Hello Houlihan!
CONGRATS ON YOUR WEIGHT LOSS!!!
Glad you found something useful in my ramblings. I do tend to ramble...
About my plan: I posted a rather long-winded reply to annaL just a thread or two ago on this forum. She was asking about various plans and I outlined some of the basic principals of the Schwarzbein plan. You're also welcome to read my journal where I've posted a small sampling of my daily menus. I plan to keep up with this regularly. You can get more info about the Schwarzbein plan at
www.schwarzbeinprincipal.com, as well as the link Karen suggested, as well as the forum for Schwarzbeinians!
I guess you can tell I'm very sympathetic to us vegetarian low-carbers (one of the reasons I named my journal Vegetarian LCer, hoping that would give other vegetarians some inspiration!
)
Schwarzbein is more lenient on the carb count. You don't count carbs in veggies and cream and cheese and stuff like that. Her theory is that you don't have to count carbs in the things that won't send your insulin shooting up if you were to eat them alone, i.e., high protein, high fat stuff. Tofu is one of the things that isn't restricted, although I try not to have more than a 6 oz piece at mealtimes (which is still a whopper of a portion, I admit, but what her recipes call for). She's against anything artificial/unnatural, though, like artifical sweetners and anything you can't theoretically pick, gather, milk, or shoot down (ahem! Not pertinent to us vegetarians...
) However, you should be aware that you don't lose weight as quickly as you do with Atkins. One-half pound to a pound a week is really doing well!
About my stats ::: blushing ::: OK, I have to fess up, I lost my weight doing a low-fat/starvation/emotional blackmail diet. I now realize what I was doing to my body was horribly unhealthy. I haven't lost any pounds with LCing (started beginning of February), but I know I've lost inches and I believe LCing is worth it for the health benefits. I know the lack of pound loss is because of muscle mass. I walk 1 + 15 min (turns out like that!) 5 days a week before work, as I have for years, only now I've got protein to feed those bones and muscles!
After all this longwindedness
, I guess I'm only repeating what Karen said, and that is that you will have to make the plan your own. Induction is OK for a start, but it's also OK to add more carbs the un-Atkins way (i.e., not gradually, etc.) and be losing much more slowly. Particularly if you're a vegetarian.
Tal