At least two low-carb diet plans include induction or beginning phases. During the induction phase, the dietary restrictions are greater than in later stages of the diets. Atkins coined the term "induction" for its first two-week phase, which limits your carbohydrate intake to only 20 g a day. The South Beach Diet calls its first phase "Phase 1" and it focuses on the kinds of carbs you can eat rather than how many. South Beach's Phase 1 also lasts for two weeks. Once you've finished the induction phase, you generally add a few more carbs back into your diet.
Phase 2 Rules
On the Atkins Diet, once you enter Phase 2, you can begin adding 5 g of carbs back into your daily diet, and increase this by 5 g a week. You continue doing this until you stop losing weight. When you reach this point, you'll know how many carbohydrates per day you can include in your daily diet without gaining weight. If you stop losing weight when you're taking in 130 g of carbohydrates per day, you know that you can't eat 135 g regularly without putting a few pounds back on. The South Beach Diet also increases your carbohydrate intake in Phase 2, but just like in Phase 1, this is determined by what you eat, not counting grams.
The Net Carb Rule
According to Atkins, the total carbohydrate content of any food doesn't count if the food also contains fiber. Foods high in fiber do not radically affect your blood sugar and insulin production in the same way that simple carbs, such as sugar, do. After the Induction phase of Atkins, when you begin adding more carbs into your diet to find out how many grams you can eat without gaining weight, you count only the net carbs, or the total carb grams minus the grams of fiber. This offers you several more choices for foods.
What You Can Eat
On the South Beach Diet, when you are finished with the induction or first phase, you can eat everything you did in the beginning phase, including lean protein, eggs and low-fat dairy products and cheeses. You can also add some "good" carbs into your diet. South Beach classifies whole-grain bread, whole-wheat pasta, brown rice and some starchy vegetables, such as sweet potatoes, as "good" carbs. On the Atkins Diet, the additional foods you can have in Phase 2 are more limited. You still can't have any bread, rice or pasta. The diet expands to allow you mozzarella, ricotta and cottage cheeses, nuts, seeds, tomato juice and five kinds of fruit: blueberries, raspberries, strawberries, cantaloupe and honeydew melon.
Other Options
A moderate low-carb diet, The Zone doesn't have phases. From beginning to end, it limits you to 40 percent of your calories per day in the form of carbohydrates. This allows you to take carbohydrates from such sources as breads, pasta and even bagel chips and some candy bars. The Zone recommends that you buy these products from its website, however, so they contain the exact combination of 40 percent carbohydrates, 30 percent protein and 30 percent fat.
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