Hi. I have a question. Are 20 grams of carbs required on this diet(Atkins) or if you eat less, will you loose more? Also how many salads are allowed a day...and can induction last longer than two weeks?

Thanks-
Stephanie

Hi Stephie,

From you questions, I am going to guess that you have not read the book.

Go read the book.

Doing so is CRITICAL to your success.

The short answers are:

Going less than 20g doesn't gain you anything. This is NOT a NO-carb diet. He used to limit to 10g and found that it made no difference to weight loss but made it much harder for people to stay on the program.

The foods that are allowed for Induction are very clearly spelled out in the book. Do not try to just think in terms of "low-carb" and wing it from there. Some foods that are low in carbs are off limits because they have a high glycemic index. In general he breaks allowed vegatables into two groups - salad veggies and other veggies. You can have three cups of allowed veggies a day but only one of those three cups can be other veggies.

You can continue doing induction for an extended period of time - he mentions six months in a couple of places.

So, go get the book. Read it. Start Induction. Adhere to the Rules of Induction. Prepare yourself for a few miserable days at the beginning and look forward to feeling much better by the end of Induction.

Its not really a requirement.....Its more like a guidline..You can't have any more then 20, but you can have like 18..or even less I guess.

You can only have 3 cups of vegies a day..so if your gonna eat salad, its only 3 cups and then thats it..

And actually, some days I only eat about 9-12 carbs, I eat 3cups of salad and theres only like 5 carbs in that, I add ceaser dressing, which has 0carbs, and black olives....and I don't lose any more or less weight.. So its not really a big difference.


And yes, you can do induction more then 2 weeks, but know that ya kinda stall after 2 weeks..So if you lose 20lbs (just saying) in 2 weeks, another 2 weeks you won't lose another 20..it kinda slows down

When I ate too few carbs. Soon as I went back to eating around 20 a day - up to 35 a day now, I lost weight again.

most of what people lose during induction is bloat--water weight. If someone doesn't lose much, either they weren't bloated in the first place or are doing something to stay bloated (processed meats, loads of salt, it's TOM for a woman...or, most commonly, not drinking enough water)

As long as carb levels are ketogenic, weight loss should be exactly what it is meant to be for any person.

Leafy green veggies and healthy lc veggies like broccoli and green peppers are good for your health. Eat them.
It's impossible to lose much more than 1.25 pounds of fat a week for a woman of your size. Any more loss than that on the scale will be either excess water (a nice thing to be rid of) or lean body mass (something you want to hold on to at any cost, including slowed fat loss).

HTH

And that was on induction? I got my period right now and can't tell if I"m stalling or anything.. But I don't get how if your on induction, how do you eat MORE carbs? Vegies are limited, and so are Olives... And thats all I eat that has carbs in it..lol I'm still getting hella lot of protein and fat though..