Hi, Vanessa.....congratulations on starting out w/ a good loss! You must feel pretty good right about now. Well, expect to continue feeling good, and seeing your weight go down, too. Maybe not quite so much as a pound a day, but you should see a downward trend. The Hellers recommend daily weights, weekly averages and subtracting this week's average from last week's to see what your loss is. This helps smooth out the ups and downs, you see.
Your first day's menus look great! And that "stuffed" feeling is pretty common. As you eat a bit less that will go away. But isn't it nice to not be hungry all the time? Whoooo-hoooo!!!!!!
The aspartame is something that differs among us CAs. I don't use it because it gives me headaches, and I've read some pretty scary stuff about the side effects, but I did use Splenda while on Atkins, and honey, I don't care if I NEVER have any artificial sweetener again.
I'll stick to good ol' sugar from here on in.
But if you want to use it, take the opportunity to listen to your body. That's something that isn't stressed quite as much on Atkins, so you may need to get used to it. But it's easy. Have something, stop and see how it treats you, make up your mind to have it or lose it. That's about it.
On the greens issue, it's going to get pretty boring eating only lettuce and celery. You may want to try a different salad vegetable each time you shop...never can tell, you might find some that you like!
But the salad is not mandatory on CAD; at least one all but one of the plans. So play it by ear, listen to your body and succeed!
Take care....