Today is my first day of induction! And, my sugar cravings are kicking my butt! I know that if I can make it through these first two weeks that I can stick with this, but it's just kicking this sugar cravings that are going to be the trick for me! Currently, there is pack of Halloween Oreo's in my house that my little one talked me into at the grocery store, and they are calling my name! I'm having the biggest internal struggle ever to stay away from it.

So, here's a quick introduction about me! I'm Wendy, a blogger and mommy. I started my weight loss journey for the second time about a year and a half ago, and lost 90lbs by calorie counting, and then summer came along, and it was filled with birthdays, holidays, and vacations and I gained back 50 of those pounds. So, now here I am again, I am very thankful, that I was able to stop myself before I gained back all my weight, but with having PCOS, I really think Atkins is what I need for the rest of my life to be a healthy me!

Wendy!

I've been on Atkins 10 and a half years. Its a great plan that really works when its done correctly.
Here's a great recipe site that you may want to check out. Anything marked with an * is Induction friendly.
http://www.genaw.com/lowcarb/recipes.html
If you have any questions please feel free to ask.
You CAN do this!!
All the best to you

This is my personal experience, not Atkins teaching: when I continued to use artificial sweeteners, my cravings for sugar never went away no matter how low-carb the food plan. Giving up sweeteners was physically more challenging than giving up sugar, but after I did, I had no cravings for sugar even when I ate other other low GI carbs on non-low carb food plans. The problem is that they put artificial sweeteners in virtually all processed foods--you essentially have to give up processed food of all kinds--but it works, IMHO. There is a lot of new research that substantiates this--see various YouTube lectures.

Like! Like! Like!

I've not eaten artificial sweeteners for about 10 years now.

Your taste buds really do get retrained.

How is it going, Wendy? I am right behind you by one day and want to hear your experience in the first few days. I am still excited, are you?

It's actually going better than I expected. I did end up using Splenda one day out of the four days so far. But, only because I knew if I didn't I would eat something I shouldn't. But, the cravings for sugar have really lessened. Most days I haven't been hungry. Today, however I'm hungry. But, I was eating three eggs and bacon for breakfast, and today I switched to two eggs with bacon, so I'm guessing that one less egg, has gotten me. I've lost 5lbs already this week. I know that it's water weight, but the scale going down is always great motivation! Overall, I'm pretty happy! I've always been a meat eater, so I'm not feeling really deprived. The true test will be this weekend and how I juggle feeding the family and myself.

Great going...this plan is hard insofar as it is counterintuitive, i.e. if you don't lose, maybe eat more--at least I find it so. But I am taking it all on faith--the book, the whole book and nothing but the book, and you are right, that is what we are advised to do. It's working for me too, altho not so dramatically--about three pounds in three days. We are both doing great.

Please keep posting your updates. Its great motivation for me

I'm mentally getting ready to start the induction phase but the upcoming holiday season has me at a lost of 'when'. The book says that the first two weeks are critical so I want to do this right, And being that I have a vacation coming up this week then there's Thanksgiving soon after I'm really hesitant on when to start? ( probably after thanksgiving?)

Meanwhile I am just watching what I eat and exercising to keep the weight at a stand still. But reading that there are others starting out is really inspiring so please keep posting