I would suggest watching the documentary Fat Head. The diet the guy followed for a month, lost weight, felt great, not depressed, was a high protein, high fat, and aimed to keep carbs less than 100 grams a day,,with some walking several days a week. I believe he tried to keep daily total calories around 2000, but he did sometimes go over a little. If you are more active your daily limit may be different.
But the idea is to limit carbs, and when you eat them, do not eat them by themselves, eat them with protein and fat, so your body doesnt have to deal with a lot of sugar quickly and avoid insulin spikes.
Secret, will eating up to 100 gr. of carb also result in the lack of hunger that so many experience on this type of diet?
This is one of the benefits, for me and many others: most of these diets have an initial induction phase, where carbs are restricted much more than that. And many notice that after a couple of days, there is no hunger. In the initial weight-loss stages, I’ve always kept the carbs to 50 or below, and believed that this restriction is what ‘killed’ hunger. (I’ve generally done the South Beach or Atkins.)
-JT