Atkins Diet - low carb day 7

So it is day 7 on the low carb lifestyle.  I tend to call it a diet but it has to be a lifestyle.  This is my 4th attempt in the past 20 years - 3 times before I have gone on the Atkins diet religiously for 4 months and didn't cheat at all.  Each time I have lost 45 pounds.  At that point, for some reason, I would go back to eating carbs and slowly gain the weight back. 

This time my goal is to make it a lifestyle and not go off the program.  Of course my mini goal is to break the 45 lb barrier.  If I can do that  When I do that I will feel so much better and mentally feel successful.

I read a lot of blogs and forums on the Atkins, South Beach, Protein Power or other low carb diets and I have seen where some people have a one time shot at losing with the program, and when they go off and  come back at a later date, they do not get the same fast results.  Fortunately this has never happened to me.  I have lost 7 pounds in the first week and am thrilled.  I think the repeat dieters might be a little to liberal in their food choices and learned a little low carb cheats from the first time around.

I have to be careful though.  I know from experience I cannot go by "net carbs" - this is when they take the actually carbohydrate grams and subtract the fiber grams and come up with the net carbs (ex: 10 carb grams - 7 fiber grams = 3 net carbs).  If I count this way I usually don't gain, but I don't lose either.

Other people, however, like my mother, lose good by counting "net carbs".  So if you are doing the low carb lifestyle experiment and see what works for you.

I do as a treat occasionally have an Atkins bar (tastes like a candy).  If net carbs work for you, the prepackaged snacks and baked good are a great help - you feel like you can have a treat.