Rating: 
Summary: Healthiest eating plan ever for the obese and diabetics
Review: This is my third report on this amazing, by now clinically and scientifically very well documented and proven diet. I lost a staggering 147 pounds on it, with ease I might add, while improving my lipid profiles dramatically. All that in about 18 months time, without exercise, all the while eating luxuriously. Without hunger, without cravings, without my nose falling off. Being a scientist myself, I can wholeheartedly back this diet from my very own personal experience with it, as well as from the readily available, copious amounts of peer-reviewed, scientific research and literature. There is nothing strange, dangerous, "fad" or even boring about this diet if you follow a few supersimple guidelines: 1. Read (really READ) the book cover to cover at least twice. Let it sink in.
2. Ignore the noisy negativist critics, but stick with the facts, as outlined in his copiously footnoted and referenced book
3. Have a full checkup before starting the diet. This will make it easier to check and validate the astounding improvements in your lipid profile.
4. Keep a diary and keep track of your progress.
5. Eat all you want of the allowed foods but do not gorge.
6. Drink LOTS of water. At least 3 liters a day as a rule of thumb. You will see vast improvements in the first week. After the second week of Induction (only the first phase of this brilliant regimen) you will see and feel dramatic improvements. If you have lots to lose, like I did, you can opt to stay in ketosis (a absolutely natural and fully safe metabolical state) and keep losing fast. Otherwise you can add more veggies and other healthy carbs to your diet and slow down weight loss a bit. Just follow the book, it is clear enough. This diet isn't all meats, as some uninformed and biased negativists keep yelling. To the contrary. Knowing the scientific truth myself, as outlined in detail in Atkins' book, I still can't believe all the nonsense one hears about this diet. All critizisms I have read so far, also on this website, without exception are based on either false reasoning, misinformation or half-truths. There is no shred of evidence of all the nonsense that is printed and touted over the mainstream media over this diet. On the other hand there are literally mountains of hard, established scientific facts and research showing that dr. Atkins approach (it is not a diet, it's a regimen) is the right way for many, if not all, obese patients and diabetics. I'll give you some other established facts to think of. If this diet is so bad, why did the Olympic swimming team WIN on it? Why do professional cyclists show 80% more stamina as traditionally carb-loading cyclists on this diet? Why is this diet often exclusively used for severe epilepsy patients with wonderful results? Why is this diet so good for patients with Crohn disease? Why are diabetics often able to get completely off medication on this diet? IN OTHER WORDS: WHY DOES YOUR HEALTH IMPROVE DRAMATICALLY ON IT? I could go on and on. There is so much scientific research AND clinical evidence in the medical literature that this diet is simply the most excellent and healthy regimen for obese persons, or, to be more precise, for most people that are health conscious. Some food for thought... In all my scientific career I have never read ANY explanation for the above facts...why? Because the critics have no real arguments, that's why. They have no facts, no literature, nothing to back it up except a lot of humbug and false reasoning plus a nice overdose of (sadly, often Government sponsored) misinformation. If I may give you some advice, buy the book. READ IT. It IS indeed a revolution, a revolution that is fully backed by decades of hard, factual nutritional science. Don't take my word for it...try it yourself. Your body (and your doctor!) will be grateful. Oh, BTW, no doubt you heard that the critics now yell that dr. Atkins recently had a heartattack. He did not... even cardiac specialists agree that his illness was totally unrelated to his diet. It was merely a cardiomypathy, a muscle infection. Nothing to do with the diet. Another point of interest, hot from the needle: the New York times just published a major piece about the Atkins diet, outling the same scientific facts as I stated above. Indeed, this article, written by writer Gary Taubes for the prestigeous journal "Science" flat out states that Atkins most likely has been completely right for over 30 years and that mainstream science is now almost forced to agree with him. Mainstream researchers from Duke, Harvard and other worldfamous centers of nutritional research now agree with Atkins. Very interesting to read, and it also makes very much clear that the scientific truth, for political and commercial reasons, has been a total taboo for over 30 years. So even the title of Atkins' book is perfect...a revolution indeed. Make your choices wisely, make informed choices... Good health to you all.
Rating:
Summary: The only way to lose weight and change the carb addiction
Review: I had never been on a diet until August of 2001. I lost 8lb in the induction diet; I went from 5'5", 133 lb to 125lb. Of course this is a radical approach but once your body gets rid of the stored sugar (48hrs), you can feel the ketosis.
TIPS
BUY THE KETOSTRIPS
It will show you the results as they happen
DRINK LOTS OF WATER/TEA
It will help your system flush
KEEP LOW CARB BARS IN YOUR BAG AND A PROTEIN SHAKE HANDY
Sometimes, if you are hungry but don't want the egg or cheese snack, hang on to one of these. They also help you with sugar cravings. Have them if you feel like eating a cookie. After two weeks you can see! It will help you eat well and cook great tasty meals. It's not 'just meat'. I don't eat red meat, but lots of fish and some chicken. Go For It!
Rating: 
Summary: Way too much meat!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Review: I have to say that I like Dr. Atkins and have found his vita nutrient book very helpful. But, this diet is far too extreme for most people to live with. After two weeks of gorging on protien, I was so disgusted with meat and eggs that I allmost considered becoming a vegetarian. And since I only buy organic eggs, meat and dairy, this diet was way too expensive to do long term. If you follow his advice and pack in the protien, you will be exposing yourself to all of the hormones, antibiotics, and pesticide residues that are in commercial meat and dairy products. And furthermore there is no way the earth could sustain human beings who all ate this way. There are not enough animals on the planet to feed the world if we all became atkins followers. Instead I suggest people read the Omega diet, which isn't really a diet but a new way of eating for life. It is moderate and easy to live with. You can eat fruits, veggi's,legumes,nuts,eggs,beans,meats and cheeses. Plus fish and olive oil are highly recomended.
Lastly, most of the world survives on a high complex carbohydrate diet based on whole foods like whole wheat, millet, and brown rice. With veggi's,fat,protien,ect. added on. And the reality is, none of them are as fat as americans. The reason is they move,(exercise) and don't have access to alot of suger, fast food and processed food. They prepare food fresh, every day and nothing they eat comes from a drive through window. If you really want to be healthy, get to know your produce section, and all of the whole grains that the earth has to offer. Try out soy, beans,lentils and all kinds of fish and fresh organic meats. I promise you will be better off than following the Atkins plan.(which I promise you won't be able to follow forever-Yuck!!!!
Rating: 
Summary: It works for me.
Review: This one works, I've tried them all and over the years watched a lot of friends maintain carb-loading diets and all of them have grown out of their workout cloths. Okay, to be fair, nutrition and weight gain is proportionate to the amount of effort expending during exercise. But a lot of folks are eating carbs in quantities only serious marathon runners would dare to ingest. In other words, the nutritionists have sold us a pyramid, which is VERY heavy on carbs (when unused are stored as FAT) and not enough leafy greens or protein. Do you want muscle mass? Protein does it. Check out a few other selections too, such as Protein Power or Neandrathin. I like Protein Power because it really expresses the "burn" in a studied way. But the Atkin's explains the diet in an easy almost non-scientific way. If you want the studied explanation go to Protein Power and read it there.
Lots of reviewers are aghast that someone would promote meat, that's knee jerk reactionism. A key point to be regarded is... veggies are also included in sufficient quantities, PURE WATER is promoted, CAFFIEN is out. Sugars are out and Carbs, which turn to glucose, are also out. Sounds like a good healthy way to provide your body with nutrients if you ask me. I've used this diet for years. Yes you do lose you're taste for sweets, but it takes a couple of weeks (if you eat a lot of sweets to begin with). But, hey, junk food isn't good for you. Also, stick with unprocessed foods. Processing tends to add sugar and other fillers that inhibit your systems transition into the burn mode. Go fish, go chicken, go seafood, what ever. But go for it! It's worth the ability to really control your weight.
Rating:
Summary: DANGER - from misinformed critics!
Review: Much has been said about the heart attack that afflicted Atkins earlier this year. Low fat advocates enthusiastically rushed to pin the blame on his dietary philosophies, but Atkins suffered from cardiac arrest due to cardiomyopathy, initiated by an infection that spread to his heart muscle. It was not diet-related - coronary blockage was not an issue. Even Dr. Clyde Yancy, a cardiologist at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas and a member of the American Heart Association's national board of directors, was qouted on CNN.com as saying "Despite the obvious irony, I believe there is a total disconnect between the cardiac arrest and the health approach he (Atkins) popularizes." It is interesting to see how low fat advocates are happy to jump all over Atkins, but are conspicuously silent when it comes to recalling the fate of 80's anti-fat guru Nathan Pritikin. If we are going to judge diet plans by the health of their individual authors, consider the following. While Atkins is still going at 72, Pritikin committed suicide in his mid 60's to end the suffering he was experiencing from terminal cancer. Knowing how important fat is for proper immune function it is not unreasonable to suspect a link between Pritikin's low fat diet and his cancer. Of course there could be another explanation, and we should let Pritikin rest. I just wish these individuals would give Atkins the same basic courtesy. A dietary plan should be judged on its own scientific merits, not on the personality or health status of its author. As far as the notion that high saturated fat diets cause heart disease, when one actually looks carefully at the evidence, instead of taking in good faith the edicts of health authorities, mainstream nutritionists, food companies and cholesterol drug manufacturers, one rapidly begins to see a picture very different from what is commonly portrayed. A full dissertation on the numerous fallacies inherent in the saturated fat/cholesterol theory of heart disease is beyond the scope of a short review - I would highly recommend Uffe Ravnskov's "The Cholesterol Myths. Exposing The Fallacy That Saturated Fat And Cholesterol Cause Heart Disease" for this purpose. Just consider though, that foods containing saturated fat and cholesterol have been a part of the human diet for literally millions of years. Heart disease itself though, was hardly known at the beginning of the 20th century. Several decades later it had grown to be the leading cause of death in most modernized nations. Consider also that heart disease, in fact degenerative disease in general, appears to be a product of modernization. Primitive peoples eating a diet consisting entirely of fresh, natural whole foods, have remained largely free of CHD and other degenerative ailments common in more advanced areas. For example, in the 1960's Professor George Mann studied the Masai tribespeople in Kenya. The Masai eat copious amounts of high fat milk, meat and blood yet are a slim people free from heart disease. When a society begins to advance it often adopts a number of dietary and lifestyle changes that are conducive to increased illness. In fact it is these changes, not saturated fat and cholesterol consumption, that correspond with the 20th century rise in heart dsiease. To single out saturated fat and cholesterol from all these variables as being responsible for the recent rise in disease when we have been consuming them for so long is pure junk science. There are numerous studies showing superior weight loss on low carb diets. A recent study by Yancy et al, compared the American Heart Association's low-fat " Step 1" Diet with a low-carbohydrate diet similar to the Atkins Diet. The low-carbohydrate group experienced greater fat loss, dropping an average of 21.4 pounds of fat, compared to 14 pounds on the low-fat group. I have a great deal of respect for Atkins and his efforts to popularise low-carb nutrition. My preferred approach to low-carb nutrition, however, is to utilise 'Paleolithic' food choices when consuming such a diet. Instead of sausages and burgers, I prefer grass-fed beef, which has a superior fatty-acid profile to grain-fed beef. Neanderthin by Ray Audette is a great, easy-to-read book on Paleo eating. The diet Atkins recommends to kick-start weight loss, where carbs are kept below 20g a day, is a ketogenic diet. In my experince, when people go on a ketogenic diet one of two things will happen. After a few days on the diet, they will either feel vast improvements in energy and mental clarity, or they will suffer from various levels of lethargy and mental fog. If you are one of the people that suffers from decreased energy on a ketogenic diet, don't throw the baby out with the bathwater! The answer may be as simple as slightly upping your carb intake, similar to what is recommended in Life Without Bread, another great low carb book. In LWB one is advised to consume 72g carbs per day. Suddenly cutting out all carbs as in the induction phase of Atkins appears to be too much for some people (including myself). Just gradually taper down your carb intake if you fall into this category. Atkins book is a great source of info on the benefits of reducing carb intake, so I still give it 4 stars. It should be read by anyone serious about learning all they can about low-carb nutrition, even if it is not the low-carb protocol that they end up adopting. I would recommend one reads a variety of books on low-carb nutrition, which will expose one to a variety of approaches. This will allow one both to formulate an approach that suits them best, and, as a bonus, avoid becoming a hysterical, emotional anti-low-carb critic.
Rating: 
Summary: it's okay but... the meat eating is sickening
Review: Hi, I spent about four days on the Induction phase of this diet. I am in agreement with many other reviewers in that, it really is a blown out of proportion diet. It's not all that and a bag chips. The book is good, but I had all I could stand of bacon,eggs,etc. It felt extremely hypocritical working in a health food store all day (a vegetarian-vegan one at that!) and shoveling bacon,ham,etc. Today I knew this was the end when I woke up feeling like I could vomit. To counteract the bilge I put in my body, I took an herbal enema flush and an epsomsalts purge tea. needless to say, I am beginning to feel better. I suggest the salad and salmon diet. You can get it free off of Doctor Ronald Hoffman's website. I think many reviweres are also right in pointing out the long term effects of meat eating to the degre Atkins calls for. Just think of the people in the Bible. I am sure Methusalah and Moses didn't live so long eating pork rinds, cracklins' and hogmaws did they? Anyway, he does have some good points but I am glad I got the book used. Get the book [inexpensively].
Rating:
Summary: DANGER!
Review: If you follow the advice of this foolish, money hungry man, you WILL regret it. Atkins recently had a heart attack and it's no wonder: you cannot eat the way he recommends and actually be healthy. This is fact. Don't take my word for it. Do a search on the internet and see what the american heart association, the american cancer society, the physicians committee for responsible medicine, and many others have to say about this book and other fad diets like it. Here's a hint: they don't like Atkins or the diet he, and others, advocates. PLEASE, if you value your health and your life, stay far away from this book. Don't be another victim of this raving fool. If you want to lose weight, try a low fat diet based on the New Four Food Groups: whole grains, legumes, vegetables & fruit.
Rating:
Summary: Good principles but taken too far
Review: I'm sure that eating too much carbohydrate isn't healthy. There's a lot of evidence supporting this theory. Highly processed food is generally very poor in vitamins, minerals and essential oils and very rich in carbohydrate. Most people agree that sugar and white flour isn't what people should be eating.
The problem with the Atkins diet and with other similar diets (Protein Power, for instance) is that the carbohydrate restriction is too extreme. After a few days on this diet I felt like I could kill for a slice of bread. I was also very constipated and lost too much potassium (had to take potassium supplements and laxatives).
This diet is very, very difficult to stay on. In the beginning your appetite may be suppressed by ketosis, but eventually you'll start to crave carbs very badly.
Someone wrote a review saying that once you are no longer able to deprive yourself, you'll gain all the pounds you lost and more, and I just have to agree. They come back *very fast*.
While I recommend this book because of all the alerts against comsumption of unhealthy carbs, I think people should try a milder restriction than the one suggested here. You'll be able to stay on your diet much longer and create healthy habits. You won't be able to quit sugar and junk food if you can't stand your diet. Creating healthy habits is much more important than losing weight fast.
Anyway, STOP EATING JUNK.
Rating:
Summary: "Watch out with this diet"
Review: Some basic points;(they refer to the maintenance regimen, not just the first two extreme weeks of the diet)
1) The idea that an overabundance of carbohydrates,especially starch,may discourage fat meltdown is actually not a new one - no-one said that pigging out on any element of one's dietary intake is a good thing. The problem is that Atkins takes this idea to the extreme and removes a lot of the pleasure in food choices.In moderation, a non-processed carbohydrate intake is undoubtedly important.
2) Talk to anyone who tried the diet,WHO LOVES FOOD AND THE ENJOYMENT OF COOKING AND TRYING DIFFERENT CUISINES, and see how many of them are still on the dietary regime after 12 months - it leaves little or no room for leniency, and also is very inconvenient in its food choices - a sure recipe for failure of adherence in the long term
3)Many of the people who have tried this extreme form of dieting have had REAL problems with tiredness, lethargy, dizziness, and constipation even a few weeks into the program - I tried it myself and literally became physically nauseous (EVEN after 3 weeks)
4)Many of the societies that Atkins brings up as examples of the logic of his diet - France, for example - also consume carbohydrates regularly! (e.g. bread)
5)Many dieters end up rebounding off this diet, finding it intolerable, and then start to regain the weight even easier!
I know of one friend whose cholesterol shot up to cardiac risk factor territory after staying on this diet only for a few months - also, he suffered from a fair bit of halotosis. Like everything in life, it often helps not to take an extreme approach to any goal, including weight loss....
Rating:
Summary: Great diet! - Really works
Review: As someone else said, Dr. Atkins deserves a Nobel for supporting this diet all these years! This diet works. After the "initiation" phase, just stay away from the major carbos and you'll keep the weight off. He has pointed out something very significant. Carbos are what cause you to gain weight. Try it and your weight problems will disappear.
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