Atkins, Day One

Technically we started Atkins with dinner last night: 3 mini cheeseburgers and a big salad with carb-free Caesar dressing.



My first thought on waking this morning: Wow, I'm really hungry.

There have been days when I've gone to bed without eating, and not woken up so hungry. I had to rush to move my car, so I didn't have time to eat anything, but eventually my stomach growling subsided. Still, I was surprised. Does this mean my metabolism was actually doing something, or is it simply that a lack of carbs (and not too much food overall yesterday) causes a lack of energy?

For simplicity's sake, I'm going to keep a running list of things I eat and drink today with times so I can track my appetite (I won't do this everyday, promise):

• 9:44 am - chunk of Cheddar cheese (approx 1 oz), big glass of Diet Coke


• 10:10 am - 3-egg omelet with mushrooms and Cheddar cheese, cooked in butter; One-a-Day Weight Smart multivitamin; 16 oz glass of water
  
  


• 12:05 pm - 16 oz water


• 2:25 pm - fresh herb salad with creamy Caesar dressing, 16 oz glass of Diet Coke
  
  


• 4:20 pm - hazelnut coffee with half & half and Splenda


• 5:50 pm - handful of raw almonds


• 7:06 pm - 16 oz water


• 7:33 pm - grilled hot Italian sausage cooked with garlic, onions, and green peppers in spicy tomato sauce, 2 large glasses of Diet Coke
  
  


• 8:39 pm - handful of raw almonds


• 9:10 pm - piece of Cheddar cheese (about 1/2 oz)


• 10:40 pm - "cheesecake" made with fat-free cream cheese, vanilla protein powder, Splenda & sugar-free apricot preserves

I guess that wasn't too insane. I felt light-headed most of the day, but I'm pretty sure it's unrelated.

The sausage dish was fantastic and really enjoyable, in part I think because it was so hot and spicy. By grilling the sausage first, we drained a lot of the grease out of them, so I didn't feel overwhelmed with fat like I did the last time on Atkins.

Toward the end of the evening, I was really tired and cranky and kept wanting to snack on something like crackers or make a PBJ sandwich, but I resisted. The fake cheesecake really satisfied that dessert-type craving, though in the future I'll probably make it with regular cream cheese, since the fat-free was slightly unpalatable.

I don't really like counting carbs, but I think my break-down goes something like: 2-3 for cheese, 5 from tomato sauce, 5 from apricot preserves, and probably 3 or so from almonds; total = 15-16, which is still below the 20 I'm allowed and leaves room for any incidental ones.