Quest-- excellent point. I agree that some things kind of take on a life of their own here.

My concern with this is when newbies, even the ones who HAVE read the book come in and are more confused than ever. I've seen an innocent question about snacks turn into a lecture on the evils of aspartame and "frankenfoods" and spins out until the poor newbie is afraid to eat ANYTHING....

It's always interesting to hear what works/doesn't work for others, but I do feel certain things have become almost urban legend around the boards.

It's such an individual thing and I agree that tweaking the plan is necessary for a lot of people, though. I was doing Atkins, but with a few adjustments earlier in the year. After a couple of people took it upon themselves to PM me that I wasn't doing ATKINS if I ate what I did, I changed my plan under my avatar to "My own" to avoid the ruckus. I'm now repeating Atkins induction as written...maybe I'm safe now.