Making the Atkins Diet Work for You

Several years ago, I decided to go on the Atkins diet because I was a bit overweight. Now, this is the first time that I have done any dieting. I was able to drop 10 pounds on the first week so I could not understand why so many people are always saying that losing weight is difficult. Of course, I found it a bit challenging on the first two weeks because I was not used to eating low carbohydrate foods exclusively.

Fortunately, I found that it was an easy diet to follow once I got past that two week mark. The Atkins diet suggests that a dieter eat foods that are rich in protein. This was an easy part because I have always been a big meat eater. However, giving up the potatoes and bread that I usually eat along with my meat was more difficult for me. I decided that I need to find alternative foods that were allowed on the diet to cure my craving for those foods.

To solve my problem, I purchased an Atkins diet book which not only outlines the diet but also has recipes. I found it amazing how you can eat a lot of food on the Atkins diet and still lose weight. The main challenge with this diet is getting some variety into your meals. The dinner meal was very easy to prepare when I first started the diet. I would usually have some type of protein, fish, pork, chicken or beef and a large leafy salad with blue cheese dressing for my dinner. This meal was not very different than what I ate before it was just minus the potato and bread.

However, the lack of variety started to bore me after a few weeks. I was still motivated to continue the diet because I was losing weight but I was getting tired of eating the same meal every night. Fortunately, I discovered some of the recipes in the back of the Atkins diet book. Mashed cauliflower became my favorite recipe because it has the same texture as mashed potatoes. The Atkins diet book also had a recipe for a salad that has all the same ingredients as potato salad, minus the potatoes. I just substituted cooked cauliflower for the potato. It tastes wonderful although I was a bit skeptical at first.

I have added carbohydrates back into my diet over the years. I gained some of the weight back at first, but I have now found the right balance. I was able to take off excess pounds with the Atkins diet, even though long a term diet with very low carbohydrates did not fit my life style.

Obesity Surgery Can Lead To Memory Loss And Movement Problems
A new US study suggests that obesity surgery such as gastric bypasses can cause vitamin deficiency that leads to memory loss, confusion, co-ordination, and other neurological problems.The study is published in the journal Neurology.A neurological sydrome called Wernicke encephalopathy occurs mostly in patients who vomit a lot after they have had weight loss surgery (also known as bariatric surgery). [click link for full article]

Obese Patients Run Higher Risk Of Post-Operative Complications
Obese patients have a significantly higher risk of complications following surgery, including heart attack, wound infection, nerve injury and urinary tract infection, according to a new study from researchers at the University of Michigan Health System. [click link for full article]

How to Display a Picture in Your Comments
I've finally enabled avatars / pictures for commenters. Here's how you do it. Go to a site called Gravatar. Follow the instructions by entering your email (make sure it is the same email address that you use for your diet-blog.com comments!). Once registered you can upload a picture. From then on your picture will display next to your comment (see...

Modern Imaging Unravels Causes Of Addictive Behaviour - A Possible Basis For New Therapies?
What can radiology contribute to the treatment of obesity (adipositas)? Evidently a great deal, as was made clear at the European Congress of Radiology (ECR 2007) at Austria Center Vienna. [click link for full article]

Splenda Buys Hundreds of Anti-Splenda Domains
The makers of Splenda have been busy. Busy enough to purchase over 211 domain names - such as SplendaKills.com, SplendaPoison.com, SplendaVictims.com. It is an elaborate and insidious ploy to prevent any negative information being written on-line....

Fruit Juice: Making Kids Fat?
Research from Australia has concluded that children who drink 2 cups of fruit juice or fruit drinks per day were more likely to be overweight or obese than those who did not. It seems that the more fruit juice consumed, the more chance of being overweight: "Children who drank more than three glasses of soft drink - three quarters...

Red Pepper: Hot Stuff For Fighting Fat?
Food scientists in Taiwan are reporting new evidence from laboratory experiments that capsaicin - the natural compound that gives red pepper that spicy hot kick - can reduce the growth of fat cells. The study is scheduled for the March 21 issue of the ACS' Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, a bi-weekly publication. [click link for full article]

Is Subway Better Than McDonald's?
Subway have taken aim at McDonald's with their new "Fresh Fit" meals. The combo meals are compared side-by-side against a Big Mac meal. Subway's meal comes out at 265 calories, while the Big Mac meal hits a gluttonous 1230 calories. But there's more to it than that......