Confused

[joyous]

i added 5 net carbs to my veggies, so now i am eating 25 carbs a day on the 1 rung do i add anoth 5net veggies? I guess my question is how many 5net veggies do i add before going to the next rung or staying were i'm at?

[Mirya]

Re: Confused

good question I have been on rung one now for nearly a month and was curious of this as well.

[joyous]

Re: Confused

yeah i've been doing the extra 5net carbs for 2 weeks now i'm just wondering were i go from here lol

[mitzimarie]

Re: Confused

i added 5 net carbs to my veggies, so now i am eating 25 carbs a day on the 1 rung do i add anoth 5net veggies? I guess my question is how many 5net veggies do i add before going to the next rung or staying were i'm at?

Hi, Joy

Well, there are a couple of ways to approach OWL. One way, you stay a minimum of 1 week (better to do 2 or 3) on each rung. The main thing to remember, is to not add a new food and add carbs at the same time... if you have a problem, how do you know that it is the new food, or the higher number of carbs that is the problem? So, each week, you either add a new food using the number of carbs you are already eating, or up the number of carbs you are eating with foods that you already know that you can handle.

There is another way, and the way that I chose: I stayed on Rung 1 for a couple of months, because I did not eat veggies prior to Atkins and knew that they needed to be the primary source of my carbs for the rest of my life. So, I tried lots of new veggies, and on the weeks that I didn't add a new food, I increased my carbs by 5 to begin the search for my CCLL. Since veggies are safe, it is a good place to build up your number of carbs. That way, you have more carbs to "spend" when you go to the higher rungs, without having to sacrifice veggies to do it. If you already know that you can handle a specific number of carbs and you introduce a new food that causes trouble, you will know that it is kind of carb that is the culprit. There can be foods on any of the rungs that can trip you up. Even Rung 1 has foods that can cause trouble for some people. Rung 1, however, is usually a pretty safe place. It was while I was there, that I found out that I could lose just as easily on 35 net carbs, as I could on 20. That gave me enough carbs to get in my healthy veggies, and start adding the upper rung foods. You don't have to stay there until you find your CCLL, but it does help to have built up your carbs some, before moving to the other rungs. Then just remember, don't add new foods and more carbs at the same time.

Yep, OWL is quite a process. So, so important though! Each of us is quite unique in our tolerances, so no 2 journeys are exactly the same. That's the beauty of Atkins... through OWL, you tailor the perfect WOE for yourself.

Make sure to read the stickies at the top of this forum... all of them. They will help you to understand the process.

Good luck!

[joyous]

Re: Confused

Thank you for your reply i understand alot better now, not totally but i will research more on the forum thanks.

[Evermind]

Re: Confused

You can keep adding 5 grams of veg, or you can move up to the next rung.

Here's how I did it, not by plan, but by desire for food:

Jump1: Added 5 gram of veg (pumpkin)(for about 2 weeks)

Jump 2: Added 1 cup of cottage cheese plus the 5 grams of pumpkin from rung 1, stayed there for about 2 weeks

Jump 3: Added another 5 gram of veg in addition to the above and hung out for 3 weeks.

jump 4: added nuts in addition to the above and stayed until now.

I frankly have no desire for other foods. I don't always eat all of the above. The only every-day-consistent thing is that I always eat more veggies than on induction. I have nuts about 5 days a week, extra dairy around 3 days, and berries about 1 time a week.

On a couple of occasions I've had garbanzo beans (legumes) or a glass of red wine (alcohol) but not consistently enough to test whether I have a reaction. Just not that interested.

At some point I supposed i'll move up more and try fruit and wheat. But for now, all of the foods I love are in the first few rungs!

[gonnabskinny]

Re: Confused

What I did was to take it really slow climbing the ladder. I would spend 2-3 weeks on each rung and go up rather slowly. I was checking all the different foods along the way to see how my body reacted. Apples almost killed me when I got the fruit rung, but I found that if I ate the 1/2 of an apple with cream cheese or nuts that I could handle it just fine. That is the great thing about OWL. It really is where you learn. IMHO, taking your time here will really pay dividends later on.