Portion control is a significant part of any healthy diet. You don't have to 'cut out' cream, but you do have to limit the amount of cream in a day.

As a person who has struggled with overweight ever since high school--and being a slow learner to boot--I have found that I had no idea what a 'serving size' looked like. As a low carber for the past 10 years, I am now having to re-examine how much protein I eat in a meal. A steak that fills my plate is too much steak. A salad that requires a serving dish to hold it all, is too much salad. One tablespoon of anything is not heaped up and overflowing.

For me, in order to control my portion sizes (since I cannot rely on the 'eyeball' method), is to weight everything I eat and enter it in a computer program. As a result, I have been able to reduce my daily caloric intake from 2,250 calories a day to between 1,000 and 1,500/day. As you can see from my stats (I started back on Atkins at the end of June), I have not lost a lot but I have given myself one year to lose 30 pounds. I lose extremely slowly.

The Atkins program for weight loss is a program of self discovery of what works or does not work for each individual. No one can tell you what will work/not work for you. It may differ from mainstream. If you have a question about a favorite food, cut it out for a month and see if it makes any difference. If you can't live without it, cut your portion in half and see what happens. Experiment. Take your time. Enjoy the self discovery. Good luck.