For me, Atkins didn't work for me the first time because I mostly skipped the salad, and ate a lot of processed meats. I ended up with leg cramps at night and heart flutters in the middle of the day. I ended up breaking the diet with a boiled-potato binge. You gotta get your potassium somewhere.

what he said!

"Atkins didn't work for me."

I could author this sentence, if I weren't so damn persistent.

I've been in an Atkins stall for over 6 months. Any one of these 180+ mornings that I woke up and saw no loss could have been the day I decided that it 'didn't work' for me. I have no idea if it will at all, ever.

Start another thread in the Atkins sub-forum and we'll figure it out using our collective wisdom. It's just like getting a second opinion.

This is a great thread. All I can say is I lose on Atkins, but can't live on it very well, I get really bored and cheat because I miss fruit and I do miss grains, especially rice...I do better on PP and South Beach and CAD...because they are easier to LIVE on for me.

Some personal modification from Atkins? Well for me I don't add a lot of extra fat to my diet that is NOT from meat. In other words, I don't use much liquid oils other than a little olive oil for my salads or hummus and some times a little butter on my veggies. I avoid most dairy (even cheese and sour cream) and mayo from my diet because I feel better that way...I also try to avoid wheat (even wheat gluten which is lc) because I have digestive issues with it. Atkins was the first to teach us about wheat intolerance long before "gluten-free" became a fad.

I do eat more carbs than he recommends, but I can lose weight if I keep my carbs down under 100, (like two servings, a fruit and/or a serving of whole grain, or beans, or two fruits a day). But I also keep my liquid oil consumption down to about 2 tablespoons a day. Also I don't avoid nuts or natural foods with fats like avocados, but I don't eat more than a few tablespoons a day...and only in the raw form. (I don't limit any natural meat or veggies at all, ever, but as everyone knows its nearly impossible to over eat meat and veggies when doing lc...you get full fast).

In conclusion I stay away from oxidized oils (cooked oils and roasted nuts), fake fats, wheat, and most dairy because I feel better that way. Atkins was ok with some of that and others of it he was not. But he was all about eating what made you feel right and helped you stay at a healthy weight.

I have read EVERYTHING Dr. Atkins wrote and published on the market during his life time and feel privileged to have done so. I have the highest respect for Dr. Atkins and his research and books...he was a saint in the diet world and was never truly appreciated in the world of medicine...it is very sad...he is greatly missed!

I've only met one person who tried Atkins. He did it for a month, lost 20 pounds (of the 50 he needed to lose), and then quit. When I talked to him about it, he hadn't read the book, but owned it and skimmed through it.

Outside of these forums, I've never met a single person who could even explain to me what Atkins was. They know it has something to do with not eating bread and eating lots of meat -- that's it. The science behind it entirely escapes them.

I do think, though, if you can't stick to a dietary change then it's true -- it won't work for you. But that's true of every plan. Atkins just has this stigma attached to it that makes it easier for people to think it's somehow alien, and so won't work for them.

I've recently had two coworkers ask me about it. I try to recommend a book to them (Why We Get Fat, classic Atkins, whatever). They make excuses not to read, then ask a few questions, but won't fat kill me? etc, I try very very hard to explain, then they start explaining that they don't like (meat, fat, avocados, fish, green vegetables), and how they could never give up (bread, pasta, overeating). Eventually I realized I'd just wasted an hour of my time.

From now on, I'm going to start with "read a book--any lowcarb book--and then we'll talk".

My inability to communicate any of this knowledge to anyone is supremely frustrating. They just don't want to know.

That's pretty much correct -- they don't want to know. Most people are, quite literally, fat, dumb, and happy the way they are. If they wanted to change badly enough, they would do it -- the information is out there. Change is, for many people, more painful than being fat. So is picking up and reading a book that tells you things aren't the way you thought they were.

In many cases it means "I am so addicted to sugar and carbs, just the thought of not eating them causes me to freak out. And yeah, I never read the book or grasped the biology behind why it works either. Now pass me the donuts."

This. This is always what I hear "What? I can't have sugar, or wheat or this or that?" Which translates out to me as "I can't have the stuff that's making/keeping me fat?!"

Having that mindset is usually a big set up for failure.

Not reading the book. Irrational fear of fat. Or not giving it a good chance/try because the weight they have been gaining for years didn't all come off in a week. People want instant gratification and if they don't get it, they give up and it 'didn't work for them.'

People will change when they are ready to change. Most people will not give up processed carbs and processed fats event though their lives may literally depend on it. The physical and psychological attachments are just too strong. I know, I was in that place for a long time, even though I knew better.

Two of my very close IRL friends are fieting. One (who is obese) had a lap band, and it has been nothing but misery for her (six total procedures, and she only managed to lsoe 15 pounds). The other (who is just a bit chubby) is following WW. Her eating is terribly unhealthy/disordered, but she has managed to lose about 13 pounds in the last 8 weeks on it.

My lap band friend was asking me about my diet -- with serious interest. Our mutual WW kept interrupting the conversation to interject, "But you would have to give up margaritas, and you cannot do that, " or "You would have to give up half price fajita night" and you can't do that. I think she had a true fear that our friend might actually address her unhealthy eating in a very real way.

Our WW friend follow WW by eating Dr. Pepper, chicken nuggests, fries and kitkats/junior mints. She has sacrificed all real food to accomodate her fake food desires. She has a very real fear that the more her friends become healthy, the more she will feel pressure to address her food issues head on. For her, it is fear that keeps her from success.

So, for people like this friend, fear of being exected to address food issues honestly and make real changes is why they make sure that Atkins will not work for them.

I think there can be more to it. I don't talk with enough people about losing weight (IRL) to be able to say that "most" who say low carb didn't work for them would prefer to keep eating their carbage. But based on my own experience, that may not be the case.

For example, in March 2003, I followed DANDR, used the sample Induction menus as printed, and in 4 weeks lost a grand total of 2 lbs. I concluded that Atkins didn't work for me. The book says to eat "liberally", and since I didn't know what that means, I figured I'd be safe following the sample menus. Now, of course, I know that it was far too few calories for me.

Recently, I've read and implemented NANY. If I had repeated my past behavior, and used the list of what a day of fat intake might look like, that would again be too few calories for me, and I would not be able to stick with it---either because the calories are too low for me (I haven't counted them) or because on that little fat, I know from experience that I would still be hungry/cold/tired/cranky. Either way I might again conclude "Atkins didn't work for me".

I sympathies with the situation with your father. I tried to tell my brother, who is one year younger than I am, to go Atkins about 10 years ago. I begged him. I sent him the book. I spent hours on the telephone trying to talk him into it. All he could tell me was the nurses told him if he did not get enough carbs he would die.

My brother died last month. Of complications of diabetes. He could have had 10 years of low blood sugar, but I wonder whether the damage done to his veins and organs could have been reversed?

My father, my mother, and my older sister all died of diseases that could have been reversed or mitigated by low carb dieting.

I am sure many more will die. I am sad to say, the medical profession and their journalists still stick to the old "fat is bad for you, eat plenty of low fat carbs for good health" line, and that is what is killing people.

The line: Harm No One" seems to have become "Harm Everyone."

Wow. Just... WOW. Seriously. Im so very sorry. But what an illustration of the very real dangers of eating the American Diet. I wish there was someway you could shout this from the rooftops, write a book, go on a talk show, SOMETHING to get this message out. Peace...