I am beginning to believe I had such a hard time with Atkins the second time around because I believed I knew what I was doing, but I did not. I am going to admit something to you, I knew that my increased dairy intake coincided with my weight loss stall last time I did this diet. It didn’t make sense to me at the time because I mistakenly believed the dairy carbs were negligible. What accounted for the increase in dairy? My tea consumption! I thought my tea was less than one carb per serving, turns out it was five carbs per serving (tea (1), half-and-half (2), Splenda (2)). The Atkins induction sheet doesn’t even recommend half-and-half; it recommends cream, which is one carb instead of two.
I’m doubling down on my Atkins diet. I put together my grocery list using a split screen with Atkins specific recommendations for induction on one side and Peapod on the other side. Peapod has a handy tool called a Nutrifilter that allows you to identify foods with specific nutritional values. You can set it to identify foods that are low in fat, low in calories, high in Vitamin C, etc. In my situation, I’m concerned about carb content, so I set the Nutrifilter to identify all foods that were below a certain number of carb grams. I set the Nutrifilter to identify all the Stop and Shop brand Frozen Vegetables that are below five carbs per serving. The identified vegetables were Broccoli, Cauliflower, Spinach, Green Beans, Bell Peppers and Kale. Surprisingly, one of my favorite foods, okra did not make the cut. I’m sure it makes the cut for net carbs, which are carb grams minus fiber grams, this is the real number that matters in Atkins when counting carbs. Because I’m going “pure”, I’m going to accept only the foods that are within my parameters without the calculation and I’m giving up okra for induction.
Eating lower carb vegetables allows me to eat more vegetables. For example, the standard serving of broccoli is one half a cup, but my standard serving is about a cup and a half which is half a 16 oz bag of vegetables. That will amount to about six to eight carbs. I usually flavor meat with mushrooms and onions, which can add up to three carbs to a meal. I can consume up to ten net carbs for dinner alone. This is why it is so important for me to drink zero to one carbs beverages.
I set up several parameters for different types of food. I only selected meat and beverages with zero carbs. Most meat and sugar free beverages, including diet sodas and Crystal Light have no carbs, so that is easy and is a lot less limiting than one might imagine. It is better to prepare your own meat because some meat does have hidden carbs because of the way it is prepared. By being conscientious about my food choices, I cut my breakfast carbs (sausage (0), eggs (1), cheese (1)) from four to two carbs by eliminating the two carb per serving sausage I used to buy.
The Nutrifilter allowed me to quickly identify the teas that do and do not have carbs. I do not wish to spend carbs on beverages so I’ve replaced my Vanilla Chai tea (1), with Peppermint tea (0). I’m replacing my half-and-half (2) with cream (1). I recall that peppermint tea is something I’m willing to drink without sugar. I will try it that way before automatically dumping Splenda (1) in it. These changes will reduce the carbs in my tea from five to one. A four carb reduction may not seem like a lot, but when you’re trying to stay within 20 carbs and breakfast (2) and lunch (6 to 8 for a filling salad and salad dressing) can account for up to ten carbs, wasting carbs on beverages is a no go. If my tea is one carb, I can probably drink multiple cups a day as I like to do while I work, if it is two carbs, I will have to be more careful. I thought of the idea of sipping on Atkins shakes during the day, which are one to two carbs each and they are much more filling, but they are also a lot more expensive. A 20 pack of tea plus cream cost about five dollars. A four-pack of Atkins shakes cost about six dollars. So we’re talking about a thirteen-dollar difference, therefore, I do consider the tea to be a necessary part of the diet.
