Caroline, forgot to mention that the cinnamon chicken sounds great! Right now I am stocked up and when I need to do my "Atkins" shopping again, I will buy the ingredients, will have to find a recipe as I never had cinnamon chicken before.

Lori, yes, I think I am going to avoid cream cheese for a while. I also bought that "block" from Costco and even though I have lost weight I think the cream cheese is stalling me from losing more.

Thanks for asking about the lyme, yes, I have been in remission for years now (symptom free) but during the time I was sick I put on soooo much weight!

As far as the chopped meat, my thinking is because I use a pound of meat in a casserole mixed with veggies, I am not eating alot of meat. My all time favorite is Turkey so I'll probably buy a small turkey next time I go shopping, have to watch the sales.

Sorry it's snowing by you, we had some snow the other day and it's freezing here! Brrrrrrrrrrr!

Toby, I experienced the same weirdness with cream cheese on Thursday. I made a couple recipes with cream cheese in, didn't even really eat much of either, but the next day my weight was up. Yesterday I ignored the cream cheese completely, and what do you know, I'm down nearly two pounds this morning! (That's nearly 8 pounds in six days. Bye bye, plateau! Thank you, Dr. Atkins!)

Needless to say, I will be staying away from cream cheese for the duration as well.

Lori, here's the recipe, if you didn't find it (I've never found it online, I always have to ask my mom):

***

Mother's Lemon-Baked Chicken

4-to-5 pound chicken (I've also done it with breasts or parts, and vegetarian with Quorn cutlets a time or two)
Juice of 1 lemon
1/2 C. butter, melted
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp. cinnamon

Rinse chicken and place in roasting pan. Combine lemon juice with melted butter. Baste chicken with a few tablespoons of butter mixture. Combine salt and cinnamon and sprinkle over chicken. Roast in 325 degree oven for about 1 hour 45 minutes, continuing to baste with remaining butter every half hour until mixture has been used and chicken is tender.

***

Yeah, I am very misleading in calling it 'cinnamon chicken' when the name is 'lemon baked chicken'. The cinnamon is my favorite part of the recipe, so that's what I've always called it.

Stay warm, everyone! We got snow and freezing rain here, so it's a mess out there. I have to figure out how to get to my sister's house at some point today since I'm supposed to watch her kids, but it's going to be tricky. She's only 3 miles from me, but the roads between here and there are slushy and slick. They're planning to go out of town overnight for her birthday. I say they're crazy not to postpone, but they never ask my opinion!

Caroline, thanks for the recipe for the chicken, wow, that's a small amount of cinnamon, will definitely make this recipe sometime this week. I also love curry, curry chicken, curry shrimp, curry anything! Cumin is another favorite spice of mine.

Lori, yes, I still learning about quantities and how many net carbs are in each quantity. I have to keep reminding myself to drink more water too! I was never a soda drinker but I do love my coffee and even though this diet states de-caff, I need my caffeine every morning! That is the only thing I can not give up. Everything else is easy for me.

Yeah, I am always surprised when I look at the recipe and see how little cinnamon it really calls for. I think the salt helps bring out the flavor, but I confess I never actually measure. I just sprinkle some over the top and call it a day.

PS: I'm still drinking coffee too. That's the one deal-breaker for me with any diet; I can't seem to give it up. I am finding it difficult to get myself to drink as much water as I should, though. It's not that I don't like plain water, it's just that it gets kind of old after the first couple glasses. I miss flavored water, but not enough to give up losing.

So it's day nine, and my weight is still hovering at the same spot it was on Saturday morning. I'm pretty okay with that, particularly as I had a 'hungry' day yesterday and ended up taking in too many calories. I think my carbs were still fine, but I'm close enough to goal that I have to watch calorie intake too, I think.

Either way, I am down between 7 and 8 pounds, depending on what day you ask, which is really pretty good, so I'm not complaining. Another three pounds this week would make me deliriously happy! Time will tell.

Hi, Caroline and Toby!

Caroline, THANK YOU so much for that recipe, it looks so delicious!

Toby, I love curries too! I was thinking, I'll bet butter chicken would be okay in the later stages of OWL - not sure how many carbs it has (it has some tomato paste in it which could have a number of carbs, plus cream does have some carbs, I dunno. But that's a recipe I look forward to looking up and trying in a month or so when I am further up on the carb rung. Right now I am at 25 carbs per day using OWL and will stay here another week or two before progressing to 30 carbs per day and seeing how that goes.

Oh, I'm not doing things 100%, either, on the caffeine. I like a cup of tea in the morning to get me going.

Caroline, I hope you will be safe on the drive there and back!

It's cleared away here pretty good, the plows get to work right away in this area.

I went out today because I wanted to apply for a passport (I stupidly let my old one expire so I have to apply in person now.) Went to what I thought was a passport acceptance place (even said so on the internet that it was, guess the site wasn't updated) and it turns out they don't do passports at that post office anymore, they do it instead at another post office miles away.

So he gave me directions, which was nice of him, but there were a lot of turns involved and it was an area I wasn't familiar with driving-wise, and I tried but wasn't able to find the place. So I will look it up on yahoo maps and try again on Wednesday.

Tomorrow (finally) my weightlifting machine is getting delivered so I have to stay home for that, since I don't know when they will arrive. They were supposed to deliver it last week but they called at 7 and said they were running late and probably wouldn't get there until midnight (it takes a couple hours to set up the machine after bringing it in.) I said "he## no you aren't coming at midnight!" (My husband was on a trip and I didn't want strange men in my house at that hour, I just don't feel safe in that kind of a situation so late, plus it is ridiculous of them to be that late IMO.

Sigh. It be's that way sometimes, like my old platoon sergeant in the Army used to say. Not all of the time, but some of the time. Life goes on.

Hope you guys have a great day!

I have never had this, but now I really want some. It sound to die for.

That is so ridiculous. A coworker dealt with that recently with an appliance delivery. What kind of delivery men show up at 10 pm and later? The world is changing, yadda yadda, but still. That is unreasonable.

In other news, I am HUNGRY. I just ate lunch and I don't have enough food at work to be snacking right now, let alone enough calories left in my day. Will distract myself with a cup of unsweetened coffee and some low carb success stories on Google.

I find that some days I am a little bit hungry, and other days I'm not. Usually it's on the days when I exercise, when I feel I need a little more food than usual. But it's not "gnaw my arm off" hunger like it used to be when I was eating meals with carbs in them, it's just kind of normal hunger. And I go ahead and give myself some more low carb food (fat & protein mostly) until I am satisfied (but not full) and then I'm good to go.

I am pretty much trying to stay under 1,400 calories, but some days I do eat more calories than that, when my body tells me it needs more calories.

Oh, butter chicken is delicious, it really is! Look up the recipe and see what you think - it's the creamiest, most delicious chicken dish I've ever had. I used to eat it with some rice and naan, but now I will learn to eat it just by itself or maybe over some roasted cauliflower.

Hang in there, the hunger will go away and anyway dinner will soon be here!

Wow, it's weird that so many delivery companies think it's just fine to deliver at 10PM or later. Just strange. What on earth is our nation coming to???

Oh, here's one recipe for it. I never made it myself, only had it at restaurants, so I don't know for sure this is a good recipe, but it looks authentic from what I can tell. This isn't a recipe to make for induction, but I think in the pre-maintenance and maintenance phases, it would be fine. Maybe even in the higher carb levels of OWL. I have to figure out how many carbs would be in one serving. The biggest offender I think is the tomato paste, and I'm not sure if there would be any low-carb sub for that. Yogurt isn't okay for induction, but when you are able to go higher on the carb ladder, it should be okay, as a single serving.

Anyway, something to look forward to. If my body continues to respond the way I want during OWL as I am climbing up the carb ladder, I will be able to have some of this recipe I think. I probably have to be at about the 45 carbs per day level I'm guessing to have this.

Well, it's something to look forward to!

Butter Chicken is among the best known Indian foods all over the world. Its gravy can be made as hot or mild as you like so it suits most palates.

Ingredients:
•1 kg boneless chicken skin removed
•Juice of 1 lime
•Salt to taste
•1 tsp red chilli powder (adjust to suit your taste)
•6 cloves
•8-10 peppercorns
•1" stick of cinnamon
•2 bay leaves
•8-10 almonds
•Seeds from 3-4 pods of cardamom
•1 cup fresh yoghurt (must not be sour)
•3 tbsps vegetable/canola/sunflower cooking oil
•2 onions chopped
•2 tsps garlic paste
•1 tsp ginger paste
•2 tsps coriander powder
•1 tsp cumin powder
•1/4 tsp turmeric powder
•1 can (400g or 14 oz) of tomato paste
•1/2 litre chicken stock
•2 tbsps kasuri methi (dried fenugreek leaves)
•3 tbsps unmelted, soft butter
•Salt to taste
•Coriander leaves to garnish
Preparation:
•Mix the chicken, lime juice, salt and red chilli powder in a large, non-metallic bowl. Cover and allow to marinate for 1 hour.
•Heat a flat pan or griddle on medium heat and gently roast (stirring frequently) the cloves, peppercorns, cinnamon, bay leaves and almonds till they darken slightly. Cool and add the cardamom seeds. Now grind into a coarse powder in a clean, dry coffee grinder.
•Mix the yoghurt, above whole spice powder (from previous step), coriander, cumin and turmeric powders together and add them to the chicken. Allow to marinate for another hour.
•Heat the oil in a deep pan on medium heat. When hot, add the onions. Fry till a pale golden brown in color and then add the ginger and garlic pastes. Fry for a minute.
•Add only the chicken from the chicken-spice mix and fry till sealed (chicken will turn opaque and the flesh will go from pink to whitish in color).
•Now add the tomato paste, chicken stock, kasuri methi and remaining part of the yogurt-spice mix to the chicken.
•Cook till the chicken is tender and the gravy is reduced to half its original volume.
•Melt the butter in another small pan and then pour it over the chicken.
•Garnish with coriander leaves and serve.
•For an authentic and traditional cooked-over-the-coals flavour: Heat a briquette of coal till red hot and when the dish is done, put the coal in the pan and cover immediately. Remove just before serving.

Wait, I found a better recipe (well, more carb-friendly I think):

http://allrecipes.com/recipe/chicken...en/Detail.aspx

It says it only has 13.4 carbs per serving (after subtracting dietary fiber.) Makes 4 servings. So, not induction friendly, but once we get to about 30 carbs per day on the carb ladder, it might be something we could have I think.

That sounds delicious indeed! Whenever I see a recipe with that many ingredients my brain is immediately all 'abort abort abort'. I am a pretty good cook so I could certainly handle it no problem, I'm just lazy! Also cheap, and the spices are so expensive. But I will keep this one in mind for later. (Much, MUCH later. I'm going to see how long I can last on induction.)

I'm the same way with hunger; sometimes I'm not hungry at all, other times I'm ravenous. Hopefully it'll level out soon. I was feeling the symptoms of ketosis for awhile, I thought, but maybe it was psychosomatic. Who can say! I was going to be cheap and not bother with Ketostix, but curiosity is getting the better of me so I ordered some. We'll see what happens when they get here.

Anyway, I am not super-ravenous or anything. And I actually eat more calories than you, so I shouldn't be complaining! I need to stop slacking on my workouts, though. I blew it off this morning and I really shouldn't have, because now I have to work out late this evening when I get home.

I love baked chicken...I really like the boneless, skinless thighs with some bbq sauce. You have to count the carbs in the sauce so be careful. But bbq is so satisfying. I love the dark meat best.. My daughter loves this too! We usually have green beans, corn, or pork and beans and rolls. I usually eat bbq and green beans ...always counting those carbs Ive stayed in ketosis while doing this! I just like simple foods with good taste.

Caroline I just love using the Ketostix...they help me out so much on this. I also feel like I am accomplishing alot with those! Some here have said they dont work for them but they always for me and I love seeing it change!

Mmm...barbecue sauce. Nothing like chicken in the crockpot with bbq sauce. It shreds really well and is super delicious. I am avoiding the bbq sauce for now, but someday maybe I can handle it in moderation again.

I will let you know how the Ketostix work when I get my hands on them! I ordered from Netrition so we'll see.

Here's something kind of sad: I found a hard boiled egg in our work fridge that I'd put in there on Friday and didn't eat because they let us go early since it was snowing. It was the highlight of my day! I was all, 'woo, extra snack!' I have never been so excited about an egg in my life. Sad but true! At least I'm finally not hungry. That one egg (okay, and dinner) did the trick.

I've found the least expensive way to get herbs, whether fresh or dried, is looking around for ethnic grocery stores, like Latino stores, stores where Indians shop, that sort of thing. For some reason the herbs are usually good quality there as well as half the price (or less) of regular grocery stores. And with butter chicken, there is actually a mix you can buy (a packet of dried herbs) and I see it usually in the food section of the stores where they have Asian and Latino foods. I'm thinking it wouldn't be as good as fresh, but it's probably still really yummy, and it would save time and money.

Now you guys have me wanting to buy those ketostix just to see, LOL!

Will insurance pay for Ketostix if the Doc writes an RX? They cover the gluco-strips with a $0 copay but I am not sure if Ketostix are included.

I'm not really sure....its worth checking into! I get mine off ebay