Still Time To Join Us

Tomorrow I'll be starting a lowcarb (Atkins) diet, and I've got one
person joining me - but the more that join (or even just provide
support), the better our chances.

My preparation phase is generally doing well. For example, I've
cleared away a lot of high-carb food. I've been cutting down on
caffeine (so when I go to zero caffeine tomorrow it won't be a big,
er, Jolt g). I've been exercising (walking) every other day (now up
to 40 minutes).

I've been taking all the recommended supplements for the past couple
of weeks, so I shouldn't have any nutritional deficiencies to slow me
down as I start this change in my Way Of Eating. When I was at the
bottom of the recommended daily ranges I wasn't really noticing any
side effects. (So if Atkins said from 200-600 mg/day I started with
200 mg.) I then moved into the middle of the ranges (i.e. 400 mg in
the above example) and side effects became noticeable. Dry mouth/Dry
Eyes, minor GI upsets and so on. Because there are so many supplements
it's not entirely clear which supplements are responsible (though I
have some suspicions after reading up on them). I'll give my body a
little time to adjust, and if that doesn't work I'll back on down to
the minimum levels. If that gets rid of the side effects then I'll
boost only a couple at a time to mid-range values. That will make it a
lot easier to tell which ones are responsible.

Using water to wash down all those supplements, I'm also VERY well
hydrated.

I've decided that "officially" weighing myself will be limited to once
per week. Oh, I'm not going to worry if I decide to peek at my weight
at other times - but I won't make daily weighings part of the plan.
This is part of my "Let's maximize feeling good about things" plan. If
my loss is a slow-and-steady 2 pounds per week, I would expect a daily
weighing would have only 2 "good news" days (where the scale dropped a
pound) and 5 "bad news" days (where the scale held steady). And since
one should expect fluctations, there might be some "very bad news"
days where the scale would go back up a pound. But if I weigh myself
only once per week, every weigh-in SHOULD be "good news". Similarly,
I'm going to look at "my weight loss" more than "my current weight". I
need to lose a lot of weight. So not only is "My starting weight" an
unhealthy number, so is "My starting weight - 10 pounds". That number
would tend to emphasize to me how far I still have to go. "I've taken
off 10 pounds", however, sounds encouraging. This puts the emphasis on
the progress I've made. These might be trivial things, and other
people might take a different approach, but this is what works best
for me. Other numerical indicators (blood pressure, cholesterol and so
on) would likewise be looked at from the "improvement" point of view.