Active Low-Carber Forums - finishing induction

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finishing induction

Tomorrow is my last day of induction...yeah!! I had lost 5 pounds as of last week and tomorrow is scale day. I have to be honest, I am really nervous about leaving induction. It is so easy to know what to eat on induction. And I may stay on it just to keep losing. I guess my question is... on OWL do I just need to be concerned wiht keeping the carbs down or are thier still NOT ALLOWED foods? I am sure I will have more questions soon and I can't believe how nervous I am about going off induction (probably tells me something!!)
Tahnks
Cathy Glass
Sales Director - The Pampered Chef

First off, some of us always stay at or near induction levels. Did you read the book? After induction, you are supposed to raise your carb level by 5 grams a day per week. Of course, healthy carbs (veggies, low carb fruits, etc) is suggested.

Hi.. thanks for your answer. I did/do read the book. I keep it close by at all times. I just don't exactly follow doing it taht way. Here is a simple question that will problaby take care of it for me. As long as I stay around 20 carbs (cuz I really don't have a problem doing that) can I basically eat "regular"... what I mean by that is...if my family has let's say au gratin potatoes for dinner... can I eat a few (and I mean a few) bites of taht as long as I keep it within my carb count??
Eating this way is not hard for me but every once in a while I want a bite of something my family is eating. If I keep it within limits is that okay??
thanks
cathy

IM on day 17th, I plan on doing induction to lose all of my weight basically. Im going to go through all of the phases to make sure I dont gain after I lose it. It just depends on how fast you want to lose weight I suppose and how hard it is for you, because induction is hard!

I am almost 11 weeks into the diet and still at induction level carbs. Like you said...it's not hard for me so I am staying there for awhile. I had so much to lose too. My DH moved on to OWL as he wasn't satisfied with induction after 3 or 4 weeks. Just be careful with the "tastes" of au gratin potatoes, etc. The carbs there can send you waaaay over your carb level really fast. Congrats on what you've done so far!

Reread the chapters on OWL. No you can't just eat regularly and stick to 20g of carbs a day because carbs are not created equaly. The glycemic index comes into play. What this refers to is how fast a certain food will raise your blood gluclose level and how high. There is a reason he recomends adding back in veggies, dairy, and low GI fruits long before grains and starches. Potatoes, are more of a maintanance thing, not on OWL.

From the Atkins web site:

Quote:

This is a good time to disabuse you of the long-held notion that there was some enormous difference between so-called "simple" and "complex" carbohydrates. That theory held that simple carbs such as sugar and white flour sent glucose rushing into your bloodstream faster than complex carbs such as fruits, potatoes and whole grains. But the Nurses Health Study doctors and other researchers found that two foods that contribute most to elevating blood sugar to an excessive level (called the "glycemic load") are baked potatoes and cold breakfast cereals

Quote:

For someone controlling his or her intake of carbohydrates, the implication of such an index is obvious. By using the index you get to know, before eating it, how a given food will affect both your blood-sugar levels and your insulin response. By choosing low-glycemic foods you can ensure a stable, smoothly running, metabolic engine. That translates into plenty of energy and lays the foundation for both long-term health and disease prevention. The controlled carbohydrate foods you’ll eat during the weight-loss phases of Atkins have a good deal of overlap with the low-glycemic foods you’ll see listed on the glycemic index table.

When you browse through the list, you'll notice that a baked potato ranks exceptionally high. Starch converts to glucose in the bloodstream with great rapidity. That explains the high glycemic index of another vegetable, the carrot. White rice, white bread and many cereals are well up there. Bananas and pasta are in the high-to-mid range. Your objective is to choose foods that supply the maximum nutritional bang, while they cost you only the very smallest metabolic price. When you combine your own personal preferences with the information here, you will be ideally situated to move past Induction and into the phases where you encounter more food options, as well as to continue doing Atkins for life.

http://atkins.com/Archive/2001/12/15-182703.html

Ladybelle covered it very well. OWL is the same list of induction foods with a few additional foods added very slowly so that you can determine how your body reacts to them. Follow the carbohydrate ladder in the book. There is good reason Atkins laid out the plan the way he did.