Hi everyone,

I am getting ready to start the program. I have about 140 pounds to lose and I hope this program works. It gets tiring hopping from diet to diet with no results.

My question is about vegetables. I have an ongoing love hate relationship when it comes to vegetables and definitely don't eat as much as I should. It seems that it will take a lot of vegetables to make up 15 grams of carbs for a day.

Can anyone recommend what types of vegetables to eat and in what amount to ensure that I make it to the 15g of carbs needed for vegetables in a day?

Thanks. I appreciate the help.

Michael

Hi Michael,
Welcome to atkins! You are in the right place to finally reach your weight loss goals. The best advice is to stick with the guidelines - including the veggie recommendation of 12-15 net carbs from veggies each day.

If you look at the acceptable food list - you will see the allowable veggies are divided. The salad veggies typically have fewer net carbs than the veggies that are typically served cooked. Things like lettuce, cucumbers, celery etc are pretty low carb. They are great to fill you up without using many of your net carbs for the day.

There are other veggies that are higher in net carbs - things like tomatoes, onioins, brussel sprouts, garlic etc are much higher than the others.

A good way to ensure you meet your veggie carbs is to eat veggies with every meal. If you have eggs for breakfast - add some veggies and make it an omlette, perhaps a morning snack could include veggies as well. If you are making steak - fry some mushrooms, onions, peppers to have with it perhaps with some steamed broccoli etc.

It actually becomes pretty easy to reach 12-15 nc from veggies if you spread them out throughout the day - which is the best thing to do anyway.

As for figuring out the amount to eat - it would depend on the type you pick. Variety is best. I have tried lots of new veggies over the past couple of years and liked many of them.

How are you going to track your food? A lot of people use www.fatsecret.com it is a free site that is great for tracking. You can search the database and enter whatever you are eating. You can also change your settings to show net carbs so you don't have to do any math. You can record on paper instead if you wish, the USDA has a database that is very accurate for looking up nutritional information as well.

Either way will work - the best way to figure out your protion size is to use a food scale. Measuring cups are much less accurate.

It seems like a lot of work - but it is worth it! And, once you have been weighing, measuring and tracking your food for a little while it becomes much much easier - some people are able to estimate their portion sizes - athough personally I can't.

Best of luck to you!
Jacq