I'm into my sixth week of Atkins (18lbs lost so far) so am up to eating about 35g of carbs a day and experimenting with introducing new foods. In the first week I added berries, then it was peanuts (3.5g per 50g bag depending on which brand you get). I'm also now enjoying fromage frais (5g per pot) and the occasional glass of wine. In my last week, I've even had a slice of brown bread at breakfast in the mornings and a bar of Green & Blacks Organic chocolate (11g per 20g bar) at lunch. I'm still losing about a pound a day.

Therefore, my question to you is: have you been surprised by what you can add to your diet? And is anyone out there at the stage where they can get away with the occasional portion of rice or French Fries?

Rice. Probably. Don't Really care to try.
French Fries. I am guessing probably not. Somebody here used to have a quote on their signature that said something like 'from all the diets out there you can garner only one piece of information for certain: french fries are out!'. I think that is very true!

I do get away with a breakfast of either oatmeal and bran or lower-carb muslie with milk or low GI bran flakes and milk; I do get away with a piece of bread a day; I do get away with a tub of yogurt a day; I do still lose on the weeks I also eat fruit. Getting away with the introduction of bread was probably my biggest suprise, followed closely by the realisation that a small amount of regular milk on my cereal wasn't going to kill me. I am glad I did OWL rather then waiting... I was so terrified of bread at first, but now it is so convenient!!

It is good to see that you are following the plan as written and having such success on OWL. Although chocolate might not have a rung on the ladder though... we all have our treats!!

The great thing about reintroducing foods is that you realise that even though you used to be able to easily eat WAY more then 300g of carbs a day, something like 40 or 50g suddenly seems crazy generous - I mean you can eat regular bread everyday at that!

Do watch your brown breads though for GI - some are actually mostly white bread with a token amount of wholemeal flour and molasses/caramel to make them brown (eeek!), and regular brown bread still has quite a high GI (same/similar as white). There are a lot of low GI options out there, spelt grain breads, etc.

hey mb99,
i'm having a little trouble getting through OWL myself-- technically I should be at pre-maintenance right now (my stats are off, I'm 104 lb) Both my parents are diabetic though so i know i have high insulin resistance and will prob have a low CCL--i was just wondering about the oatmeal/low carb bran stuff you've added to your diet, what company/how much do u eat? Any other tips? Thanks!
Cheers =)


ps. hmm, i'm not sure about those frech fries.....the atkins website says even people with high CCl might be able to handle a small potatoe but a supersized from mickey-ds prob isn't that great of an idea

I could get away with a lot of those things in my sixth week, also, but now that I've been on the diet more than 8 months, my weight loss stops if I eat too much of that stuff. Weird.