My first week on the Atkins 40 diet! It was a good one...

This post is sponsored by FitFluential on behalf of Atkins. As always all opinions are my own.
I told you a couple weeks ago that I was going to be trying out the new Atkins 40 diet.

What is Atkins 40? The new Atkins diet that allows 40 healthy net carbs per day. Meaning you can have vegetables, some dairy, and even limited amounts of pasta. Yep, PASTA!
I bet that's not what you had in mind when you hear the word Atkins? I know it wasn't for me. I automatically think meat, meat, and more meat, NOPE!
So I have been following the diet for the past week. Let me tell you the best part first... I lost 4.3lbs this past week. YAYYYYYYY! And the best part is that it was so easy and I didn't feel like I was "dieting" so to speak. What I noticed the most is how my stomach wasn't nearly as bloated.


You can see from the 2nd picture that my stomach was significally less bloated than the 1st picture. My body tends to hold on to extra carbs, so keeping the carbs around 40 net healthy carbs really helped my body burn it off.
What is Net Carbs?
When you follow the Atkins Diet, aka the Atkins Nutrition Approach, you actually count grams of Net Carbs, which represent the total carbohydrate content of the food minus the fiber content and sugar alcohols (if in the product). The Net Carbs number reflects the grams of carbohydrate that significantly impact your blood sugar level and therefore are the only carbs you need to count when you do Atkins. Foods that are low in Net Carbs such as nutrient-dense vegetables and fruits don't have a significant impact on blood sugar and therefore are less likely to interfere with weight loss.

You can calculate the approximate number of Net Carb grams of a low-carb product yourself by looking at the information provided on a food label:

Total Carbohydrates
- Dietary Fiber
- Sugar alcohol
= Net carbs

For foods that don't have a label, like fruits and vegetables, you can use the Atkins Carb Counter, and the calculation is:
Total Carbohydrates
- Dietary Fiber
- Sugar alcohol
= Net carbs
We always talk about "good carbs" and Atkins makes it easy to figure out with their Carb Counter. Just download it and it will tell you all of the information you need to figure out your carbs in your daily meals.
I was sent a sample menu plan for the week...
Note: This plan was geared towards me. I followed it for the most part exactly switching up a couple days and meals.

As you can see you can eat so much food on the Atkins 40 plan that you will not feel deprived of anything. Also it included some of their frozen meals, indulgence candies, and delicious bars. However its not full of those so you are not having to break the bank to do the Atkins diet.
I was sent some delicious frozen meals, which were great for when I was in a hurry...


and then you can't go wrong with the delicious Endulge candies and Atkins bars...

YUMMMMM! I was excited about having a couple sweet snacks included.

Overall I found I was never really hungry. The first couple days were an adjustment but overall I felt great at the end of the week. Here are few of my sample meals. Again I did substitute a couple of things using the carb counter on the Atkins page...


I am looking forward to week 2 of the Atkins 40 diet. Stay tuned for the next couple weeks as I tell you all about the frozen dinners, NEW pizzas, and the amazing bars and candies that Atkins has to offer. Also for an update on how I am feeling, weightloss, and overall feelings of the Atkins 40 diet.
You can get all the information on the Atkins 40 Plan and your own personal meal plans at http://www.atkins.com.
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Do you have a favorite low carb snack?

Have you ever thought about doing the Atkins diet?

This post is sponsored by FitFluential on behalf of Atkins.