hi everone............I am very new here. I am posting this question hoping that somebody will answer. My husband and I just started the induction on the Atkins diet and I got so excited when I found this site. I have read the book, but can't figure out how many carbs are allowed per day. I am 55 and need to loose 30 pounds, easily lol........My husband is 60 and needs to loose about 35. Neither one of us is too active, sadly to say. Can someone out there please tell me how many carbs per day we are allowed?I just hope I can find this area of the site again lol.....took me 10 tries the first time

Induction allows for 20 grams of (effective) carbs a day. That means that you take the amount of carbs and subtract the fiber. Preferably, most of those should be coming from vegetables. Generally, if you stick to the rules (salads and low carb veggies, lots of fat, eat when you're hungry) you should be fine. Remember to keep cheeses under a few ounces too.

Hope that helps. The Atkins center website at www.atkinscenter.com is also a helpful tool. It will have all the rules of the steps of the plan along with a carb counter, etc.

p.s. For this page... if you subscribe to a thread (by clicking the box that says "Email Notification" below, you will be automatically e-mailed a link to it when someone posts a reply!

Happy low carbing!

Hi Hungryone,

You and your husband are going to love this way of eating.

A few more tips to get you started....

Be sure to register at Fitday http://www.fitday.com It's a great help in keeping track of carbs, etc, especially the ratio between fat/protein/carbs (s/b about 70/25/5).

Have you discovered "Hot Links" in the Newbie's section here?
Scads of helpful threads there on all sorts of subjects.

One more tip--do yourself a big favour and clean out your cupboards/fridge of all those high carb foods now. Give it to a skinny neighbour, whatever.

Good Luck! And Merry Christmas!

judy

I appreciated getting your answer so quickly. I am always hungry. I ate chicken, salad, and then had some cream cheese sans cracker or bagel lol I spread it on cucumber slices. Why am I not feeling satisfied? Water is dissapearing down my gullet and I now know every washroom from here to the other end of town. NO weight loss in three days. I KNOW ...patience lol
thanks again..sorry to have bothered you.

Thankyou for your support!!! i checked out the link and will have to figure it out tomorrow, but i did sign up!! This is all very new to me. lol.............i'll get the hang of it with some help from my new friends!!!

Hi Hungry,

If you're hungry, you're probably not eating enough, especially fat. Once you remove most of the carbs from your diet, you'll be surprised how low your calories will be. When I first started recording at Fitday, after being on LC for a few weeks, I learned that my calories were usually under 1000. Not good.

Keep in mind, this is not a low calorie diet. You need to eat in order to lose--just keep your carbs at 20.

Hang in there, you'll get it in no time.

judy

I was feeling very deprived and hungry during the first few days of induction too. I kept wondering, "When is this going to go away?!" It definitely did, though and now I feel healthy as a goose eating low carb, even on days when my menu is similar to an induction day. Your body needs to be tricked into this way of eating, since you've been eating much differently for years. You WILL start to feel better.

One more thing, you should make sure to take vitamins. At the very least a multi, and I would also recommend calcium, magnesium, and potassium. (I take one with all three in it) This is especially recommended if your muscles, primarily legs, start to ache and cramp. This is due to a loss of electrolytes and these minerals will help replenish that.

okay, well good luck!

I was just thinking to remember to throw out those low fat things.........like low fat salad dressings or mayo or reduced fat creamcheese etc. Fat is your friend. You will be eating full fat versions of food...forget the low fat mentality....that's what got most of us here. Another thing, forget all the bad hype eggs get. They are good for you and this diet definately includes them. Scrambled eggs with saute'd shrimp or scallops or whatever you like with ham or bacon makes a nice breakfast, or with cheese, if you perfer. Very filling, who needs toast. Anyway don't skimp on fat, embrace it, now where else would you hear that....tee hee. And Good Luck !!!

Welcome Hungryone!! Another bit of advice I learned here is to stay off the scale!!! The first weight we lose is water weight - concentrating on this way of eating is in knowing and believing that what has worked for others will work for you and your DH.
From what my records show, I didn't notice any appreciable loss in the first 2 weeks, but as you can see from my side report, in a little over 4 months I have lost over 20#'s.
Happy lo carb eating - enjoy your holidays.
Kay

My only advice is never be hungry on this diet, if you are hungry (ie really hungry) then you are not eating enough.

If this is causing a real problem you're going to have to eat a lot of protein and fat and that will do the trick (eg eggs for breakfast - very important not to miss breakfast, and heavy duty meats with the fat eg steak etc).

The 20g limit is only intended for the induction period of two weeks.

If you are following a plan I would strongly recommend buying or borrowing the book. The reason for this is that a lot of stuff is explained in the book and its important to change your mentality to a low carb way of seeing things. Its virtually impossible to do atkins without this change in mindset ie butter is good but margarine isn't, high fat mayonnaise is usually OK but low fat mayonnaise usually isn't etc etc

the best of luck to you both

Congratulations on making the decision to get healthy by LCing!

It's a wonderful gift to give yourself.

A couple of things...

Induction is generally not pleasant for most folks. I was headachey and grumpy. But is does pass and things get much better. Thing is, you don't want to let those headaches, hunger or grumpiness derail you. It's REALLY important to succeed at Induction. If you don't follow it to the letter, you might as well not do it at all. And P.S. the hunger you're feeling will definately pass and cravings you may have will lessen with each day.

As for not losing weight in three days--you should not expect to see big losses so quickly. I recommend focusing on the first two weeks and eating according to plan. Check your weight after that. Even then, be realisitic about what you can expect. Then give yourself 2 more weeks and then 2 more after that. Soon you'll find that you're not really counting weeks and days. And that's as it should be. This isn't a diet you're on. You've just changed your way of eating for life.

Lots of support here in the forum, so post often and let us know how you're doing!

Donald

Hi to all my new friends.
This morning my husband had nausia. We are both taking a multi vitamin with all sorts of goodies in it. ME? Well, I slept in till noon..couldn't get out of bed LOL OHHHHH for some uninterrupted sleep without running to the John every hour. Off I go to make some eggs in butter, fried turkey sausages no toast!! Last night i was soooooooo hungry that I sliced some cucumber and spread cream cheese on the slices. My husband says he was NOT hungry ...hmmmmmmmmmmm. I must say that I am really surprised at all the help we are getting on here. What a blessing everyone is. THANKS!!! AND HAPPY HOLLIDAYS TO YOU ALL!!!

Would you believe I just got back from an x mas party and didn't touch a thing except for some cheese and a bit of salmon???????? glory be!!!!!!!!!! I survived without wine, pastry or crackers!!!!!!!!!!!

Now wasn't that a cinch?

p.s: I've been famished today(PMS I think,can't wait till that stops), but usually I am not hungry on this WOE. As a matter of fact I have been inducting for 3 weeks, and I will go on a few more, since I am SO resistant to wt loss(and I need some carbs, just under 20 is good). Hope you feel better about this!

Yipee! Good going! And I'll bet you had a wonderfull time, even without the crakers and pastries!