question

[nomorekugel]

Hi everyone! Today is day 14 of induction and I am sort of contemplating whether I will stick with induction or maybe go on to OWL. I was just reading the OWL section in DANDR and he mentioned not HAVING to work your way up the carb ladder. In other words, I could add 5 carbs a day of nuts or fruits if I wanted to? What do you all think about this? Has anyone went out of order and if so does it really affect the loss that much? Is 5 carbs, 5 carbs whether it's a vegetable, fruit or nut?

Sorry for the long question, but I want to do it right this time.

[not2late]

Re: question

Hi everyone! Today is day 14 of induction and I am sort of contemplating whether I will stick with induction or maybe go on to OWL. I was just reading the OWL section in DANDR and he mentioned not HAVING to work your way up the carb ladder. In other words, I could add 5 carbs a day of nuts or fruits if I wanted to? What do you all think about this? Has anyone went out of order and if so does it really affect the loss that much? Is 5 carbs, 5 carbs whether it's a vegetable, fruit or nut?

Sorry for the long question, but I want to do it right this time.

Hi kugel.

What page or what section did you read that? Because in the Rules of OWL, it says to add new foods in the order listed in the Carbohydrate Ladder.

You can skip rungs on the ladder. For example, if you are allergic to nuts, you can skip the Nut rung. But they don't recommend skipping to a higher rung then going back to a lower rung, because the rungs are arranged more or less according to their glycemic index. The higher the rung, the higher the glycemic index, so you might "mess" yourself up by having the blood sugar instability problems.

[not2late]

Re: question

Hey Kugel, post your questions in here and I'll try to get back to you tonight...boss is throwing a tantrum and I gotta go....

[nikki_e]

Re: question

Let me start this off by saying, I am no expert in OWL yet.

But here are my 2 cents anyway.

I think I heard somewhere that it used to be that way...that you can add foods back in any order, but that has been changed in the newer versions of the book. Somebody correct me if I'm wrong.

My personal experience...the first time I did Atkins, I did not follow OWL. Reflecting back now, I think this is why I failed. I was adding in foods here and there and ended up going crazy. I wasn't monitoring how the foods were affecting my body. I wasn't closely counting my carbs. I failed. This time around, I am committed to following OWL correctly so I do not fall into that trap again and fail. I guess each person is different, but I believe strict OWL is more structured and I work best with a structured plan. Otherwise, I will spiral out of control.

I'm sure one of our experts can give you a more scientific answer as to why to follow the rungs of OWL.

[nomorekugel]

Re: question

sorry, but I may have misunderstood the context

Here is what it says in DANDR page 170-171

"During the first week on OWL, increase your daily carb intake from the 20 grams a day on Induction to 25 grams a day - going up one level. I recommend you add either another salad, half an avocado, a cup of cauliflower or six to eight stalks of asparagus or another vegetable. Continue to eat this way for the rest of the week. As long as your weight loss continues steadily, you can go up another level - to 30 grams daily-the following week. If you are a veggie lover, you may be happy continuing to add more salad greens and other vegetables. Or you may choose to add a half cup of cottage cheese, an ounce of sunflower seeds or a dozen macadamia nuts. If you have been feeling fruit deprived, now is the time to add berries, the fruits lowest on the glycemic index. Look a the "Power of Five"."

The underlined above is where I got confused?

[not2late]

Re: question

If I recall, that part is in the beginning of the chapter. Then later on, he introduces the carb ladder, then it goes onto the OWL Rules.

DANDR2002 's main problem is that it's a cut and paste version of DANDR 1992. So some of the passages are lifted word for word out of the 1992 book and then there's 2002 info stuck within it. The "sample" Power of 5 in the book, for example, counts total carbs, not net carbs. So there's is some ambiguity with the chapter, as there is in the Induction chapter.

[nomorekugel]

Re: question

Thanks Megs! You are so helpful and SMART!!!! I love having your support!

[nomorekugel]

Re: question

just to reiterate, I am at 20 net carbs right now on induction and to do the OWL rungs properly, I will start with Rung 1 - Vegetables and add 5 net carbs from the veggie list making week 1- 25 net carbs and week 2 25 net carbs also right? Then I am allowed to move to Rung 2 at 30 net carbs? Sorry if I am bugging you

[tickletussler]

Re: question

nomorekugel, I'm no expert but I can let you know how another fellow OWLer handles OWL.

As I absolutely love my veggies I decided to take Megs' advice and stay on the first rung and move ahead finding my CCLL - that means moving up one carb level every couple of weeks until my weightloss either slows or stops altogether.

You could try this method ie you could do a modified OWL and stay on 20g carbs, introducing new foods in a rung... moving up the rungs as suggested... until you find a rung you really like. I remember reading about one girl who liked the dairy rung when she got there, plus it didn't cause any problems for her craving or weight-wise, so she stayed on the dairy rung and started finding her carb level from there ie increasing 5g carbs every couple of weeks.

Once you have found your CCLL, then you CAN drop back to a lower carb level you were comfy at, because let's say you find that your CCLL for now was 40g, and you dropped back to eating 25-30g daily, and let's say if you one day you overeat or cheat and find that you only "cheated" till 35g... then you know what your outer boundaries are ie that if you overstepped just once, you know you could still lose... I hope I wasn't too confusing for you?