Low Carb diets

[misty]

I know there is a thread ongoing regarding the Atkins diet, but I just wondered if anyone had any experience/advice re following a general low carb diet - by that I mean cutting out pasta, rice, potatoes & bread? I know i'd be useless following the Atkins diet as I LOVE my fruit & veg and use these to snack on throughout the day & evening, instead of picking at biscuits/cakes etc. I've been eating this way for a week - having soup/salad and a LOT of fish/chicken/steak and not a hint of processed carbs, and have lost 4 lbs so something must be working! Do we need processed carbs, or do natural ones found in fruit and veg suffice? I've previously lost about 2 stone following Slimming World, and tried this again a couple of months ago combined with going to the gym 3 times a week, and lost about 3 lbs altogether!!!! I thought perhaps my body recognised the SW diet and thought 'hang on, here we go again' and held on to those fat cells ....

Anyone?????

misty - done atkins and slimming world - did slimming world for quite some time and shifted a load of weight that I had put on pre and during pregnancy, then slowly put much of it back on. Now back to my lowest weight since having ds - did atkins first to kick start things, lasted 2 weeks and lost about 8lbs - and since then have been following more or less the same diet as you and lost another stone and a bit. Personally I felt like sxxt on Atkins, but have found that adding limited amounts of processed carbs and lots of fruit and veg has made all the difference. Also find that if I do eat bread or similar feel incredibly bloated almost immediately and more hungry later in the day than when I don't. Maybe we should launch a misty and willow diet and make millions?

willow - thanks for that info. The 'Misty Willow' diet sounds fab, much more catchy than Atkins When you say you eat limited carbs, what do you eat, how often and how much? I've been researching bits and pieces (there was an article in this weeks You magazine of Mail on Sunday) and some advice is that you should eat some processed carbs, but preferably wholemeal. I've cut them out altogether (not the fruit & veg tho) but maybe this might not be a good thing? Oh, it's so confusing - so much easier to throw together a plate of pasta than faff about with fish/veg etc all the time!

The odd bit here and there really, nothing defined. If I eat bread it's usually wholemeal though... unless I'm in Pizza Express when it's a large quatro formaggio.

Misty I tried the Atkins diet for two weeks after my babe,it was great as i don't eat to much fruit, but very hard to leave out bread and rice. My dd is two now and i am not happy with my weight as i tend to finish of her plate etc so i am thinking of going back on it but i am finding it really hard this time. I did read that rice and pasta are not good for as they contain alot of sugar.

Have you tried the soup diet is that any good? Also eat chocolate diet and nothing else i love the sound of that....

apparently according to that diet woman off this morning it is best not to eat carbs after 5pm. I have tried this today though and I now feel really hungry, will have to go to bed I suppose to forget about it!

slink - haven't heard of the soup diet - might be worth a try, and the choc one def sounds like a good 'un
Fio - I have bought her book! Makes a lot of sense, she says to eat rice/pasta/potatoes etc for your lunch so the idea is the carbs give you energy throughout the day, then you have something like grilled fish/steak etc with a salad for evening meal. Thing I found though, was I stuffed my face with pasta for lunch and then didn't seem to loose any weight (not surprising really if you could see my portion size!) so i decided to skip the pasta and rice altogether and have lost 7 lbs in 1.5 weeks. My main question is how long can it continue? Do you NEED to eat processed carbs????