No, I haven’t really started on the Atkins diet, but my ‘carb depletion’ diet yesterday can’t have been far off!
The theory is that if you go for a couple of days with very low carb intake your body will use up much of its supply, so that when you then carb load for the last 3 days your body (in a sort of physiological panic mode) clings onto more carbs than it would normally do. that meant a diet yesterday something like:
- 2 slices wholemeal toast & spread (before I remembered what I was meant to be doing)
- Promax protein shake
- A pack of ham
- A 4 egg omelette
- A couple of ‘portions’ of cheese
- A couple of good handfuls of hazelnuts/Brazils/almonds
- 2 Quorn burgers
- 4 Quorn nuggets
- 2 chicken ‘fingers’
- A tbsp salad cream
- A lightly dressed bag of salad
- 200ml skimmed milk in roibos teas
With the exercise from a 6 mile run taken into account that left me about 800kcals under maintenance; and that’s where the loving and loathing comes in.
Assuming my rudimentary knowledge of Atkins is correct, and my intake yesterday was Atkins-esque I can certainly understand how people would lose weight on it. Just think of all the carb rich foods you can’t touch – bread, pasta, rice, cake, biscuits, potatoes, sweets, sugar, chocolate, oats, cereals, crisps, even milk must be limited. that makes it very, very difficult to eat up to maintenance levels and i suppose that’s the real reason Atkins seemed to give sudden short term results. So, I love the fact that I might even lose a 1/4lb without trying but loathe the less than exciting diet.
Yesterday’s run was actually a little under 6 miles and was far, far hillier than I’d have liked. The pace naturally dropped by best part of a minute a mile so I hope that made up for it. Intervals today but not sure whether I’ll run them as per the plan or whether I’ll just throw in a few strides, or do a sort of contrived intervals/fartlek session. In either event it won’t be more than 3 – 3.5 miles.
Rambling on about running: Loving & Loathing the Atkins diet
No related posts.
