Kathy:

I totally understand and empathize with your confusion. I am not sure about the coffee thing, can't really help you there. But the bacon issue is still kind of questionable. Some meats have carbs in them, even in their natural or unprocessed states. Nat mentioned liver for example, or some shellfish etc... I think you would do yourself a disservice if you were to consider them as "free foods" and overload your carb limit by a great deal if you were to indulge in them too liberally...

Bacon is "iffy" because not all meat processors use the same ingredients to finish their product. Sometimes fillers and sugars are used in processed meats, and those fillers can and sugars can accumulate quite a few carbs per piece if you aren't carefully comparing brands.

I remember for example buying two different brands of premade hamburger patties from the store. One was all beef, no filler...0 carbs per piece, and the other brand had SEVEN carbs per burger because of the bread/wheat based fillers they added. HUGE difference if you are considering meat to be a "free" food!

I think you do have to give yourself a break every once in a while and not get too hung up on the difference between a cup of coffee's worth of carbs every once in a while, but at the same time, maybe what is really good about this diet is that it has forced me to seriously consider and even research the smallest morsel of food that goes into my mouth. Atkins can be a pain in the butt, BUT, it sure beats mindlessly popping back donut after donut...

Mari