ok, I am getting more frustrated every minute. I just checked my "atkins notebook" and realized that I got down to my "low end" weight at the end of the first week (started feb. 7) and ever since then it has been up and down constantly. I heard somewhere about a week 3 and 4 stall, but this is a week 2, 3,4, and beggining of 5 stall. I am getting depressed.

I don't "cheat" and I drink lots of water every day, in fact, I started drinking a lot more water starting week 2 and 3.

I am taking sugar free vitamins, am v. careful to read all food and supplement lables, but eat mostly unprocessed meats and vegetables anyway.

I am eating a little more cheese than you are supposed to, but otherwise am sticking to induction. I don't think I even usually am having a bad number of calories (either too high or too low).

I started taking oil of oregano a couple of days ago.

I am not getting a lot of excercise (I hurt my back, which led to major inactivity and all this awful weight in the first place) but I'd like to start some this week.

I guess I just hope to hear from somebody that this is ok, and will end soon, I hope the excercise does it, otherwise I am really at a loss.

sorry this is so long, i love you guys, thanks for everything, this forum keeps me going,
rebekah.

Do you find yourself eating pretty much the same foods everyday? I got stuck in that rut for awhile, and when I changed what I ate (alternate foods that I was not used to eating, plan approved of course!) I saw the scale move downwards again. Also, congratulations on losing 10lbs!! Have you been measuring inches lost? You might not see a loss on the scale sometimes, but you are losing inches instead.

I know I should be measuring inches, but I really am not sure how to do it accurately. My clothes don't really feel much looser, I figure that generally that will be a good indicator as well.
I will try to get more variety, that is sucha good idea, I usually do eat the same staple foods every single day.
Thanks Mel!

Bekkers, I can't get your fitday link to work..

This happens alot. To almost everyone who has ee successful on this diet there are major slow points. Lots of people swear by exercise as a way to get your metabloism moving, but I can personally attest to having lost no weight for the last month and then having five pounds drop off me in the last two days.

How could this happen you ask? Well my understanding of the theory that explains it is, when you burn fat your body is extremely reluctant to just let it go. In case you decide to fill that fat back up, your body marks the spot the fat was with extra water retained in the cells. So when your body is finally convinced that you don't need the fact back, it let's go of the water, you spend alot of extra time peeing, and suddenly you're 2-3-4 pounds ligther!

Hold in there, that's the best thing you can do!!!

God Luck Girl! Emmsy

bekkers, if you go to http://www.mybodycomp.com and sign up for a free account, the site shows you where to measure.

My clothes didn't feel loose at first either, but that's because I was losing a lot of fat off my back (yuck ... back fat) and torso, and since I never wear tight shirts, I just couldn't tell.

Definitely start using www.mybodycomp.com. I've only lost a pound in the last few weeks, for instance, but I've dropped something like four inches from various parts of my body.

Thank you guys for your thoughtful replies, I'm not sure why my fitday link isn't working, I'll see if I can fix it...

I would like to add a question. How many carbs are you eating daily? Some people decide that if 20 grams is good then 15 must be better and this isn't necessarily true. Here is something else I discovered, low carb is alot better after you've been doing it for a year.