12 Time to Review Your Results
12 Time to Review Your Results
You did it! After doing Atkins for a mere fourteen days, you ' re probably so blown away by the changes you ' ve experienced that you have no desire to go back to your old way of eating. That ' s why the two-week marker is a logical time for evaluation. You will be past any difficulties you faced during the transition and should be feeling slimmer and more energetic already.
You Gotta Hang in There
Of course, some people have difficulties at the very start. At 39, Alan McCarthy was a successful insurance executive, married and with a child on the way. Two months before his son ' s birth, Alan ' s father died of a heart attack. A year later, Alan ' s total cholesterol level hit 264.
" I was practically a clone of my father," recalls Alan. " Same pants size, same shoe size, same sky-high cholesterol " He worried that it would mean a quadruple bypass followed by premature death for him, too. Alan didn ' t know which way to turn.
Then fate, in the form of a co-worker, took a hand. His office buddy had succeeded on Atkins and believed it was particularly effective at reducing cholesterol. That was good enough for Alan.
But when he started Induction, sugar deprivation made him feel so lousy that, for the first two days, he thought he ' d give up. Alan had always been a regular 300-grams-ofcarbs-a-day American. Bean burritos, ice cream and every sugary treat that came within reach of his fastmoving hands went down the gullet.
" But then on the third and fourth days, my energy started ratcheting up to the same levels I used to have when I was younger and exercising regularly. I actually felt my metabolism increase; it was as if the furnace had been turned on. I lost 10 pounds in the first two weeks and by week four I ' d dropped 15 pounds."
When Alan had his total cholesterol checked, it had dropped to 211. Twelve weeks after starting Atkins, he had lost 25 pounds and reached his goal weight.
His wife did her bit by cooking Atkins recipes. And Alan actually found that his tastes had changed. Sugary desserts, on the rare occasions that he tried them, now tasted too sweet.
" I used to avoid confrontation by telling people I was on a no-sugar diet," Alan says. " Now, I love converting skeptics. I also love being at my high school weight of 165 and having a total cholesterol of 179! Results don ' t lie!"
Will You Go On?
This is a logical time for you to decide whether you will continue doing Atkins. I hope you will. Most people do so not only because they ' re losing weight, but also because they feel so
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