confused!

[sugarartemisia]

im a bit confused about this-

and i want to make sure i do this thing right b4 i start off tomorrow..

when they say 20g or less carb and 2-3 cups of veggies per day-
does that 20g carb INCLUDE carbs from the veggies?
(does anyone know how much carbs r in spinach, lettuce, tomatoes, and pepper?)

and also-
2-3 cups of veggies really isnt much
how can i balance such miniscule amount of veggies with allowed carbs?
(im afraid 1/2c-1c of spinach wont b sufficient to make a salad...you know? unless its measured cooked- which i know isnt...)

[Elizellen]

Re: confused!

I agree that the 3 cups of allowed veggies doesnt seem much when you start induction for the first time, but after the first 14 days you can move to OWL and add 5 net carbs more which makes it easier!!
do you have a carb counter book to look it up in? There is a free website you can check carbs out on - www.fitday.com - where you can open a free 'account' to log all you eat and help you decide on your menus.

The 20 net carbs (total less fiber) is for everything you eat including your vegetables, and we are supposed to get over half of them from vegetables!!

[tabekat]

Re: confused!

lol...And I still find it hard to get 3 cups of veggies down the gullet!

Elizellen is correct however, it is part of the 20. There is a reason induction is so strict though - it teaches you how to portion out your meals - and it is really easy to have some veggies at every meal. Once you get solidly in ketosis you won't have the appetite to eat much more than that anyway. That was my experience.

[sugarartemisia]

Re: confused!

well i do have fitday account-
but the thing is, when i look at the chart on my raw spinach bag, it says 5g net carb for 1 and 1/2 c...
and then when i go to fitday, it says raw spinach has merely 1g (or less) net carb for the same amount!
thats mainly y im so confused...i guess

[Moochiecat]

Re: confused!

You can do one of two things in that situation...add in the spinach as a custom food, or just go with the numbers on fitday.
It's not superpanickyimportant that you know the exact number of carbs you eat in a day, just as long as you are in an acceptable range. If you are out by a few, it's not going to be a big deal. REmember these are good carbs, mostly coming from veggies.

I didn't find this board or fitday or know about the ratios until about week 3 of Atkins. I went into my food journal and plugged in my first two weeks to see how I did and just by following the Rules of Induction and eating correctly from the Acceptable foods list, my fat/protein/carb balance was pretty much where it needed to be. Dr. Atkins knew what he was doing with all of this.

Since you are close to your goal, you will want to be moving up the rungs of OWL soon. The first rung of OWL is to add in 5 carbs more of veggies a day. I'm like you, I was happy to see the extra veggies!

[2big4mysize]

Re: confused!

remember Dr Atkins famous quote about it only being 14 day, you got the rest of your life to have other stuff not on the induction restricted lists. the first rung of OWL is 5 more net carbs of those veggies so you can up your sald them.

Happy low carbing.