I read on this forum that you should watch your sugar intake. What would you recommend your sugar intake per serving should be?

What about foods that say they are suger free but have a lot of carbs?

Okay, VERY bare bones of Low Carbing - cut out sugar, wheat, potatoes and rice. There's a helluvalot more to it than that, but if you're at the point of asking "how much sugar is allowed" then, um, the answer is - none. Pretty much. Certainly when you're starting to reprogram your metabolism away from being carb-dependent and get it into fat-burning instead. (Much much further down the road you get to introduce a lot of things back into your eating plan, but to start with, you're supposed to crank up the proteins and fats and cut out carbs as much as you possibly can.)

With Atkins, you start out limiting yourself to 20 grams of carbs a day - and those carbs come in the form of green leafy vegetables. (Even fruit is a no-no in the first two weeks, consisting as it does of mostly water and sugar; however, thereafter you can reintroduce berries and melons if you like.) After the initial 2 weeks you can gradually increase your carb intake, but it's still supposed to stay pretty low - exactly what level of carbs YOUR body can process whilst still losing weight will vary from individual to individual.

Sarae, you need to buy or borrow Dr Atkins' New Diet Revolution, or else The South Beach Diet to understand what Low Carbing is about, how it works and what it consists of - and then you can make informed choices about how you want to tackle it yourself. (And I do think that Gary Taubes' Good Calories, Bad Calories is well worth reading too.)

...But trying to do Low Carb by guesswork is going to be a pain in the *** for you, love!

Thank guys. I have read the book. I just need someone to tell me this food or that food is ok. Dr. Atkins list many foods but he doesn't list them all. My book says absolutely no peas while the website says I can have them in moderation. I just want to do it right.