QUESTION Everyone !!!

[Bellezza]

I was looking thru my fitday journal and for the past week my carbs have been randing from 7 to 13 grams per day.

My ratios are perfect and i keep my self to the 3 cups of veggies. and of course the allowed cheese, which i dont have everyday now. Sometimes i just have ONLY ONE slice as a snack for after dinner now

However I dont have any of the so called 'extra carbs' that are planned for lets say salad dressing or things as such because i like make my own, zero carb dressings.

so MY question is, MAY I add in some more veggies (more than the 3 cups) , since I am so low , most of the times at half the allowed carbs per day?

i am mostly referring to romaine lettuce. I love it with mayo on as a snack

I would appreciate ANY suggestions and ideas !

Thanks and happy 4th july !

[Desertthorn]

You are limited to 3 cups of veggies while on induction but the first step on OWladder is more veggies so stick with the program and add the veggies when you move on to OWL

[Brook]

There are two ways you can do this.

3 cups of the salad veggies or 2 cups salad veggie 1 cup other veggie or
if you have a food scale, I'd suggest using it instead of using volume measurements.

According to the Atkins Center (before they became Atkins Nutritionals and when Dr. Atkins was runnin' the place) - BOTH methods are completely acceptable and correct

[Bellezza]

Ohhhh I had a feeling that i couldnt ....lol

I just bought a food scale but how much does a cup of lettuce weigh?

Or how many ounces of veggies are we allowed a day ?

[Brook]

If you weigh your food you will get MUCH more accurate carb counts than if you go with volume measurements like cups.

3oz of my salad mix is 15 calories, 3 carbs- 1 fiber= 2 grams of carb.


The reason they told us in the book to use cups to measure is because at the time people either didn't have access to carb counters and/or because Dr. Atkins knew that people wouldn't take the time or put in the effort to weigh their food. It was for ease, pure and simple. If you follow the guidelines and do 3 cups of salad or 2 cups of salad and 1 cup of other veggie, you are essentially GUARANTEED to stay well under 20 grams of carb a day.

If you pack a cup full of lettuce and I pack a cup full of lettuce, what do you think the odds are that our cups will have the same amount of lettuce in them? - Honestly, they're pretty slim. It's going to depend on everything from how big or small the lettuce is shredded to how determined the lettuce packer is to get as much in that cup as they can. (Yes, the guidelines say "loosely packed", but if I dice my tomatoes and you slice them....I'm gonna get a heck of a lot more tomato in mine.)

If you weigh out an ounce of tomato slices and I weigh out an ounce of diced tomatoes......we have the same amount and same carb count

The truth is you get a LOT more bang for your veggie buck if you use a food scale.

You are allowed 20 grams of carb a day from very specific sources as detailed in Chapter 11 of DANDR. The end.

The book correct answer is you are allowed 3 cups of salad veggies or 2 cups of salad veggies + 1 cup of other veggie.

HTHS
~Brook

[Bellezza]

ohhh wow GREAT information brook !!! Thanks a lot

SO lets say 3 oz has 2 net carbs , this is the equivalent for one cup rite ?

does this mean that i can have 9 oz of lettuce if i wanted to , right ?

Or should I just use this principle to make sure i am under the 20 grams a day .

for example i can have more oz of lettuce which seems to have the lowest carbs as opposed to another vegetable that has higher carbs ?

Ohhh and by the way, ur pictures rite next to your name, that are two different people rite ?

Thanks for all ur help , i appreciate it

[Elizellen]

Bellezza - the 3 cups is the limit on induction according to DANDR, no matter what veggies you choose to eat.

If you would rather weigh than use a measuring cup then you can go to the USDA site and look up how many grams of something equals one cup.

http://www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/foodcomp/search/

according to this one cup of shredded romaine weighs 47 grams (1.65 ounces), so you could have up to 141 grams (5 ounces) if you only wanted to eat romaine lettuce as your 3 cups on induction - according to the USDA info that equals only just over 1.5 net carbs!!! (1.54 total less 1 fibre = 0.54 net).

So by choosing only lettuce you would be by default keeping your carbs down very low - especially if you are following the rule that says - get more than half of your carbs from your veggies!!

BUT once you get to the veggies rung of OWL you can add another 5 net carbs of romaine which according to USDA info is 0.54 per cup so you could have about 8 cups extra!!

By the way, you can download a pdf file with the info in it if you want to be able to look stuff up when not online
http://www.ars.usda.gov/Services/docs.htm?docid=5720

[Elizellen]

And do note, Bellezza, Brook said that 3 ounces of HER salad mix came out to 2 net carbs, not that 2 ounces of ANY of the salad vegetables would amount to the same number of net carbs!!

'Salad' encompasses all the vegetables listed on the 2-cup list, so she could include peppers, cucumbers, mushrooms and daikon which all have different carb counts than romaine lettuce.