Can I do zero carbs during induction to super kickstart my body?

[erikwebster]

If I go to zero carbs by only eating meat like chicken, turkey burgers and red meat (no eggs even) for a few days during induction will that do anything bad to me? And will it help me to go into heavy ketosis faster?

[cocobelle]

I wouldn't recommend it. Your body still needs the carbs for things like respiration, cardiac function and brain functioning. Even those that severely restrict carbs to <10g find lightheadedness, nausea, confusion, irritability. Instead of restricting the carbs so severely, you'd be better to increase your exercise by 30 min or so.

[staziaw]

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! You need, need, need the vitamins, minerals, and fiber in veggies. Veggies and all their yummy goodness also help your liver (and other organs) to function properly. Going zero-carb will NOT help you!

Eat your veggies, young man!

[Monroe]

The best results you will get is doing the atkins diet, not your version of the atkins diet. You dont want to cut all the carbs out, doing atkins your cutting out a lot of them anyways!

[Tiggerdagibit]

I agree. Do it the right way and you'll be much better off. So many people try to alter it and end up quitting, then say Atkins didn't work. Well they weren't doing Atkins.

[LowCarbLara]

Your body actually has no need for dietary sources of carbohydrates so cutting them out completely wouldn't necessarily cause you any health problems.

However, for variety, keep them in. Besides which, it's not Atkins if you cut them out.

[Scooterjam]

You heard it here. Definately NO! You need those 20 carbs to follow the induction plan that Dr Atkins set up for us. If you're doing a strictly high protein no carb diet, you aren't doing the Atkins Plan. You're doing a sort of mutated do something terrible to your system 'fad diet'.

That's just my thoughts. Best of luck. Stay away from the darkside, step into the light!

[not2late]

Your body will go into ketosis once you eat below 100 grams carbohydrates daily. Dr. Atkins made the 'magic' number for Induction as 20 because that was the level when the vast majority of us would definitely be in ketosis.

So there's really no need to eat 1 level carbs in order to "super" kick start. Anyhow, if you do make the mistake of eating close to "0" carbs, you increase the chance of experiencing those nasty carb withdrawal symptoms, aka "Induction Flu".

And another thing...a lot of people think it's the protein-to-carb ratio that "kick starts" ketosis. Dr. Atkins wrote it's the fat-to-carb ratio that does it on his diet.