Last month I met up with an old friend at a professional conference and mentioned in passing that I was starting Atkins soon. This very overweight friend has seen me lose a lot of weight of through general low-carbing so she was interested in what I was doing to lose the stress weight I've recently put back on. She asked a lot of questions about Atkins and I answered to the best of my memory of the book.

She decided to do it, too, but I don't think she read any of the Atkins books. She's been Facebooking about it and while I'm not responding, I'm reading her family/friends reactions:

"Atkins is bad for you, as are all diets of that ilk."

"You're going to start to smell bad soon."

"Weight loss is all about portion control!"

"It's good for a quick slim-down but is not sustainable."

"I lost a lot of weight but then gained it back because who can live like that?"

She will change her tune when you reach your goal of 125!! Then she'll be pestering you to find out your "secret".

You know how there's the n-word and the f-word and the s-word? Atkins is the a-word. It slips past your lips and next thing you know you're being told that you're killing yourself, don't you know he died of a heart attack and was obese, it's not sustainable, etc. If you say you're avoiding sugar, grains and starches, you'll get patted on the back for being so healthy. At least that's been my experience.

I had to set Hubs straight about Atkins's death. Boy was it awesome to look it up on a source he respects and tell him he was wrong! Boo YAH!

I kind of feel like I should have warned her. "The first rule about Atkins: don't tell anyone you're on Atkins. Or they'll be all over your a-- about it."

I'm continually amazed at how many people think the Atkins diet is all about stuffing yourself with butter, fat, and not much else. Those who are most horrified by the diet seem to know the least about how the diet is actually structured. All misinformation and lies is what they know.

I'll say I do Atkins. But always expand upon it. Something like "I do Atkins, but his actual plan, not the 'I saw it on the teevee/read a paragraph in an article' version most people seem to do."

Strange thing... Paleo is very similar to Atkins... but when I say that's what I'm doing, they are stumped. They don't know enough about it to warn me it will kill me!

I usually tell people that I only eat real food, not processed junk. If they say anything, it is something like "Oh." You can't really argue with real food and no junk. I suspect they are quiet because they are thinking about how much non-real food they eat.

THIS. I do the same. In fact if anyone asks me what I did to lose the weight, I have a long document with books and on-line resources to email them, but the first sentence is, in bold:
I Just Eat Real Food. (thank you, Sean Croxton!)

I tell people that it is Atkins like. At the end of the day, I would still be classed as atkins induction. But for me it is not induction it just is.

Then I get into the "well that means you can't eat most fods, what did you have for dinner?"

My replies normally stop the conversation at that point, after telling someone what I eat, they mostly feel slightly jeleous LOL. Makes me feel very good about myself.

Yes its all real foods, yes its all tasty, and yes I am still losing weight :-).

The problem is lables, once something has a name it is used and abused, and then people throw doggy do-do at it and normally even if only a little sticks its game over.