Just to correct your typo above Rusty, the fat fast contains 1000 calories, not 100. Typical fat fasts contain cream cheese and macademia nuts, not cottage cheese.

I agree with the rest that you have said.

Some other things you may need to consider is what you are eating and what they are made of, like processed foods for example. A bar may say that it only has 2 carbs but for some people sugar alcohols and glycerine act like real carbs in their body. Another culprit is salt. People eating deli meats, pepperoni, cheese and such will retain water to deal with the extra salt.

Eating too many calories can make people gain as well as eating too few calories. The benefit of low carbing is that you can eat until satisfied and not be hungry. Protein and fat are essentially self-limiting in that there is only so much of it that you can eat. Especially fat, but excess protein does turn to glucagon (if we are spelling it right, it doesn't look right to me at the moment).

We must eat to lose; we must eat fat to lose fat.

The 10-12 calorie per pound has been bantered around, both as 10-12 your current weight and 10-12 your goal weight. Atkins says not to count calories, to eat until you are satisfied, but not stuffed and that typically a woman can eat 1800 calories a day and a man 2000 calories a day and still lose.

Probably the best thing to help you start losing is to go back to the lowest level of carbs on your plan, eat natural foods with little processing, add in natural fats like butter and olive oil, limit cheese and get most of your carbs from green vegetables and eat adaquate protein.

Beth