Rainbow,
HI I know how you feel. I am afraid to jump right into Atkins myself for fear of what it might do to me. Some people don't understand that and want you to follow to diet to the letter but if you've had issues in the past with food or medicines bothering your health, it's scary.
So, I've been loosely following Atkins. I have been trying to stick to the 20 carbs but I don't always make it. I still eat nuts for snaking due to the fact that I am having hypoglycemia, until I get the carbs out of my system I'm going to have hunger pangs. And if i ignore them too long my blood sugar will drop too low and I'll feel sick and possibly pass out. So I have no choice but to eat something. And at least the nuts i'm eating aren't too high in carbs . I've also been eating low fat meats these past few years because of the PCOS and IBS. I don't wan to change my diet all of a sudden and upset my stomach cause it is so sensitive to change. Eating less carbs and more veggies was my change for the first week. this second week I started to eat a little bacon and hamburgers which I haven't eaten in years. But again I gotta go slow. I was told that's why I was still so hungry because I wasn't eating enough fat. But I still had to ease into it. Anyway this is my second week, and although i've done things a little differently i still lost some weight. And I feel like the hunger and sugar cravings are finally dying down...thank goodness.
the point is if you have medical issues you have to take it easy maybe not loose as fast as some..But hopefully you feel better, eat healthier and that's most important..Than if we can lose some weight, great! I haven't been able to lose weight in years. Even being on a low fat diet just kept me from gaining. Not matter how little I ate or how low fat I got I could not lose anything. At least I've lost four pounds doing this. I read about some people that will drop ten pounds a week. Which is great. But the fact that I lost anything at all is great to me. If I lose slow but steady I'm fine with that.
I do think this might be a good diet for me as long as I be careful. I hear that some people actually find relief from their medical issues by following a low carb diet. It makes sense to me to since I was told that PCOS was caused by insulin resistance, which is probably why I have hypoglycemia sometimes. So a low carb diet makes sense.