I started the 17-Day Diet “Activate” cycle today in order to kick-start my low-carb eating for 2018. If you’re not familiar, you can learn the basics of the plan on the 17-Day Diet Blog (which includes the Cycle 1/”Activate” food lists), or pick up the book.

I usually eat sausage (pork) for breakfast, so I wanted something to simulate that to enable me to stick to this. So I had the idea to make my Most Delicious Meatballs in the World with ground chicken. The mixture was much harder to work with than when made with beef and pork, but they turned out SO GOOD it was hard to eat only one 4-ounce “sausage” this morning!

(No, Parmesan cheese is not on the food list for Cycle 1 of the 17-day diet—but it’s half a cup divided by nine quarter-pound meatballs; and the ground chicken, being so lean, needs the Parmesan for the binder as it cooks to keep the meatballs from disintegrating. If half a cup of cheese keeps me on track, I’m making that allowance!)

Okay, you caught me—I couldn’t wait to dig in to one of these, not even the few seconds that it takes to snap a photo. With two pounds of chicken and all the other ingredients, it made nine almost perfectly four-ounce meatballs (about 4.02 to 4.06 according to my food scale).