OK, well, my take on the instructions in DANDR is that
for those who don't "count" their carbs by tracking religiously (cos you know some people don't have the patience or desire to do so), then the 2-3 cups salad and 1 cup other veggies is a guideline which makes allowances for some of the other items mentioned such as olives, cream cheese, sour cream, Splenda etc. However, if you are willing to
track your carbs with a carb counter book, Fitday.com or other source, THEN you use the
up-to-20-carbs per day (net of fiber) "rule" and make sure that the bulk of your carbs come from good sources like veggies. 1 cup of lettuce greens adds < 1 carb, so I would say
feel free to have 3 -4 per day, along with "other veggies", always remembering to COUNT them and stay as close to the 20 carb level as possible, including olives, cream cheese, sour cream, Splenda and the other items that were quantified. Again, this is my take on it, based on advice I got when I started. Hope it helps. Oh, and if you'd like further corroboration, you can go to the Atkins Center site and send them an email... heck, it might even be in the FAQs.
[edit] Well, I just looked and, you know, it's kind of a grey area. I did find this:
http://atkins.com/Archive/2001/12/15-325810.html but the part about "up to 20 carbs per day" doesn't really answer the question. I would suggest emailing to ask them. As for me, I never did measure my salad greens, only eye-balled.. and I KNOW I was eating more than the 2-3 cups of salad veggies. With respect to the "other" veggies, I probably ran around 1 - 2 cups during induction, depending on which ones they were (peppers, tomatoes and onions are quite carby so I ate less; spinach, for instance, is very low, so I ate more). However, I am of the firm belief that we didn't get fat by eating lower carb veggies, so I didn't stress myself out by measuring cups of lettuce, that's for darn sure! Hope this perspective helps.