Hello. I have been on atkins since march, almost 8 months now. I have stayed faithful at 15-25 carbs daily. I decided, since I have such good control over my hunger and abilityto resist cravings now, I would splurge calorically and in carbs. I decided to let myself have about 35 carbs and 1800-2000 calories. I was preparing a low carb friendly feast, so I figured it would be pretty easy to do this. Wrong. I wound up eating over 2200 cals and 45 carbs. Not a HUGE "cheat", but still the loss of control scared me... brought back naughty memories.
I felt bloated and uncomfortable, and yet I still wanted to eat. I didn't like that feeling, psychologically. It made me realize something about myself.

1) The feeling of control Atkins has given me is largely an illusion. I find it easy on normal days to stay within my carb and calorie allotment, because in my mind I have limited my food choices. I have forbade myself from eating things that are high in carbs. When I go into maintenence it will be more difficult to maintain control. It will be easy to get caught up in the carb cycle if I am not careful. In maintenence my food choices are more diverse, which leads to more "snacking", which leads to eating to eating more carbs, which leads to more irrational hunger, which leads to even more carbs, etc etc.

2) Do not reincorporate a lot of carbs into the diet at once. I must make sure to add hem slowly when I do transition to maintenence, so I can adjust psychologically and physically. Adding just 25 extra carbs all at once made some of my symptoms come back - I feel very shaky, like I am starving, etc.

3) I really really need to work on eating when not hungry. All thanksgiving I felt like bloated and crappy, but I still wanted to eat a lot. Not good.

All in all, I am glad I had a low carb Thanksgiving with diverse maintenence type food. It taught me a valuable lesson about maintenence, myself, and the diet.