no nonsense.basically eat like a diabetic and drinkwater.ask your doctor,this is what mine told me. if the gym is hard to get to,then for a callestenics workout try the guide to navy seal fitness by stuart smith @ www.getfitnow.com

this isn't a gung-ho BS book like 99% of the seal wannabe books or like the cj carrci or whatever his name is,but an actual work out plan that is intense and challenging with exercise demos and stretches(VERY IMPORTANT) A GREAT BOOK! just check it out,unless you are a gym rat or body builder,look else where.but if you want to amaze yourself with your own ability and see it increase dramatically,and not be bored doing it while losing weight and building confedence,try the book by stuart smith. if you can get to the gym alot go with the body forlife book,or even better,do the stuart smith work out with the body for life nutrition and EXCELL! good luck to you and your endevor.( trust me,hey if you get the book and it doesn't help you,e-mail me and I will buy it from you,another copy for work would be great,we get 1 hour for pt every day,seriously)

feel free to email me and we can chat more on this , I feel youre pain.

The Atkins book has alot of good info.  Basically we consume much more carbs than is natural or normal.  

I have found that an extremely low carb diet looses weight quicker than any other.  Or course it's difficult to maintain long term because of all the temptation.  After a few days of vrtually no carbs, you will loose any sensation of hunger, because the body has switched over to utilising stored fat.  Your body will not "eat" your heart.  That is nonsense.  

Any "diet" that eliminates carbs is nutritionally unsound. There are too many good things in the "right" carbs to do that for extended periods.

The key is restricting and replacing high glycemic index carbs with low value GI carbs. Add high quality proteins, fats and vitamin mineral supplements along with aerobic exercise and you'll be on the right track to losing and maintaining your weight loss.

Poor nutrition will have a negative effect on every cell in your body. That includes your heart.

Your goal should be losing and maintaining weight loss with good nutrition.

I have a friend that caught salmenila, spelling... You know the chicken thing. Anyways, he lost 45 pounds in a month and he was not overweight. So you could eat raw chicken and hope for the best.

ROFLMAO!!! enigma2y0u, you have the makings of a best seller!

I don’t mean to sound like an a$$hole in this post.  It’s just a subject that burns a hole in my a$$ when people give half-truths.  
Also I’ll try and make this a simple as possible.  Due to that fact, some of the following isn’t 100% correct, but for all practical purposes is correct.
Yuppie: first off…fire your personal trainer.  He’s an idiot.  No joking.  
M15A2:  good advice.  Water should be your primary source of fluids.  People tend to eat when they’re thirsty.  Soda has caffeine in it, so it acts as a diuretic.  So your body doesn’t get much if any H20 from the soda.  Soda also has a lot of carbs and that’s not good.  More on this in a minute.
Buster: some good advise, some bad.  The leaner you are the easier it is to see results.  In other words if Mr. X was 200lbs and lost 20lbs, you’d see it.  But if Mr. Y is 400lbs and lost 20lbs, you most likely wouldn’t be able to tell.  But you should be losing FAT from the beginning.  Yes muscle does increase your metabolism.  That’s why a muscular 200lb man can eat more than a 100lb woman.  But you can only gain 5-10lbs of muscle per year.  So it takes a while.  Your diet and exercise regimen are what’s going to keep you lean.  Muscular people get fat too.  
AFARR:  I see we have some form of training, somewhere.  Good advice.
Millhouse:  Glad to see your following the Zone.  Gene and Joyce Daoust have a couple of books out.  The ones I’ve read are pretty good and easy reading.  
Forest:  Yes any idiot can be a personal trainer.  But doctors receive VERY little training about nutrition. So it’s a no win situation.  

Okay this is how it goes.  All food is made up of Protein, Carbohydrates, Fat, or a combination of them.  How many calories a food has is calculated by adding up protein and carbohydrates subtract the fiber and multiply by 4.  Then take the fat, multiply by 9 and add the two values together.  
If you eat more calories than your body needs you will gain FAT.  It doesn’t matter if it’s fruit and vegetables or ice cream.  If you eat less than your body needs, you will lose WEIGHT.  That weight could be fat.  Or it could be muscle.  The obvious example is if you starve yourself.  
Protein is made up of amino acids.  The amino acids are the building blocks for the cells in your body.  See, cells are always dieing and new ones being made.  That’s why you need protein in your diet.  If you don’t consume enough, you body will go to it’s own muscle, break it down, and use those amino acids.  Not good.  Not to offend anyone, but most vegetarians have this problem.  That’s why 9 out of 10 times they look really gaunt.  
Carbohydrates:  good old carbs.  Okay, carbohydrates are used by your body for energy.  There are 2 types of energy I’m talking about here.  The first is glucose in your muscles.  Your muscles use ATP for fuel.  Your body can only store a very little amount of it.  After the ATP is used up (first 5-10 seconds), the body converts glucose to ATP.  The body can also convert fat to ATP, but it’s a slower process.  So if your lifting weights, the body is taking glucose and converting it, because fat couldn’t convert fast enough.  Go for a walk and the fat to ATP process is more than fine.  So you’ll burn fat.  That’s why some people will tell you it’s better to walk than run.  In theory you’re burning a larger percentage of calories from fat.  In reality, it’s not that simple.  
The second form of energy is your blood sugar (glucose).  The human brain used blood sugar for fuel.  Blood sugar levels should be between 80-120mg*dl.  If it goes to high (lets say 800 or so) damage to the nervous system will occur.  If it goes too much below 80, you’ll feel hungry, tired, and lethargic.  So if you don’t eat any carbohydrates your blood sugar levels will start to fall.  Sooner or later you’re not going to feel to good.  Continue not to eat any carbohydrate and your blood sugar levels will drop into the 30-40 range.  At this point the body realizes that it’s running out of glucose and will switch to Ketones.  Ketones are a byproduct of when fat is burned for fuel.  Once your body makes the switch you’ll feel great.  This is because you now have a constant supply of fuel for the brain.  Anyone that’s ever tried the Atkins diet will know what I’m talking about.  That’s why you can’t eat any (or not many) carbohydrates on this kind of diet.  If you do you’ll keep your blood sugar at the 50ish range.  If that happens, you’ll never enter ketosis, and feel like crap all the time.  Not fun.

All carbohydrates digest and turn into glucose and enter your blood stream.  If you sit down and eat a large bowl of pasta (300g of carbohydrates or so) these carbohydrates will turn into glucose and go into your blood stream and blood sugar levels will go up.  If they go above the 120 range, you body will release insulin.  The insulin will take the glucose from your blood stream, bringing blood sugar level back to an expectable range.  Now this sugar has to go somewhere and the body will stick it in 3 places.  The liver, muscles, and fat.  The liver holds around 90g of carbohydrates in case blood sugar levels drop to low.  If this happens the liver will secrete some glucose back into the blood stream.  That’s why you can miss a meal and not feel to bad.  We already talked about glucose in the muscles.  So once your liver and muscles are full, the rest get turned into fat.  The insulin that your body released will also stay in your system for a couple of hours.
One last thing about insulin, it stops you from burning fat!  This is really important.  It also stops your liver from releasing glucose back into the blood stream.
So lets say we don’t eat any carbs, like Dr. Atkins suggests.  You’ll enter ketosis.  No carbohydrates mean the release of no insulin, witch means your body can burn fat more efficiently.  In reality, the less insulin in your blood stream, the easier the body can convert fat to ATP.  So does this mean not to eat carbohydrates?  NO!  The problem with the Atkins diet is twofold.  First, people tend to east tons of SATURATED fat on this diet.  Sorry friends, saturated fat isn’t good for you.  It doesn’t matter if you’re in ketosis or not.  Plus all the fat tends to add up to a lot of calories.  Remember, if you eat more than you need, you’ll still gain fat.  Second: being in ketosis is very demanding on your system.  What I mean is that most people don’t get the micronutrients that they need.  The PH of your blood will tend to go below 7.0.  For long-term health, you want it at 7.0 or a little higher.  Also, the body will store fat easier when you come out of ketosis.   So if you do the Atkins diet, you almost need to stay on it.  If you do, try and eat more monounsaturated fat.

If we go on a low fat, high carbohydrate diet, we’re still screwed.  The brain needs around 120-150 grams of carbs per day.  If we consume more than that the rest gets stored.  Like the pasta mentioned earlier.  You sit down for dinner.  Lets say blood sugar levels are 95mg*dl.  You just finished a work out consisting of weight lifting.  After dinner you’re going to go running.  So you sit down and eat the past.  The pasta turns to glucose and enters your blood stream.  Blood sugar starts to go up.  150…200…250…  Your body starts to release insulin.  The insulin removes the sugar from the blood stream.  Blood sugar drops.  As a matter of fact it might go down too much and you’ll fell tired.  The insulin drops 50g or so of carbohydrates in your liver.  The liver is now full.  Since you just finish a workout, there is some room for glucose in your muscles.  Your body drops off what it can.  And the rest gets stored as fat.  Now your blood sugar is low, maybe 80.  And you have some insulin floating around your system for the next couple of hours.  You get dressed to go to the gym.  Blood sugar continues to drop (brain is using it).  By now you’re at the gym, blood sugar level is 70.  You feel tired.  Your liver can’t release the glucose because of the insulin.  You start running on the treadmill.  An hour later you get off, and the read out says that you burned 700 calories.  But how much was body fat?  Almost none.  Why?  All the insulin in you system.  Makes it hard to turn fat to ATP.  You just used up the glucose in you muscles and very little fat.
Some where between these two evils is what you should be done.  The zone diet or any 40/30/30 diets, is a good start.  They allow enough carbohydrates for your blood sugar levels to stay stable, but not to many to cause the reduction in the ability of your body to convert fat.  
Ar15patrol:  good link about glycemic index.  Read those pages.  The lower the value the better.  In theory if you could find a food with a glycemic index low enough, you could eat all your carbohydrates at one meal and it would take 24 hours to digest.  But that wont happen.  

So what should you do?  I’d do the following:  Find your Lean Body Mass.  This is your weight minus how much fat you have on you.  For example if you weigh 200lbs and are 30% fat your LBM is 140.  200 – (200x.30).  Then multiply your LBM by .5 to 1.0.  .5 is if you do nothing.  1.0 would be very active.  This is how much protein you should eat in a day.  For every 3 grams of protein eat 4 grams of carbohydrates.  And for every 2 grams of protein eat 1 gram of fat.
In this example if you where semi active.  You run/walk 45 minutes a day.  I would multiply my LBM by .7  So 140x.7=98 grams of protein.  Divide by 3 and multiply by 4 and you get 130.  This is how may carbs you need per day.  And half of 98 is 49.  So 49 grams of fat per day.  Remember that fiber doesn’t count.  So if you eat a meal and it has 30grams of carbohydrates and 10 grams are fiber, only count 20 grams.  
The body can only lose about 2 pounds of fat per week.  So if you’re losing more than that, most likely it’s muscle.  With the exception of the first week or if your entering ketosis.  In either case some water weight and other junk will be lost.  So it’ll seem like you lost 10 pounds or so in a week.  You really didn’t.
As far as cardio goes, you need to do it.  The body will slow it’s metabolism down sooner or latter.  The cardio will keep it up.  If you can, do your cardio first thing in the morning on an empty stomach.  You’ll have the lowest insulin levels at this time, and will use the highest percentage of fat as fuel.  Do the cardio for 30 to 60 minutes, five times per week.  I won’t get into were your heart rate should be, but as a rule of thumb: if you can’t breath threw your nose, your going to fast.  Sow down!
I hope this helps.  I’ll stop typing now.  If you guys want me to further explain I will.  Sorry for the rant.

I can talk from experience.  Beginning this year, I was 310, now I am down to 235 (only 40 more pounds to go).  How did I do it?  The running walking 3-5 miles a day (with two days off a week to rest my joints), and lowering the amount I eat really did not help me that much.

What did work was eating a small breakfast (normally an instant breakfast drink) with a multivitamin.  Lunch would be light, and I would eat it slowly. It is amazing how much food I was unable to eat.

For dinner, usually I would not be hungry, so I would have another breakfast drink or so.  The biggest thing that I have done that has helped a lot is taking about 5 grams of vitamin C each day.   1000 mg in the morning.  1000 mg at lunch, 2000 mg after working out, then 1000mg before going to sleep.  

I am averaging about 15-20 pounds a month loss (the weight really did not start coming off until April), and have not put anything  back on.

Find out what works for you, and keep with it.  Good luck!

Lots of great info Len.  You obviously know your stuff.  I'm not an expert and don't want to come off as disagreeing with you because I don't.  Just wanted to point out a couple of things.



Atkins does not promote zero carbs.  Many people confuse the Induction phase of the diet as the way you will always eat. (Again, you probably know this, just trying to clarify for the audience).  The induction phase calls for about 20 grams of carbs a day for two weeks.  These are to come from good leafy-greens and veggies.  The point is to quickly get the abused system to a "normal" level.  Then after that you increase carbs on a weekly basis @ 5grams per day until you reach a good level for you.  The point is eliminating most sugars and junk like white flour and replacing it with whole grains and vegetables.  as you said, somewhere in the middle is the way to go.  



Can't argue with you too much there...



Actually, many people find that after cutting out stuff like sodas, cookies, crackers, breads, most fruit and all that other stuff, they actually take in LESS calories.



Admittedly, Atkins does recommend supplements to make up for some loss in nutrients.  But for someone like me, their nutrient levels probably aren't all that great to start with.
If just low fat worked for everyone then I'd be a skinny MF.  I lost weight that way once, but starved myself to do it.  Sure I enjoy the occasional junk food, but no more than the next guy.  I just wasn't eating RIGHT.  My real vice was soda (and beer, no fat there either) as I rarely drank water.  Now I'm drinking LOTS of water.
I lost about 15 pounds in two weeks on Atkins.  I slipped a little bit recently, but was able to keep the weight off by staying away from the sugar and avoiding some breads.  I'm back on now and have lost another 5.  Exercise is invaluable to weight loss and health.

Have your legs fluted!
Works on AR barrels!
TF

Burning ketones is your bodies backup energy system to keep you alive in the absence of glucose. Your brain and muscles really don't like it and don't operate at peak performance levels. It goes back to the days when we had to exist on our fat stores to survive.

Len has some good info in his post.

Unfortunately quick weight loss usually means quick weight gain when you go off the diet.