Hi there

I'd suggest for a moment, ignoring the calorie counting, I know a lot of people do it here but this is not a low calorie diet (we reduce the consumption of food we eat overtime but its not essentially a calorie controlled diet), this is especially true in the induction stage.

If you arn't getting enough calories then you won't lose weight as your body will go into starvation mode. Besides if you eat your veggies and had a balanced food intake - dairy, protein, fact etc then your calorie levels will take care of themselves.....

You are suppose to eat the majority of carbs from veggies but its almost impossible to eat all 20gs from veggies which is where the dairy comes into play, you make the rest up with other foods...

Watching calories I guess is important, but nowhere in Atkins's book do I remember him saying that it was as important as watching carbs ...

You should be aiming for 10x-12x your current body weight in calorie intake btw..... and if you are saying that a bit extra of cheese (which you are to limit to 3-4 oz according to Atkins's book) is throwing you over then I can't see how you are possibly eating enough calories....

To me its far more important to eat 70% fat, 25% protein and 5% carbs ... you need that fat, fat will drive up your calorie intake, if you are eating lower calories then how can you be eating enough fat?

HTH

Fiona