I ' m going to have a baby. I keep the photo right there where I can see it, to remind me of what I ' ll never be again. Nowadays, I don ' t even look like the same person."
Even more important, Dave French probably wouldn ' t be alive today if the results of his blood work hadn ' t shocked him into changing his ways.
Review Your Medications
With that sobering thought in mind, let ' s look at those medical steps you should take before you begin to change your eating habits. You will need to stop taking any unnecessary over-thecounter medications, such as cough syrup or cough drops, antacids, sleep aids, antihistamines or laxatives. Many prescription medications also inhibit weight loss. For a list of these medications, please turn to Chapter 20, page 262. If you take one or more of the drugs listed, you may be disappointed in your weight loss results. Talk to your doctor to see if an alternative can be found. You can also refer to Dr. Atkins ' Vita-Nutrient Solution for more natural approaches to deal with your symptoms.
There are also several categories of drugs that can cause adverse effects when taken while on a controlled carbohydrate eating plan. First are the diuretics, because reducing your carbohydrate intake alone can have a dramatic diuretic effect. Second, since Atkins is so effective at lowering high blood sugar, people who take insulin or oral diabetes medications that stimulate insulin can end up with dangerously low blood-sugar levels. Third, Atkins has a strong blood pressure lowering effect and can easily convert blood pressure medications into an overdose. If you are currently taking any of these medications, you will need your doctor ' s help to adjust your dosages.
Checkup and Blood Work
When you go to your doctor, I recommend that you get your blood chemistries and lipid levels measured-and quite possibly the glucose-tolerance test( with insulin levels drawn at fasting and at one- and two-hour intervals)-before you start the program. Lipid levels will reveal your total cholesterol, HDL( good) and LDL( bad) cholesterol and triglycerides. These indicators often change with drastic dietary intervention. The blood chemistries will measure baseline glucose, kidney and liver function. Be sure your doctor also measures your uric acid levels. Since many people wrongly believe that these indicators are negatively affected by doing Atkins, you may later regret not having a " before " baseline to compare with your " after " results.
If you choose to keep track of those hidden physical changes that are measured in your blood, you ' ll find that, after you start Atkins, they should begin improving steadily( see " Before and After Tests," opposite). I don ' t want you to wait to have your initial lab work done until after you start Atkins, because then you may think any abnormalities are the result of your new way of eating. You may well have had even higher cholesterol and triglycerides before you began.
Your doctor will also check your blood pressure. High blood pressure-known as " the silent killer "-and being overweight often go together. Having high blood pressure( also called hypertension) puts you at clear risk for stroke and heart disease and may indicate elevated insulin levels. What happens to high blood pressure on Atkins? It goes down. Nothing is more consistently or more rapidly observed than normalization of blood pressure.
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