Are the atkins bars,shakes and other products such as the pancakes and bread alowed during the induction? and if so is there a limit for each day? like one product per day? just wondering....My usual daily menu is a shake,breakfast bar or omlette forr breakfast...a chef salad for lunch and for dinner usually a hamburger (w/o the bread of course). sometimes when i work late in the evening i will snack on an atkins bar. is that bad? or does that sound like a good atkins induction day menu? please respond. thanks Manda

According to Atkins.com the bars and shakes are allowed but the bread is not allowed during Induction. The key is to make sure you are getting most of your carbs from the allowed vegetables, plus a small amount of cheese during Induction. If you're still under 20 grams on a given day, you can supplement with bars or shakes, but be sure you don't go over the limit.

Many people have cautioned about being careful with LC candy bars. Some people reprot that they cause a stall, while others report that they trigger sugar cravings. So the most cautious approach is to exclude them from your diet during Induction, then give them a try when you move to OWL.

I think you're better off avoiding all of them until after Induction!

I'm with Tampa Girl. It's hard to kick carb cravings when you're feeding them with low carb substitutes. I'd go by the book for induction. It's only for 2 weeks and there's plenty of time to add things and experiment with low carb products later. Besides...when you are still so close to the memory of the "real thing", the low carb substitutes are often very disappointing and many find them a waste of money.

If you browse Atkins.com and view the products you'll see a little square symbol with numbers indicating which phases the product is ok for. Anything with a 1 is ok for use during induction.

My first few weeks I avoided the bars and went strictly by the book. Being the big guy that I am i'll be in the induction phase for quite a long time so I started using the bars during long work nights.

When you start using them just beware of possible stalls.