Thank you Nat and Raven for your attention and support.

But especially thank you Karen for being hard on me.

Karen bitched me out for my eating habits. I was eating too many processed foods, too much cheese, and too many foods with artificial sweeteners. (and not enough veggies... still working on that one)

By giving up artificial sweeteners, I had to give up the low carb bars and russel stover chocolates. The hidden carbs in these were probably to blame.
But I was so into my sweet lifestyle that I was stubborn and COULDN'T give them up.

I was drinking about a 4L of Diet Pepsi per day, I was also drinking 1-2L of water. But I know Atkins says you must drink 2L of water + equal amounts of water for whatever else you drink which mean I should have been drinking 6L of water per day. Like that was going to happen!

So I gave up artificial sweeteners cold turkey and went through physical withdrawal for two days. I was very surprised by this. I wasn't like the carb withdrawal (feeling sick, headaches), it was more like quitting smoking (twitchy, irritable, angry).

At the same time I cut back on cheese for no reason.

I lost 1lb immediately, but didn't see anything new for a week and a half.

Now I think I'm losing again. I've been concentrating on getting more calories, eating less processed foods, and still eating nothing sweet.

I should know in about two weeks how truly successful this was.

Thanks again Karen!