Exactly! It's easier to stay off the darn thing if I don't see it first thing in the morning. :D

So my ketosis sticks arrived today, and I am pleased to report that I am in the mid-purple range. At least I'm not completely metabolically resistant!

Also today: I bought pork rinds. It was my first time. I feel a little dirty.

No, seriously, though, they gross me out. I don't know why, considering how much bacon I eat. But I used them to 'bread' a piece of cod tonight, then I sprinkled on some parmesan and cooked it in a little butter. Delicious! I doubt I will ever eat pork rinds on their own, but for cooking they really worked out well.

hahaha! soooo funny! I was loading up my buggy at Walmart tonight with bacon and eggs and I thought to myself that people probably are thinking...."yeah no wonder she is fat" haha! If they only knew! I wont be fat for long and this yummy bacon is gonna help me get there! :D

I took my pork rinds through the self-checkout so no one would judge me. True story.

Day 12. It's hard to believe I am almost through 14 days of Induction. That seems sort of crazy. I plan to stay on Induction for awhile, so the 14-day mark is not going to change anything, but it will feel nice to have stuck with it for the full two weeks.

Though honestly, it's not like it's hard to stick with it. Even with my higher-than-most-people's levels of hunger, it's been a really pleasant way to eat. I miss sweet coffee and chocolate, but I know there are desserts I can add back in someday, and I am putting cinnamon and a little vanilla extract in my coffee to compensate for the lack of sweetness. It's pretty good!

I managed to stay off the scale today, though not weighing myself in the morning always makes me feel like something's missing. Like I went to work without shoes on, you know? I'll get over it. I was honestly more tempted to pull out the scale last night than I was this morning, which is a sure sign that I have a problem. So in the closet it stays, at least through the weekend.

I feel a lot better after trying those stupid ketosis sticks, which makes me kind of mad (at myself) because I wasn't even planning to buy them in the first place. But it will help me be a little more patient, I guess. Even if I don't lose any weight in week two or even week three, I know the scale will go down eventually. And once I stop being so hungry all the time I can lower my fat intake some, which should help a little too.

Induction final results: I lost 8.5 pounds total, from 161.2 down to 152.8. The first 8 pounds came off in week one, and in week two I lost half a pound. I can live with that.

I'm planning to stay in Induction awhile yet, more or less, though I will be focusing less on making sure my veggie carbs are below 20 and more on avoiding triggery things like artificial sweeteners. I'm staying away from nuts for now too.

Still hungry a lot (yesterday was AWFUL, but that might be because I burned 600 calories running) but I'm hoping that will subside in the next week. Time will tell! I'm going to try to keep my calories a little lower than they have been by not using quite so much fat. We'll see what that does to my hunger levels.

You lost a lot of weight! Mine is pretty slow. I have lost about three pounds my first week of Induction, but I'm happy with it.

Good luck next week!

:woohoo: on the weight loss! You really shouldnt be hungry on Atkins. You really dont need to count calories either. Thats what is so great about it. Hope things get better for you :)

My weight loss has been SO slow (pre-Atkins, when I was calorie counting) and it drove me crazy when people said, "But you're doing it the right way! It'll stay off if you lose slow." True! But not what I wanted to hear. Having said that, slow really is better. And three pounds is awesome! The only reason I lost 8 my first week was because I started during TOM, so I had at least 5 pounds of water retention going for me. It was kind of cheating, but that's when my appetite is smallest, so it was the best time to start for me.

See, I have read a couple different schools of thought on the calorie issue. Since I am close-ish to goal, relatively speaking, some say that calories are more important, even with Atkins. The thing with my appetite is that I can easily eat 2400 calories in a day on this diet, and even if I burn off 600 working out (which doesn't happen every day) that's not much of a deficit. So until I get my appetite under control, the loss is really slow.

Oh well, as long as the weight is coming off, that's what matters, right? I'll get there, even if it's at half a pound a week.

It's really weird but it almost seems like I'd lose the most amount of weight the fastest if I only ate sticks of butter. I HAVE to get a decent amount of fat in for me to keep losing weight consistently. It's the strangest thing.

Whereas, I have to be really careful with the dairy....the cheese, half and half, etc. The almonds, I try to eat no more than a small handful daily...and don't even eat them every day. I chose almonds because not only are they one of the lowest net carb nuts but I only like them and am not madly in love with them....like I do cashews and pistachios. So I stay away from them.....too risky for me.

But seriously, I feel like I need lots of fat in order to burn fat. If I don't eat enough fat, the loss will slow down or stall. That would be the last thing I'd ever cut out...if I wanted to experiment. I have to put butter and mayo on things I don't even really want it on...just to get enough in daily.

deena :)

That's interesting, Deena, and I will definitely take your experience under consideration going forward. I just feel like I'm taking in so many calories, there's no way I can lose weight at this level. But I'm going to give it another couple weeks, because I know it's common enough not to drop much weight in the second week.

I feel the same way about almonds! I have a big bag in my desk at work from my calorie-counting days, and they don't even tempt me a little. Fine for emergency hunger situations, but I've never looked forward to them.