The hard part isn’t lowering the carb intake…

…but increasing it again. You wouldn’t think that would be the case, given all the horror stories about carb cravings and falling off the wagon. Incidentally, every now and again I get a very slight taste of something that’s supposed to be forbidden at this phase of the diet. But that’s it. Literally, just a taste, and then I’m fine again. Otherwise I have to force myself to remember to eat enough carbs to be at a proper level for this particular week. In OWL you have to add 5g a week of net carbs until you get to a point where you’re not losing anymore.

This is hard. Why? Don’t know. Part of it’s wrestling with eating vegetables. It’s one thing to shrug it off when you’re eating Standard American Diet and opt to take supplements instead. You can’t do that crap with Atkins. OK, you can take supplements and usually should, but if you skip the veggies you don’t get most of your carbs.

I finally got smart and opted for frozen veggies because salad wasn’t cutting it, no pun intended; I’d forget the stuff was in the fridge and it would rot, and that’s expensive. Frozen is mightily forgiving, though, in comparison. And yet, I’ve got like six bags of the stuff and I’m still not eating it. What gives?

No point wasting more time being analytical about it. Got to start eating the allotted amount tomorrow. In the meantime, I am not ramping up my carb intake anymore until I can hit 30g a day consistently for a week. Once I’ve got that down, we can struggle with 35g next time around.

One little deviation I don’t worry much about is carrots, by the way. They’re supposed to be high-glycemic but if you look at the carb count on a package of California mix (broccoli, cauliflower, and carrots), the net carb count is really low. I’ve also read that although they’re high on the glycemic index, you have to eat huge amounts of them to get that level of glycemic response. I haven’t been sent yammering after chocolate-chip cookies after partaking of them, so I won’t worry about it. They’re a great source of beta-carotene and fiber, they’re not acidic, and they’re not boring.

Something else to not sweat it about is yogurt. Dana Carpender quotes the authors of the GO-Diet as saying that since most of the lactose in yogurt has been converted to lactic acid, you only have to count 4g net carbs in a cup of yogurt. I’ve done that, and it works fine. I sweeten it with a teaspoon or two of Splenda (1-2g net), and I tried adding a packet of coffee-flavored sugarless Emergen-C to it the other day and it tasted pretty good. It also works with berries, obviously, which add another 3-5g per half-cup depending on which you’re working with. I wouldn’t mix berries with coffee flavor, though. And this is still just an occasional treat, not an everyday thing.

Silken tofu might be a better bet, for smoothies made with low-glycemic fruit.

But first let’s get the veggies back up. That’s vital. At least I am still taking my vitamins just about every day.