My doctor spent 45 minutes on Wednesday explaining the Atkins diet to me and I immediately got on it, as fortunately I had only had eggs for breakfast that morning. My doctor explained the basics to me, and then my father elaborated on the diet when I told him I was going on Atkins (he has been on it before, and just started back on it last week). Anyway I have been faithfully keeping my carb count below 20 since then. My father had gone with me to the grocery store to point out all the things I could eat, and basically just re-iterated that the carb count should stay below 20. I just bought the new Atkins book and am about to read it, but surfing on the internet and Atkin's website the last few days, I discovered that during Induction its not just keeping your carbs below 20- its not eating anything that isn't on the approved list of foods for the Atkins induction, which pretty much includes all meats, 3 cups of veggies, and butter and oils. This has rather dampened my spirits about the diet, because I am a college student working part-time, have been under alot of stress in the past year (when I gained all my weight) have little time to exercise, [even though I am paying monthly for an all-women's gym] and the whole reason I got excited about this diet was that it made such perfect scientific sense and I felt I could still get a variety of foods, which helps keep my chocoholic/carb cravings to a minimum. I just went the other day to a health food store and was so excited to discover the land of low carb breads and jellies and chocolates and shakes and invested a nice chunck of my part-time paycheck into these foods, finally confident that I was going to be able to fit into my old clothes and get a bikini for summer. This diet has been a huge lifestyle change, as I have had to mentally re-label foods as being good and bad. I had been a vegetarian for quite some time, then went back to eating all meats but read meat. Though I have never really been a junk food freak (I hate soda and I can't eat alot of chips and other junk foods) I love fruits and especially organic and soy milk (and chocolate of course). I've been really proud that I have shifted gears so well into eating red meat again and avoiding milk and carbs (though I really miss milk), but seeing the restrictions Dr. Atkins has on the induction really made me feel horrid. I'm just wondering how badly I have messed up by eating nuts and low carb foods that aren't on the induction list. Does the Atkins diet simply not work if you can't make it through induction? I really want to do this and I am giving it everything I've got...
Thanks

Wendy