Wow!  I am almost jealous of you, because you are about to embark on a
whole new food journey.  If you switch to eating real, nutritious,
delicious low-carb foods, a few months from now you'll be all "I can't
believe I used to eat those ass-tasting bars!"  The bars have probably made
shopping and planning a lot easier for you, so it will take some
adjustment, but there are so many payoffs that make it worth it.

I think what you just said is a great reason to take a look at why you're on
LC in the first place, and why you're carrying over a habit that may or may
not be a good one for long-term success.

LC should be a lifetime-sustainable choice - something you can _live_ with
even when you've lost all the weight you want to lose.  You said you can
lose weight fine, but have trouble keeping it off.  (I'll add in here too
that I had the same problem - and let me also tell you that the older you
get, the harder it is to lose, especially after years of yo-yo dieting.  I
found that after 25 it got difficult, and after 30 very difficult.  I'm 36
now).  My question would be, do you really intend to replace two meals a day
with bars, for the rest of your life?  Is that going to be sustainable for
you?  I'm not trying to beat you up over this, just asking you questions
that you should ask yourself, really.

I'm single and I eat out a lot, which you might think makes LC difficult
(especially before some restaurants started catering to LC).  I found that
it didn't - there is almost no restaurant of any type where I can't find
_something_ allowable to eat (Chinese and Italian are probably the toughest,
but even there I can usually find something acceptable).  Having a good
internal knowledge of the general carb counts of foods (www.fitday.com can
help you learn them, or using the carb counter on the Atkins site) helps
when you're presented with food choices and don't have a guide handy.

There are lots of fast food choices available to you that are LC as well.
You can get sausage and eggs to go at McDonald's and other places.  You can
get salads at many fast food places, for lunch.  You can boil eggs and have
them ready to hand, just peel and eat.  You can fry up bacon in advance, it
will keep in the fridge probably longer than you can resist finishing it off
(if it's one of the foods you like), LOL.  You can have non-breakfast foods
for breakfast as well.

Another breakfast option are shakes - I occasionally make one using half
Atkins mix and half whey protein powder.  Unfortunately the Atkins mix has
also now switched to using sugar alcohol, as I just found out when I went to
buy some more (why they did that I don't know, I thought they were fine like
they were without them).  But at least it's in a lot smaller quantity in
those than is in any of the bars.  Some people here use flavored whey
protein powder (Designer Whey seems to be a favorite, which you can get at
any GNC or other health-food store), and some use unflavored whey and flavor
it themselves with sugar-free syrups (such as DaVinci).

Yet another 'on-the-go' breakfast option are 'Nutlettes To Go' - you can get
them from Atkins (www.atkinscenter.com) or Netrition (www.netrition.com).
They are individual packets of soy cereal with soy milk powder, just add
water (hot or cold).  With a little Splenda, I think they taste pretty good
(they're kind of like Grape Nuts cereal), and are pretty filling as well.  1
packet contains 12g carbs, 8g fiber so the net count is 4g (and 133 cals, 2g
fat, and 25g protein).

If you hang around here for a while, you'll get lots of great ideas about
things you can eat that will work for you and don't take a lot of prep or
can be prepared ahead of time.  For me the bars are okay as an occasional
treat (and I count all the SA's as carbs when I do eat them), but I find
that they don't really make good meal replacements at all.  I find that I
feel a lot better (and stay fuller longer) eating regular food.

Stargazer
Atkins since Apr '03
192/149/140