Hi everyone. I've been on the atkins diet since january, lost 7 lbs and recently gained back 4. I was doing a lot of things wrong: lc bars, gobs of peanut butter, tons of coffee and almost NO water. I had become so frustrated and scared at the weight coming back that it culminated in a night of cereal and cliffbars about 5 days ago. When I saw the scale had gotten back to my before weight I cried and cried. But i seemed fated to get to that point, because I managed the impossible - I got my bf to hide the scale... that was 3 days ago. since then I have been re-reading DANDR and I'm ready to try it again... the way it was meant to be. Could someone//anyone please help me out with a little advice?

Question: Today I was REALLY hungry. Previously consuming 1500 cals (or under) for 3 months (less than 50% of which was fat), today I have reached a scary high of 2500 today (belly says it aint done yet). I know that Atkins does not recommend calorie counting, but to loose weight I have heard that keeping it as 10X your body weight is ideal. Is this true? (BTW I do exercise daily). I am really scared that my appetite has been so high lately... especially considering I've eaten so much fat!! (fat 78% )

Question: If my body prefers it's own bodily fat for fuel in the absence of dietary carbs (glucose), great! But what happens to the 2500kcal i ate today? Won't that get stored as bodily fat in some way?

Question: What can I expect in the way of weight loss when I'm re-starting my diet (as in, doing it the right way) but am not new to low carbing before ... I've heard that the second time it's much harder... (and honestly, I only had 3 days in between "then" and "now")

Question: Although it may not seem like I have a lot of weight to lose (25lbs), it means everything in the world to me. However, I wonder if it's harder to loose weight when you have less than 20% to loose?

Thanks you everyone for any help you can provide.

Cat-Magnet