Richard and Beth,

I agree with both of you that we should focus more on eating low carb foods that you can find anywhere. I eat cauliflower and jicama which were two vegis that I rately ate before this WOE. Before Atkins, I probably ate meat 2-4 times a weeks. Now i have it at almost every meal. Huge difference.

However, I still strongly believe in low carb products. There is nothing better than a flax seed cereal without any sugar when you are bloated or constipated. Cleans out your system, has the great heart healthy benefits of flax seed oil and it is a good change of pace.

There will also come a time when one goes into maintainence. Wouldn't it be great if you wanted to have bread with out having to buy something that was over milled, over processed and loaded with simple carbs?

I say this because when I started Atkins last summer a friend of mine from work started as well. He lost 70 lbs in 4 months. He would not try ANY low carb products. He was totally against them. However, since he has hit his goal weight, I have observed him eating chips, pretzels, bread, pudding and pizza. He has gained about 5-10 lbs of the wieght back. Now he still follows low carb most of the time but then he does these splurges. I worry that these splurges will happen more and more often and then he will gain the weight back. If he substituted these bad choices with a low carb equivilant, he would not set off the cravings and he probably would have been satisfied with much less.

He also lost the weight because he is getting married next month. I hope he keeps it off even after the wedding.

I find it kind of funny that many of the forum moderators are so against low carb products. However, this site is here because of the advertising and revenue from low carb products. This has always puzzled me.

I know everyone has an oppinion on this and I am no way saying that mine is right. I think with everything, it is what works best for you.



Oh, and chocolate may not be a food group but it is definately a gift from the gods!