How to Tweak a Low Carb Diet to Achieve Success

Rope Tied into a Heart

I’ve received a few questions lately asking me how I managed to make a low-carb diet work so well for me.

These questions are coming from individuals who have tried The Atkins Diet, as written, but have not found it to work as promised.

With all of the various Atkins' diets to choose from, such as:
  1. Atkins 72
  2. Atkins 84
  3. Atkins 92
  4. Atkins 99
  5. Atkins 2002
  6. A New Atkins for a New You
  7. Atkins 20
  8. Atkins 40
  9. Atkins 100
People want  to know -- which one did "I" use? Which version worked best for me? And which version let me lose over 100 pounds?


Other questions have asked how to make a low carb diet work, period. What can people do when Atkins stops working or when their low-carb diet plan of choice doesn’t work to begin with?

How can you tweak a keto diet to achieve success?

So I've decided to write a series that details some of the things I did.

In this first post, I'm going to give you an general introduction to the topic of tweaking your low-carb diet, and then in future posts of this series, I will go more into detail of how I actually lost over 100 pounds following a low-carb diet.

[This is an earlier version, so if you want even more details, please check out the link above. It will take you to my newer series, How I Lost Over 100 Pounds Tweaking the Atkins Diet.]


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Why Atkins Doesn't Always Work Well


The Atkins Diet, as written, is an attempt to reach the greatest number of individuals. It is a general guideline that works for most people, but it does not work for everyone.

Why?

Because we are not personal patients of Dr. Atkins.

When Dr. Atkins was still alive, he did a few interviews that shed light on the overall process of low-carb weight loss. In those interviews, he clearly stated that low-carb products were for maintenance and special occasions only, not for the Ongoing Weight Loss portion (OWL) of his diet.

He also said that he had to place almost all of his patients on temporary thyroid medication to help them reach goal weight.

I saw similar problems in myself.


If you go too low in carbs for too long, your thyroid can be affected adversely. This is not a permanent situation unless you stay in ketosis at maintenance.

The deeper concern is adaption. The body can adapt to 20 net carbs, or less, making it almost impossible to return more carbs to the diet.

If you have about 50 pounds or less to lose and you are new to a low-carb diet, any version of The Atkins Diet will get you to goal.

If you are not new to The Atkins Diet, or if you have more than 50 pounds to lose, you might have trouble. That is because the body adapts to the dieting situation we have created for ourselves.

The body quickly learns how many ketones it needs to feed the brain, heart, and other body systems and organs that use ketones for fuel. It remembers that number from dieting attempt to dieting attempt, which is why Induction tends to produce less and less weight loss each time you go on it.

In addition, the body slows down metabolism, to protect your fat stores, so you burn fewer calories as the diet continues.

If you have developed food sensitivities, allergies, or autoimmune problems along the way, those health issues will keep the intestines inflamed and interfere with the way the body absorbs nutrients and converts food and excess body fat into energy.

Once the body learns and adapts, the metabolic advantage of a low-carb diet disappears.

There is still the advantage of burning a few extra calories that are involved in the breakdown of protein, but over the course of the day, that isn’t very many -- about 25 percent of your protein calories.

What results is a diet that contains no greater metabolic advantage than a general low-calorie diet provides.

I saw this tendency right from the get-go when I only lost 2 pounds on Induction when I returned to low-carb dieting and started this blog at the beginning of 2007.

That was my fourth attempt to reach goal weight, so I completely stalled out within the first couple of months – even though I still weighed over 250 pounds.

Although I’d had good success with the old Weight Watchers’ exchange program several years prior, my heart belonged to low-carb dieting. I knew that it worked, because it had worked well for me before.


In the ‘70s, I had shed my excess 40 pounds within only a couple of months.

I also knew that the principles being preached within the low-carb community in early 2007 were not the same principles that were taught in connection with low-carb dieting at the end of 1999.

At that time, Dr. Atkins was still alive, so occasionally the members of the Atkins newsgroup would post his personal answers to some of the questions the members had about his diet.

That is my background.

Atkins differs from Keto, that preaches the concepts of high fat and high calories for maintenance.

What Atkins Really Is


At 250 pounds, even though I am only five-feet tall, post-menopause, and disabled due to vertigo, I was told by many members of various low-carb egroups and forums that I needed to consume over 2,500 calories per day to prevent starvation mode.

In fact, whenever anyone had an issue with losing weight, the general consensus back then was to eat more fat!

But eating more meat and fat was not the answer.

Now, The Atkins Diet was never intended to be the high-meat, high-fat diet that many within the low-carb community had turned it into.

This is why there are many low-meat, higher carb, and vegetarian plans within low-carb circles, as well.

We are all individuals and low carb must be tweaked to fit your own personal metabolic irregularities. Dr. Atkins has repeatedly stated that in his books.

Plus, you can easily see that by picking up any version of The Atkins Diet and looking at the recipes found in the back of the book.


For example, in the 2002 version of the diet, the recipe for cauliflower salad uses only a quarter of a cup of mayonnaise to a whole head of cauliflower. It divides that salad into six servings for 85 calories and eight grams of fat per serving. With eggs and cheese in that salad, you wouldn't even need meat.

Likewise, a typical Atkins Induction Diet menu given in that same book consists of a two-egg omelet made with a little lean ham, some avocado, and a tomato for breakfast; a Caesar salad topped with grilled chicken breast strips for lunch; and a juicy steak, roasted asparagus, a small side salad with lemon vinaigrette dressing and diet gelatin made with Splenda for dinner. The snack for the day was a stalk of celery stuffed with some herb cream cheese.

But the meat portions were small.

There was no such thing as super-sized portions in the 70s, and the portion sizes didn't get any bigger in 2002.

While this menu is certainly higher in meat and fat than a typical low-calorie diet, it was far less meat and fat and calories than people in the low-carb community were telling me to eat.

A quick glance at some of the weight loss success stories discussed in Dr. Atkins’ books revealed very surprising tendencies.

When placed side by side, those who ate fewer calories and less fat lost weight quickly; those who ate more calories and fat lost weight slowly. And many of them stalled due to the excessive amounts of meat and fat.

While weight loss isn’t a race, I had reached a point in my weight-loss journey where I wasn’t losing any weight at all and needed to know why.


The difference in the pattern between the various individuals was clear: The daily calories consumed and the amount of dietary fat in the diet mattered more than the amount of carbohydrate.

Sorry, but that's what I saw.

So, at that point, I decided that I needed to do a thorough study of all of the Atkins’ books because I realized that what Dr. Atkins taught and what the low-carb community in general was saying did not agree. 

Can't Prove My Position


Unfortunately, I do not have all of Dr. Atkins’ books anymore to refer too. A couple of years ago, I lost all of my possession in a personal accident, which included the books in my living room bookshelf.

The only possessions I was able to save were the books I had placed in a small, fully-enclosed VCR cabinet in my bedroom. Plus, whatever was in my bedroom closet or the garage.

This means, I no longer have a copy of the 1992 or 1999 Atkins’ books. I do have a copy of the 1984 plan, which paralleled the 1992 and 1999 plans, that Dr. Atkins published in his nutrition breakthrough book.

But I don't have the discussions for those two plans.

I also have my memories of those doing a vegetarian Atkins and what I remember I ate then myself. Back then, soy was not feared like it is today.

At this stage in my weight-loss journey, however, I don’t feel the need to re-buy the books, because they won't change what I've learned about myself.

This means I won’t be able to prove what was in them, except for perhaps the few quotes I’ve used in previous posts for those who want to know what Dr. Atkins actually said.

Since proving my position isn’t what the questions I’ve been receiving lately from readers are about, I plan to just move forward with this series such as things are and be more forthcoming than I was in my previous posts.

At that time, there was a lot of controversy going on within the low-carb community regarding safe and unsafe low-carb practices, which isn’t being debated right now. In fact, low-carb vegetarianism was rarely discussed when I first wrote this series like it is today, 2019.

In 2012, there were far more individuals who had found themselves in my same position than there was in 1999. 

Although low carb as written can help many individuals to reach their goals, perhaps my own personal experiences with tweaking a low-carb diet can be of benefit to those who struggle to make them work.

If you don't eat meat, or very little, here is our post on how to do a vegetarian Atkins:

How to Do the Eco-Atkins Diet Correctly

The following links go to the rest of this series:


Part 2: My First Attempt at Tweaking: Very Low Carb and Zero Carb Diets
Part 3: Atkins Versus Kimkins: Learning to Tweak My Low Carb Diet
Part 4: My First Experience with Low Fat Low Carb Dieting
Part 5: My First Protein Sparing Modified Fast
Part 6: What I Learned from Diet Breaks
Part 7: Lyle McDonalds Rapid Fast Loss Diet
Part 8: Weight Loss, Low Carb Diets and Sustainability
Part 9: Personalize Your Low Carb Diet with Atkins 72

Vickie Ewell Bio

Comments

  1. Thank you so much for writing this. I was beside myself when my low carb diet completely stopped and then I started to gain weight. This really helped me.

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  2. Many are also finding lately that the amount of protein you're eating can seriously cause weight loss stalls. That very well might be true because I was only eating about 72 grams of protein when I was doing Kimkins. Thank you for your comment. I appreciate it.

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  3. It is a very fasting way to loss weight.

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  4. I don't know if you are still publishing your blog but I want to thank you for what you have done. There is so much out there on the web and it can make you crazy trying to decipher what is valid, what is not, and what will or does work for me.

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    Replies
    1. It's definitely been a while since I last posted here. Thank you so much for taking the time to comment. I really appreciate it. If you need help with something, just let me know.

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