Rating: 
Summary: A life changing concept.
Review: I started the diet in January of 2000 after reading the book cover to cover. I combined the diet with a workout program of 3 days per week at the gym riding the stationary bike for 45 minutes each time, and doing a half hour of weights and stretches. After 4 months I lost 30% of my body fat, and a total of 15 lbs, and now I am at an ideal weight for my age, height, sex and body type and have never felt better physically. I also noticed that a sinus condition that I had been dealing with for the last two years virtually went away. THIS DIET WORKS, but you HAVE to read the book and do it EXACTLY as Dr. Atkins says, or you will not see the results that you want. There are so many misconceptions about this diet, but if naysayers would actually read the book, they would see that the diet does not say that you must eat only protein forever - it is only during the induction part. The reading is very easy to understand and Dr. Atkins uses many case studies to prove his point. Through his writing, I learned to look at products in the supermarket differently, and he is so right about sugar being in all of the fad diet food products. No wonder they don't work! I am happy to promote this diet and the book at any time, because nothing else ever worked as well as this for me.
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Summary: Losing Weight and Gaining a Sister
Review: This book has really changed my life. From being resigned to always being fat, I have now lost 44 pounds in ten weeks and I intend to lose 60 more to reach a weight of 160 lbs. I have done every diet there is but the end result has always been that I gain back more than I lost. Of course, being lazy hasn't helped. I don't exercise beyond taking a few walks each week. This diet is easily adaptable to your wants and tastes. I, for example, quickly realized that too much cream and bacon didn't sit well with me. As the diet does require fat however, I'll eat some hard cheese to compensate for that. Sometimes I miss a good spagetti meal, but I'll treat myself to one on my birthday and then continue with the diet. My sister is the one who started on the Atkins diet and told me about it. The funny thing is that we hadn't been on speaking terms for nearly two years, but this diet was so great she couldn't keep it to herself. When I also went on the diet, we started calling each other with recipe suggestions or just plain admiring each other with each pound we lost. I recommend dieting with someone else, it's a lot of fun. When I see fat people in the street, I want to grab them and tell them that they don't have to live with their fat but that it's easy to lose. Even for lazy, non-exercising people like myself. I would probably have lost more weight, but I meet my friends at bars a couple of nights a week when I drink several glasses of wine. Drinking wine will put the weight loss on hold but not make you gain. Beer is a no-no. Finally I want to say that not everyone does succeed on this diet. I have another sister who is also on the diet. She lost 7 pounds and then stopped losing no matter what she did and however stringently she followed the diet and all suggestions regarding a weight loss plateau. She has given up on Atkins. Good luck to all dieters!
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Summary: Basically we are carnivores so what's wrong with that?
Review: I was sceptical of this diet as I have been of all diets, but I have a sedentary occupation and I don't exercise "the way I should" as people are constantly telling me (admonishments from the very people who also don't exercise as they should!). Well now, I've just had a LONG talk with my physician who is very concerned about my weight (over 100 lbs. what I should be) and at my age (nearly 62) this is NOT a good thing: heart problems, high blood pressure, potential diabetes, back problems, etc., all could kick in at any time, and a few already have. So this is how my doc explained dieting to me, and it makes sense to me: Look at animals. The herbivores are constantly eating AND running. Zebras, for instance, are herbivores and they eat a LOT of grass, are always eating, but they are running all the time, either from real predators or imagined predators. Zebras eat a lot of veggies, BUT they also EXERCISE a lot (all that running). On the other hand, the carnivores (lions, leopards) only run when they are trying to catch food (e.g.: zebras!). When carnivores aren't capturing food what do they do? They relax! They lie about under trees and sleep, play with their kids, and sort of go on vacation. Now, if we apply this example to people we have the carnivores who are sedentary, but who are also eating way too much carbohydrate which turns into fat, so we get fatter. If we try to become a herbivore we still continue to get fat because the carbohydrates herbivores need also turns into FAT. What to do? Atkins to the rescue! He says: turn OFF the carbohydrates and become a carnivore. Meats and stalk and leaf vegetables will get us (and KEEP us!) THIN. Following his plan also has this wonderful benefit: NO hunger pangs! All the pseudo-herbivores on high carb/low fat diets are hungry almost all the time, and they are still getting fat, while all us low carb/high fat & high protein diet carnivores are getting slimmer and feeling no pain! Hummm.... Sounds like a plan. I say, those who are already skinny can scoff. Those who want to stay fat can remain herbivores, and hungry herbivores at that. Personally, I'm a carnivore and I like being a carnivore! A THIN carnivore!
Rating: 
Summary: For long term, try the 40-30-30, or Zone diet, instead
Review: I have mixed feelings about this. Atkins is a low maintenance, easy to follow diet to lose some quick pounds for the short term. It is not a fad diet, but it borders on it! But this diet is not a long term way to eat, and there is no detailed or scientific procedure like Barry Sear's Zone book states. Atkins was the pioneer in making high protein diets popular and somewhat effective and easy to follow, and his book is still great reading. Barry Sears book, though, is more up to date, scientific, healthy, and meant as a long term health plan. Barry sears book is more quantitative, emphasizes healthy foods, and explains why a certain carbo/protein balance is necessary for long term health. It is tougher to follow and requires more dicipline, but it is worth it, believe me! Once you get the drift of the zone and read the book carefully, it is actually easier to follow than Atkins!
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Summary: I lost 48 lbs. and feel G-R-E-A-T!
Review: The program works. Like most, I was leary about all the fat in this diet. Then I realized that the fat that I was carrying around was a lot more dangerous.I enjoy the program. Wake up to eggs and bacon. Eat burgers and cheese, macadian nuts, cream cheese, fish and lots more.My skin is tight. My nails are great. My husband has trimmed 7 inches off his waist. No more potbelly and more energy and vitality than I have seen in nearly a decade. I have lost in all the major fat accumulation areas. My hair looks healthy again (I am a 40-something year old) and have more energy than I had in my teens.Aside from the the recipes in the book, I also took some supplements including a herbal product.I have tried the High carb/fiber diets. They didn't work for me. Just bloated me.This is the best. People tell me I look about 10 years younger (attests to the value of protein)Disregard the negative remarks. If everyone agreed, then I would be worried.If I can be of help, let me know.Feel free to e-mail me @winningimage2@webtv.net
Rating:
Summary: The diet for a long lifetime
Review: I am a research scientist and began the Atkins diet on June 13, 1998, when I was 43. I began it because I was feeling old -- tired, sleeping my life away. And as a research scientist (Ph.D Biochemistry) the diet was and is sound. I have never been happier or healthier, and my medical doctor can confirm this. Overall, I lost about 30 pounds and developed a strong, muscular, lean body (and I wear a women's size 8 and am 5'10"). But the body was not the issue. What was important to me was that I no longer felt old, no longer "groggy" after meals and in fact became full of energy, and happy. My colleagues wanted to know my secret and I shared what I know. We now have a sizable group following Atkins that includes my husband, children, mom, dad, and various colleagues and friends. My bother-in-law who was newly diagnosed as a diabetic started Atkins, and has had normal blood sugar levels without medication for over 18 months. The simpliest way to understand the Atkins diet is to understand that your body is composed of protein which needs to be constantly renewed. Your body cannot synthesize 20 amino acids that are the structural element of proteins. Therefore, you must eat proteins to build a strong and healthy body. Carbohydrates serve as "energy" fuel, but so does excess protein and fat. Humans have not evolved to be able to handle the excessive amounts of sugar (carbohydrates) presnt in a diet of jumbo muffins, candy, cake, ice cream, soda pop and so on. Atkins doesn't impose restrictions on the amount of fat and protein you can consume because those foods are self-limiting. People who can eat a quart of ice cream in one sitting cannot eat a quart of bacon grease. People who can eat a pound of chocolate in one sitting cannot eat a pound of steak. This is a diet for a lifetime
Rating:
Summary: Amendment to previous review
Review: To briefly recap my previous review: I lost 130 lbs. on the Zone diet, I still have 100 more to go, but I have been on a plateau for the past year. I then switched to the Atkins diet, and lost 8-10 lbs. in one week. I believe most of that weight was water weight. For the past 6 days I have been unable to lose any weight at all, despite keeping my carb consumption well under the 15-20 grams per day recommended by Dr. Atkins. I am in ketosis, which Dr. Atkins claims is a sure sign of burning fat, but nothing is showing up on the scale. The worst part, though, is that this diet is, to put it bluntly, GROSS. I'm sick of eating nothing but eggs, cheese, meat, and fat. The tiny amount of vegetables I'm consuming (about 1 cup of broccoli per day) is not enough to make the diet bearable. I feel sick to my stomach most of the time. This is NOT a diet I can see myself doing for the rest of my life. I've decided to give the Zone another try. The Zone IS a diet that I could easily do for the rest of my life. I have never felt more energetic, more healthy, more just plain GREAT than I did on the Zone. I was never hungry, and I didn't have a single stomach problem, ever. I'm not hungry on the Atkins diet either, but I just can't eat this way. My gut is telling me (both literally and figuratively) that the Atkins diet is not healthy. A person needs fruits and vegetables; it's as simple as that. I spoke with a Zone counselor today; she advised me to cut down slightly on carbs, and slightly increase fat. This is the same thing Dr. Sears (the "inventor" of the Zone) told me in a chat room recently, and it is closer to the Atkins approach, but it still permits me enough fruits and vegetables to allow me to feel like a normal, healthy human being. My mistake was that I didn't give this a fair chance; I just switched over to Atkins, lured by the promise of super-fast weight loss. So now I am going to give it a fair chance. I just have to have faith that this will eventually break my impasse. Do keep in mind that I lost 130 lbs. on the Zone. That's a lot more weight than most people have to lose. I would urge anyone who wants to lose weight to give the Zone a try first; it is the most sensible, intelligent, pleasant way of eating I have ever found. Sure, I still occasionally missed pasta, pizza, ice cream, and all the other "goodies" on the Zone, but the fact is, after I eat those things, I feel terrible, so it's not as if eating those things is nothing but wonderful. At least on the Zone I feel wonderful after I eat, and my hunger is satisfied. That's a more than fair trade-off. I'm still giving the Atkins book three stars because it may well work for some people. I do think that limiting carbs is the only way to lose weight. But the Zone does this too, only in a more sensible, pleasant way. If I can be of further help to anyone, or if anyone wants to follow up on my progress, feel free to email me. Steve
Rating: 
Summary: Got a Kidney Donor?
Review: Sigh...never fails, people will believe anything...especially when it comes to diets. And now that every celebrity in the world is becoming a walking waif (or is it a walking corpse) because of the Atkins diet, it really is becoming a "hit"...there are 2 sides pro-atkins and pro-health...The Atkins diet starts off with the assumption that carbohydrates are evil...which is beguiling to me because the first people (and Im not talking adam and eve) had a carbohydrate diet because they were food foragers....Western Culture is attacking everything it can about diet...except for the right answer. There are diets saying that carbs are bad, sugar is bad, fat is bad, protein is bad, carrots are bad...its preposterous. What is bad? Not having a well-balanced meal and not having a healthy lifestyle. Meaning having a exercise regime that focuses on muscle toning and aerobics, drinking 8 glasses of water a day, not drinking or smoking, and avoiding stress...ohh and having faith in whatever religion you believe is a big factor as well. The Atkins diet claims that carbohydrates are the cause for hunger, which will then cause you to overeat and thus gain weight. So by that logic, if you eliminate carbs and increase protein and fat intake to satisfy hunger instead, your body will thank you for it by losin weight without food cravings. What is the diet? Thick fat steaks with slabs of melting butter, crisp bacon, eggs, thick cream, mayonnaise-based salad dressings, fried pork rinds and, rich desserts like cheesecake and mocha pie. And were supposed to believe that this diet is safe because we lose weight from it...Anorexics lose weight from starvation and bulimics lose weight from vomiting, but is that safe? No and neither is Atkins. Eating as much protein and fat as you want is unsafe and unhealthy. Why has Atkins not be labeled as unsafe? Well for one, it has...but since Atkins is "new" meaning it has just started to become a fad within the last 5 years...the long-term results are unknown...but use your brain...high fat and high-protein and low-fiber diets have been linked to heart disease and cancer...but because you will be skinny when you die of colon cancer, thats supposed to be okay? Atkins makes the erroneous claims that ketosis is the key: Without incoming carbs, your body first burns its carbohydrate stores, and then the protein in its lean muscle tissue for energy, both of which release a lot of water. Your body also starts burning some fat in an inefficient way that creates toxic by-products called ketones. These build up in your bloodstream and need to be processed through your kidneys to be eliminated....this is scary. The major lab diagnostic for discovering anorexia is that ketosis is present...when we starve ourselves, ketones are then in our blood and our urine. Atkins diet is an anorexic diet except minus not eating. Look at all the people on the Atkins diet...they have no muscle mass...even Jennifer Aniston pre-Atkins had muscles...post-Atkins she is just bone. When one starves themself...the first thing that is depleted is our muscle...People thinking they are losing weight...they are! But they arent losing fat as much as they are losing little fat and all their muscle. Too many ketones in your body can cause dizziness, headaches, mental confusion, nausea, fatigue, sleep problems and bad breath. Also, high protein intake causes your body to lose calcium, so add weakening bones to the list...So while Jenn Anison looks slim now, when she turns 50 she will have osterporosis among other things. Your brain and body are designed to get energy from carbohydrates, anything else would be abnormal food, especially ketones. Ketosis, as I said before, is a sign that your body is going into starvation mode. When your body thinks it's starving, it slows down the metabolism rate in order to conserve its fuel and will eats at its own muscle tissue to get at the carbs stored there as glycogen. The worse part, after you quit the diet, your body fights to turn every bit of food you eat into fat because it doesn't know when you're going to starve yourself again and it needs to build up a bigger reserve than you had before. You gain more fat than you had when you started. If you lose weight, you'll gain it all back - and more - once you stop the diet. If you dont plan on quitting then don't expect to have healthy kidneys for the long term: Over time, the stress of processing so many ketones can damage your kidneys, causing ketoacidosis or toxic ammonia in your blood. Be smart...go see a Registered Nutritionist, not some "doctor" in a book.
Rating:
Summary: Sixty pounds and five years later - it's a miracle!
Review: After thirty years of fruitless dieting - and the accompanying, constant hunger and weakness - I must say that there is only one "side effect" to the diet: eating with others will solicit comments about how "I thought pasta was good for you" and the like. I've known others who, like myself, actually read the entire book and had similar (or greater) success. (A co-worker lost 130 pounds and has maintained that loss for three years to date, for example.) There truly is no hunger, no cravings, no fatigue, no needing to be obsessed with dieting, no living in a gym - and no regain. But I have frequently been puzzled when I have met or heard from those who cannot take Dr Atkins' word for what his diet is. They combine the "sage wisdom" of other plans, believing they read it in Atkins book, or take prejudiced comments from elsewhere and assume them to be true. The common assumption - that Atkins dieters are constantly stuffing themselves with high fat foods, undoubtedly in a contest to see who can consume the most calories in a day - is absurd. After the first few weeks, one experiences a blessed reduction in appetite and absence of any cravings. (Politically incorrect as it is to state the truth - for many, though not all, people, eating high carbohydrate foods when hungry has an effect similar to drinking from the ocean when thirsty.)Though there is no weighing, measuring, or keeping diaries, one finds that one's caloric intake is drastically reduced. The other fictions - that this is a temporary diet (that is true only of Induction - which prejudiced reviewers present as the entire diet) - that Atkins dieters are aiming for a heart attack soon (I doubt a cardiologist has much interest in killing his patients..) - that staying on the diet leads to weight gain - all are ridiculous. It is true that one will gain weight if one goes back to a high carbohydrate diet - but why would anyone who has a problem with carbs want to do so? Those contemplating following the diet MUST read the book in its entirety, and not add what they were taught elsewhere. Everett Koop's "successes" lost only 12 pounds in a year. Other "successes" with high carb, low fat programmes, of which I've read on the Internet, had track records such as losing 19 pounds and gaining half of it back soon. I've seen studies where those who "successfully" lost weight through exercise lost only six pounds in a year. The new wisdom is that one should not lose more than a pound a month. ...I'll take Atkins any day.
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Summary: Diet works, but has terrible long term consequences
Review: I didn't know anything about this diet other than its fad appeal until I took a graduate level health course. Unfortunately, the Atkin's diet while it does work, can lead to serious long term problems. Most of the weight you lose will be from water loss which can lead to elecrtolyte imbalances and kidney stones. The trick of the diet is that carbohydrates turn on insulin which puts the body into anabolic mode (meaning it will rebuild tissue such as muscle and fat). The body is tricked into thinking its in what nutritionist's call "fasting mode" when its given a diet without carbohydrates, there will be no new tissue produced or regenerated, the body thinks its starving. The problem is that while no one wants their fat replenished, your muscle doesn't get replenished either. Further, if you go off the diet and resume a normal one, you'll gain more weight than you started with. The only cases where the medical/scientific community agreed that the atkin's diet would be beneficial is in the severly obese and children suffering epileptic seizures that could not otherwise be treated with drugs. If I've already lost you in scientific jargon, I apologize, but one really must have a good education on this level to fully understand the interplay going on that this diet manipulates (biochemsitry, nutrition, physiology). It took me months of learning to fully understand the terrible consequences of this diet. Unfortunately, the hazards do not show up for months to years, so most people who buy this book and use its advice will be so overjoyed to see themselves losing weight, they will shut their minds off to the truth. These hazards can range from muscle loss (including heart muscle which is irreplaceable, kidney and/or liver cancer, serious electrolyte balance just for starters). Another element I am seriously troubled with is that Atkin has an M.D. and a plethora of education on this subject, so he must know that he is not presenting all the information in an objective manner. With his education, he knows the FDA will not regulate him (because the FDA only regulates drugs and alcohol, not diets or vitamins). Much like a used car salesman with a first time car buyer, He is literally steering people toward a road that will offer only short term results @ the cost of their health, and by the time they do suffer from its results it could be years later, so they will not associate this with his diet. Most REAL nutritionists are very upset with Dr. Atkin, and feel he should be stripped of his M.D. for violating the hippocratic oath. The road to losing weight in a healthy manner is hard, its takes a long time, and there are no quick results. Please believe my sincerity on this issue if you do not have the medical knowledge I have discussed. Other books or programs on dieting by Jenny Craig, Dr. Andrew Wiel and Dr. Dean Ornish provide healthy diets that will not cause long term harm.
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