My husband and I are 4 months into Atkins and we have a planned Cheat Day every 40th day. These are definitely sugar-laden days for us! However, when it's over and we have satiated our desires for whatever foods we were missing, we are happy to go right back to eating right. We have changed our way of thinking about sugars and flours and we regard these foods as treats to be enjoyed every once in awhile as part of our new lifestyle.

It takes us two days to get back into ketosis and for me, a few days to drop the retained water, but by the next weekly weigh-in, we always show a loss....he much more than I, but that's just the disparate male/female weight loss reality. His body seems to be reinvigorated for losing after a Cheat Day. Mine just plods along at the usual rate of 1 -2 lbs per week.

Neither of us have experienced any physical problems at all, nor any psychological problems that others here frequently describe, such as continued binge behavior, wild cravings, "induction flu" symptoms, etc.

As far as your cold symptoms go, colds are caused by a viral infection, not by food. Your immune system may be weakened by poor eating habits and your cold symptoms may last longer for that reason, but it's also quite possible that you have an undiagnosed/unrecognized food allergy that produces symptoms similar to a cold. There's something that I eat every once in a while that gives me an itchy nose, watery eyes, and nasal congestion. It hasn't bothered me enough to find out what it is but it certainly isn't a cold. And I've never gotten a sore throat (nor heard of anyone else getting one) after eating sugar. Your sore throat may be caused by it drying out if you are mouth-breathing due to nasal congestion, or by post-nasal drip (your sinuses draining fluid/mucous down your throat), or you may have tonsillitis, or by a bacterial infection such as strep throat, which can be easily diagnosed with a simple throat culture done in a doctor's office.