Keri-T:
Thanks for the words of encouragement! Right now, I am having extremely slow weight loss (the closer you are to your goal, the slower the weight comes off), so your comment really brightened my day

Anyway - we have 14 horses, along with various, assorted other animals, and 3 kids (ages 11,10 & 8). My husband got a great temp. job out of state last summer, and I was left to take care of all these needy things by myself! Our horses kept escaping (Houdinis!) and myself and my children had to go find them, catch them, and bring them home, as well as exercise them, groom them, feed them, etc. At 5'3", and 195 lbs, I was experiencing severe short breath, exhaustion, fatigue, rashes where my legs were rubbing together, etc. when I had to walk these horses the 1/2 to 1 mile from where I found them. Even grooming them was making me short winded. At that point I knew I had to do something - your average 36 year old should be able to walk 1/2 mile without all those symptoms. I have NEVER done well with restricted calorie diets, and had heard of Dr. Atkins, so I decided to try this WOL. I followed (and still follow) his book to the T - exactly as he writes it. I have, of course "broken" the diet several times - Thanksgiving, Christmas, my B-day, Easter. BUT - otherwise, I have stuck to it. During Induction I lost about 9 lbs and was THRILLED because I was eating whenever I wanted. I have never counted calories - just carbs. The weight continued to come off at about a rate of 2 lbs per week - not lightening-fast but very steadily. Of course, I hit points were I lost nothing during the week - or 2 or 3. At that point, I would reread the appropriate sections of DANDR, figure out my mistakes (if any), and climb back "on the wagon" if I had made mistakes (or "broken" the diet). Invariably, I would see a 4-5 lb weight loss one morning after my "stalls". The "secret" to this WOL is two-fold - STICK TO IT and think of it as a WOL - not a diet. If you adjust your mind set to "I am always going to eat some variations of the foods I have now, plus a little more as time goes on", you will be able to be much more creative with your food, as well as hop "back on the wagon" after a "break" much easier. The second pointer is to constantly make adjustments to your food intake (what you eat, not how much). Try new meats, cheeses, look at your favorite "regular" food and figure out how you can come up with something LC that resembles it, find new favorite foods, and by all means do NOT get caught up in the "perfectionist" thing. Some days you may have an intake of 40 carbs. So what? As long as the MAJORITY of the time, you are within your CCL, a slightly higher day will not hurt. An occasional "break" (1 day only, tho) won't kill you, either - notice I said occasional!! This is a WOL - you have to make it work in YOUR life. If you are sticking to it diligently 99% of the time, you WILL lose weight!!

Good luck,
Anna