Intro and McDonald's Salads
 

I'm Helen and have been lurking here a while, so thought I'd say howdy. My son and husband are losng faster than me, but we're sticking to this. I am fatigued, like need a nap. Is this common in induction? Could be my lack of caffiene, my former drug of choice. We love the new salads at McDonalds. They help a lot. Helen

Yes it is common your first few days on induction to feel fatigued , or even possible flu like symptoms. This is caused from carb and sugar withdrawls. Don't worry it will and does pass!
As for the McDonalds salads they are great, however each one has 11 carbs with out dressing, so make sure you really watch the dressing they give you and use only one packet, or you could end up going over on carbs real easy. ;)

Yes, I felt this way my first few days on Atkins as well. How could those salads have that many carbs if you get the grilled chicken?

I got the nutrition information from McDonalds website. The grilled cob, grilled bacon ranch, and the grilled Caesar all have 11 carbs each for the complete salad with out dressing.
The Newmans Ranch they give you is 4 grams of carbs, with 4 grams of sugar and the Caesar they give you is 9 grams of carbs. So a salad with ranch would have 15 carbs and a sald with caesar would be 20 carbs. Kinda high if your still on induction.
:) They are very yummy though!

Oh, and the chicken is marinated in pure dextrose.

Yeah, that's just what I want hitting my insulin.

Go to wendy's and get a Jr. Bacon Cheese (no bun) and Caesar Side Salad.
Total 2g of carbs, fresher, tastier, and $2 instead of $4.

whoa 11g for a McDonalds salad. I used to not go to McDonalds but when my mother brought home a salad from there, I ate them a few times. It is hard to belief they're so high, even though I pick out the carrots and obviously don't use croutons. but now that you tell us that about Wenday's, Hogarth, I am definitaly going! lol. I love the idea that I can eat fast food though I can't help but think there is some hidden, unhealthy element in my meal somewhere :/

Ok - how much do I love all of you right now?? !! A lot. Finding this out is huge- I never even thought of the carb count for McDonald's salads being close to that high. I eat them all the time, well for sure once a week.

HogarthNH, thank you very much for the Wendy's tip. Thats great!

The best fast food salad during induction is Wendy's BLT Chicken Salad with either Ceasar or Ranch dressing. The carb count is the lowest out of any of them. The side salad is too small, I need like 3 of those to make me full.

Alex

Don't forget to subtract 3 grams of Fiber from the Carb count of 11.

i am outraged that one McDonalds in my town charges $3.99, and another a few miles away charged me $4.39 yesterday!

carrots
 

keep in mind that probably a lot of those carbs are with the carrots
that they put in it. carrots are a high carb veggie. I remove the
carrots and avoid croutons in any salads.

sandy

Had a bacon ranch and caesar w/o croutons and carrots (takes awhile to take them all out) per day (well, almost every day) throughtout my induction (I was on vacation, so it was a pain to figure out 3 better meals a day for 10 days!!!), and everything worked out fine so far as I know.

In the macdonalds cobb salad, I take out the tomatoes and carrots. I don't eat the tomatoes in the Wendys blt either, I think that lowers the carbs.

it's good to know about wendy's but sometimes (like in an airport) there's only mcdonalds. I order this:

Quarter Pounder® with Cheese w/o Ketchup, Grill Seasoning, Sesame Seed Bun

2 carbs

I love Mickey D's but don't get their premium salads for the high carb reasons. On the Mcdonald's website they allow you to customize your menu items (removing ingredients) here:

http://mcdonalds.com/countries/usa/...items/index.jsp

I usually do the Double QP with cheese-- no bun, no catsup (2 carbs w/onions, cheese & pickle) or I'll get the patty only for the Chicken McGrill and put it on top of my own salad with my own lower carb dressing. I'm sure though you can always get a side salad witch is 2 carbs (after subtracting 1 for fiber and still including the carrots but not counting dressing) and eat it with a double QP w/cheese (or the chicken if you can handle the 2 more carbs for much less meat). Good thing about the chicken is, they charge just $1 for the patty only, as opposed to the Double QP which is close to $4. I just discovered this customize feature on the site a couple days ago (can't believe I couldn't find it before!) and find it quite helpful.