I’ve been on Atkins since 7/8 and have been doing well. In 2002, I was averaging around 1550 calories and 27 carbs per day and about 10 lbs loss per month. Well, things changed somewhat for me over the holidays. I started experimenting with low carb foods that I hadn’t tried before: protein powders, almond flour, hot cereals, baking chocolate, low carb cookies, etc. I was still strictly speaking not cheating, because I was not eating sugar, white flour, or starchy veggies. However, my daily calorie average shot up to 2050, my carbs went to 42 per day, my proportion of fat/protein/carbs went out of whack and I went out of ketosis. I weigh myself once a month and yesterday was my weigh-in day. According to the scale, I’ve gained at least 7 lbs since I last weighed myself in December. The good news is that I am not totally freaking out, as I would have in the past. Rather I know what happened and how to correct it. I am resolved to go back on induction for a week or two and then really cut back my carbs to no more than 30 per day. This was quite a wake-up call for me, and showed me that I can’t afford to fool around. I need to get back on track. I wanted to ‘confess’ this to you all as a way to strengthen my resolve and also to let others know that as great as Atkins is, we still have to be vigilant. We have to be careful not to let our guard down and the carbs creep up.