STYLETHREAD -- LET'S TALK SHOP!

I'm a vegetarian-turning-vegan, so my first thought is to substitute the meat with protein sources that may be more "exotic" and interesting for you such as tempeh, tofu, TVP, or seitan.

A lot of this comes down to how you love to cook. For example, we like making "veggie sushi." It's a fun occasion for us since it's lots of sensual hands-on activity in the kitchen chopping and slicing and arranging ingredients, then assembling them attractively...for you I guess you skip the rice and stick with grilled meats and sliced veggies wrapped in seaweed, with wasabi and soy sauce, maybe miso soup or edamame on the side. The idea is to make it fun.

Another thing that helps us is that we start planning and daydreaming about our meals for the week while we shop at the farmer's market on Sunday, based on what's cheap, in season, and/or good-looking. Then we can't wait to use the artichokes or grill the portobellos or whatever. We look forward to it instead of thinking it's boredom and drudgery.

For regular days, there's gazillions of soups, chilis, and stews if you have the time. I love having the opportunity to start a soup or something early in the day - I feel like I worked hard and got a great payoff. With a salad, that's a meal. Leftovers are lunch.

I go to a raw foods restaurant that uses giant collard or kale or chard leaves for wraps and such, so you get the extra benefit from that. Maybe you can "wrap" some of your usual favorites for a different effect. (Basic iceberg lettuce, which most restaurants use for "low-carb wraps," has little food value compared to other greens.) It's also a theory of "creative subsitution" - you can make enchiladas, or lasagne, or whatever your favorite may be, substituting chard leaves for the tortillas or pasta.

Because I haven't eaten meat in a decade or more, I don't have the same issues of cholesterol or weight control or whatever you're dealing with, but I used to pay attention to "food combining," which seems similar to how you're eating these days. (A meal is either protein + plants OR plants + carb, never combine protein + carb in a single meal. Never eat fruit with anything else other than more fruit. And so on.) Eating beans I thought was a no-no for Atkins, but I could be wrong. In terms of food combining, beans are a plant, so they can be eaten with either protein or starch/carbs, for a complete protein.

My husband's parents have been on the Atkins diet on and off for many years (leading to no appreciable weight loss, may I add, but their eating habits are awful and it wouldn't surprise me to find out they were overweight and malnourished at the same time). Anyway, in restaurants, they have no problems ordering a double load of spinach sauteed in butter and cheese instead of a baked potato or whatnot alongside their steak or lamb chops. In my MIL's defense, when she starts noticing signs of ketosis from her high-protein diet (like hair loss or bad breath) she eases off. She's very vain so she's aware of some of the Atkins side effects.

Out of curiosity, have you signed up with the Atkins Diet Alert? http://www.atkinsdietalert.org/registry.php
It would be good for science if you did, but they may have other ideas or practical tips too.