I don't really keep track, however I follow the allowed food options, lets say I eat 25 carbs, that mean i won't lose any fat? considering I was prolly eating 14,000 carbs a day before...I would think if I ate 50 carbs a day I would improve my health.

It's not that if you eat 20 Carbs or 25 Carbs a day your not going to lose weight.

You are going to lose weight but it's going to be slow. Alot depends on your body, if you exercise... stuff like that

20 Carb restriction is for induction for people on atkins

It's more like to discipline yourself to eat low carbs so that you reach ketosis quicker and start showing ketones.

This is why after induction you continue to put carbs back into your diet.

I have to agree...

During induction, I was anal about counting every morsel that went into my mouth. Now that I have a good feel for most foods, and especially the ones I eat regularly, I loosly keep track in my mind. I'm pretty sure I'm always between 15-25 carbs a day. I only eat legal foods, and can't even imagine what I would eat that would put me over? Too much salad?..lol..

If this is going to be my WOL, I need to be able to relax with my choices. Measuring every piece of veggie was driving me to drink! (and it would have been a big, freezing cold glass of chocolate milk!)

It's weigh in day for me tomorrow!!! Go scale, Go!!!

Joy

I believe the key to induction is getting to ketosis and detoxing your body of all the carbs we have in our system.

Once in ketosis we have the appetite suppression that helps us to be able to really get into the grove of this diet in the beginning without feeling that we are missing out so much. Eating and feeling satisfied is something most of us never get on a "diet". Getting more carbs - for some would keep the cravings and make this much more difficult to do right.

The two weeks helps us to get into a pattern of behavior of eating right and low carb. This is the pattern that although we eventually increase to a maintenance level (oh I pray I get there soon...) is a pattern that we learn to live with so that we can be healthy AND have the body we have dreamed of.

I believe whole heartedly that doing induction faithfully will help you greatly to acheive your goals.

All the best...

I think that at first you should count and measure your carbs carefully. As you progress you will find that you have gotten a feel for amounts of the foods that you tend to eat frequently; and you can do your own estimating. But if you don't learn to measure and count carefully you can find yourself eating more carbs than you intend. You need to be careful in the early phases of the diet.

Good Luck!

That is exactly what happened to my wife and I when we started about three weeks ago. We thought we were doing fine estimating "by eyeball", but we weren't making a lot of progress.

I found a great PDA diet diary and carb database that allows us to keep a very accurate count of what we eat. It's a bit of a pain adding up all the fiddly bits in a meal, but the peace of mind of knowing EXACTLY where we are is a boon.

(and we now consider ourselves to have TRULY started induction eight days ago... ) I figure we were actually eating 30g+ per day just "winging it".

Easiest way to up your calories and curb cravings is to up your fat. I put and herb or garlic butter on my steaks and chicken or drizzle some olive oil over my vegis. You feel so satisfied afterwards. Plus, your skin will glow!

Yeah, you will as long as they are the right carbs with the right balance of protein and fat. The plan is called Protein Power. You actually start at 30 grams and still go through all the pain, suffering and severe learning curve that a 20 gram Atkins Induction period provides for you.

Gotta lay off those high fat dairy products though!

Karen

I don't know that glowing skin is something I've ever lost sleep over...

The herb butter is a great idea! I'll give that a try.

I like the herb butter idea as well. I think we just might have the next time we have steak. We went out to dinner at the Outback last week and we both had filet with blue cheese melted on top. Mmm mmm good!

I've noticed that my calories have dropped the last couple of days so I'm trying to figure out ways to bring that back up. Thanks for the ideas!

-Cait

I did the first week at 20 carbs and then moved to 30 the 2nd week. Lost about 7 lbs. Now after 7 weeks, I do about 30 -50. Have lost a total of 13lbs. Maybe a slower, but I don't care because the main reason for trying Atkins is to control my BP. My mother started at about 40plus carbs and she lost 8lbs. in 5 weeks. I think it's a matter of YOUR body. Yeah, Yeah spank my hand for saying that; but I do whats right for ME!