Whenever I've cheated, I've gone back to induction for two weeks before returning to my CCL. I don't know that it's necessary, though.

For anyone else planning a cheat, the old, un-revised Atkins book suggested a 1-hour cheat. The idea was to only do this once or twice a year, but if you just can't stand to miss Mom's sweet potato pie at Christmas, eat all you want within a 1 hour window.

The science behind it was that if you keep all the carbs to 60 minutes while you're strictly following a LC plan, your blood sugar won't be thrown out of whack like it will if you binge on carbs for a whole day.

I went home to Mississippi last fall and I just wanted to eat a Po Boy so bad. I hadn't had one since moving out to Los Angeles. So I planned a 1 hour cheat, and ate two Po Boys plus gravy fries plus a Barq's root beer.

Sure enough, by keeping it to 1 hour, I didn't get any wild cravings, I didn't go out of ketosis and I didn't see any damage on the scale.

But I'll only use it for emergencies. I've been on Atkins for a year (this week!) and that's the only time I've used it.

Jeff