Danni...

I'd honestly give it at least the full 2 weeks of induction before re-evaulating. Not drinking enough water could very well cause you to retain water. Same principle as not getting enough calories; not enough water and your body thinks there's a drought going on and does it's best to hold onto whatever water it gets. The best thing for water retention? You guessed it...more water..64 oz a day minimum! Has anyone mentioned Fitday to you yet? It's a great free resource to help you track where you are for the day with carbs and calories. The web address is www.fitday.com You are right in that Atkins isn't a calorie restricted diet, but it's important to make sure that you are getting enough. Most recommendations that I have seen are for at least 10-12x your body weight in calories each day and because this way of eating tends to naturally depress your appetite a lot of people have to work at it to get enough. For you that would mean right around 1,500 calories. Also, 60-70% of those calories should be coming from fat. Before you gasp and faint, remember that 1 gram of fat has more than twice the calories of 1 gram of carb or protein (1 gram of carb or protein = 4 calories, 1 gram of fat = 9 calories), so it doesn't take as much as you might think to attain that goal. Your hunger clues me in that you are probably not getting enough fat or calories and perhaps both. Something else that you should know is that the less weight you have to lose, the slower it will come off. What you have sounds like water retention to me. You didn't mention how long it took you to gain those 3 lbs, but it's physically impossible to gain that much weight in fat in a few days' time. That would mean that you would have had to take in 10,500 more calories than you actually burned (1 lb fat = 3,500 unburned calories). Re-read the chapter on induction and hang in there! Let us know how you're doing!