Vegetarian on Atkins Induction?

[winterrose]

Hi, I've been veg for 4 years but need to go on the Atkins diet to lose weight... :/ :/ I am willing to eat meat if I have to, but to my great pleasure I saw that there's a whole board devoted to vegetarian lo-carb here on these forums!

Is it possible to be on atkins diet induction while staying vegetarian? if so, what foods should I eat? what should i avoid?

:/ i appreciate any help with this. thank you so much!!

-winter

[Faithnj]

Sure it's possible! (And you DO NOT have to eat meat.) For starters, you can eat eggs, veggie omelets with cheese, tofu, veggie bacon or veggie sausage for breakfast. There are also low carb cereals on the market. I used veggie sausage and low carb veggies for snacks. For lunch and dinner you can eat veggie burgers, veggie hot dogs, tofu, tempeh, veggie chicken pattties, salad and other low carb vegetables. Cauliflower can be made to substitute for rice, grits, and mashed potatoes. Don't forget that you can have low carb/high protein shakes throughout the day. And frankly-- I personally found that I could do a very good induction without having to go as low as 10 carbs a day-- if I exercised! If you exercise, you can add some protein bars to the mix and get good results.

Good luck!

Faith

[winterrose]

But won't going over 20g throw me out of ketosis, even if I exercise? I do get at least 30 mins a day... although that has been sporadic since i started dieting because i haven't had much energy. I'm not sure... I seem to be having good luck with K but I don't have test strips so I'm not always sure.

But thank you so much for your advice. I've been eating... cheese and eggs all day, every day, pretty much, so if this is a way out of it, i'm SOOOOO HAPPY!! hehe

[Faithnj]

Actually--- the only way I could tell if going over 20 carbs had thrown me out of ketosis was with test strips. Maybe there's another way to tell...but I don't know about it. Anyway-- when I found that going over 20 carbs did NOT throw me out of ketosis, I was grateful, and I attributed it to all the exercise I was doing at the time. I exercised aerobically for probably about 1 1/2 hours each day, plus 1/2 hour of yoga. (Sometimes more.) I did videos I thought were fun-- dance aerobics (disco, salsa, etc.,) step aerobics, rebounding, pilates and bike riding and roller skating. However, I always found that for the first three days of changing my diet I was weak because my blood pressure dropped a lot. After day three, I usually felt great.

You'll find your own way and learn how your body works if you give yourself the chance.

Good luck!

Faith

[jt2007]

to get to deep purple i had to stay at 20 carbs.
in actuality the body needs betwwen 50 to 100 carbs to stay out of ketosis (via my nutritional class at the university)