Carb counting questions

[talulah]

This is the first time I've tried Atkins (I've always done the low fat route, but it never lasts), and I have a couple questions that probably have pretty obvious answers.

First, do you actually count your carbs when doing induction, or just make sure you only the "approved" quantities of the allowable foods?

And in terms of salad, how do you count the two cups? If I do a total of two cups, and include a tablespoon of this, and bit of that, or mix my greens, but everything fits in the measuring cup, do I need to calculate each thing separately, or does the each cup generally add up to X number of net carbs?

Thanks!!

[Georgiana]

Originally Posted by talulah

First, do you actually count your carbs when doing induction, or just make sure you only the "approved" quantities of the allowable foods?

If you eat only from the acceptable foods list and only in the allowed quantities, then you shouldn't have to count carbs during Induction. I would still recommend counting though. It will teach you how to plan your menus, how many carbs are in X amount of some food and it will give you a carbohydrate baseline from which you can move to OWL (by adding 5 net carbs to it).

Also, since you did low fat in the past, you might have a tendency to avoid fat. Because Atkins is a high fat diet and it's the ratio of fat to carbohydrates that will help you get faster into ketosis, you should make sure you are eating enough fat. The approximate percentages you should aim for during Induction are 65% fat, 5% carbs and 30% protein. These percentages are automatically calculated in FitDay (or whatever you use to track your foods).

And in terms of salad, how do you count the two cups? If I do a total of two cups, and include a tablespoon of this, and bit of that, or mix my greens, but everything fits in the measuring cup, do I need to calculate each thing separately, or does the each cup generally add up to X number of net carbs?

You can mix greens from the Induction acceptable foods list, but if you want to know the carbs you will need to measure them separately. For leafy green veggies it will not make a huge difference (lettuce has only 1 carb per cup), but for more nutritious salad veggies (e.g. jicama, red peppers) not measuring each veggie individually will make a difference.

[talulah]

Thanks, that makes sense. Avoiding fat won't be a problem, since it never really seemed logical (or taste particularly good).

[JulieB]

Originally Posted by talulah

Thanks, that makes sense. Avoiding fat won't be a problem, since it never really seemed logical (or taste particularly good).

Are you saying that you plan to avoid fat? I'm sure that isn't at all what Georgiana is advising.

[talulah]

Oops, no, of course not. I was saying (well, saying very poorly) that I had difficulty cutting fat on low fat diets before--it never seemed to make sense that after hundreds of thousands of years of evolution, fat and protein would all of a sudden become bad for us.