Thanks so much everyone for your feedback. I've decided to chill out 'cause I was really stressing for a minute there. I am not at all metabolliclly resistant........unlike my overweight friends I've been a constant nibbler throughout the day, lacking the ability to consume large quantities of food at a time. This has resulted in a great ability to lose weight. I've heard a lot of people say it is harder on Atkins the 2nd and 3rd time around. The thing is this is probably the 4th time and the other 3 I had the same results as the first. I think my real downfall is the lc/sugar free foods. When I was eating those for that week or so, I was so bloated up (does not give me diarreah, just bloating) and full feeling. I read in an article that the "chemicals" like maltilol and the like hold onto the water molecules in your body.......causing yes, water retention. I believe I was retaining a great deal of water. The thing is, once I stopped with the candy my system seemed to be totally out of wack and my weight was flucuating all over the place. So I made a decision.........this past weekend for 3 days I went off the diet. I made sure to consume a number of carbohydrates and even sugar (as in spagetti sauce) to help reset my system. I figured when you're trying to resolve an issue in science and you just can't figure what went wrong and you've already made too many changes...........best to go back to the begining with a clean slate and start over again. So that's what I did and I think it worked. My weight has no longer been fluctuating at all. I've been holding steady and yesterday I started back on induction. I also began taking One-A-Day Carb Smart vitamins and L-Carnitine. I feel confident that this is a good start and I should begin to see improvements in my weightloss again. It appears as though the lc/sugar free foods cause a chemical reaction in my system and has very negative effects. When I lost before they didn't have all the lc foods and if I wanted something sweet I ate naturally lc foods like a scoop of Bryers strawberry ice cream and my weightloss was more continuos. So, I'm sticking with the regular salad dresssings.........and am just abstaining from any kinds of sweets for the moment because my system obviously cannot handle them.

Let me know if anyone else has found that they have this problem and what they've done (successfully) to overcome it.

Thanks again guys.............you give me the will to forge ahead when all I want to do is run and hide.