[Cincinatus]

I've even read the Atkins book and nowhere in the book does it state you can eat "unlimited amounts of fat and protein."

Quite so -- Atkins says to "eat until you are satisfied or full", a very different statement. There is no diet in which you can stuff yourself with food.

I've been on this diet since mid-May and have lost 33 pounds. To me, the best thing about it is that I'm almost never hungry. If you're not hungry, you don't obsess about food and it's a lot easier to stay on your diet. Moreover, I just had some blood work done and my good cholesterol is up and bad is down, even though I've had bacon and eggs for breakfast every day for the last three months!

Atkins is the best diet I've ever found.

[workerbee]

My sister has started a modified Atkins plan and I'm curious to see how she'll do. The numbers I see here are impressive -- but I wonder how a carboholic like me could ever survive the first day! LOL.

[SamAdams76]

It's funny how this diet works. You actually crave the foods that you are supposed to eat, like bacon and eggs. I used to prefer a stack of pancakes with lots of syrup in the morning (when I even had breakfast) with side orders of toast. Of course, I was hungry three hours later. Now I can be satisfied with 2 eggs and 3 slices of bacon and not even be hungry at lunchtime. And what's more, I crave those bacon and eggs in the morning. Every now and then, I throw in some cheese, mushrooms and hot peppers, just to mix it up.

Not being hungry all the time is the best part of this diet. When I do go to restaurants, I leave the bread and rolls on the table and wait for my salad (w/olive oil only). I then order extra vegetables instead of the standard rice and potatoes. No restaurant yet has ever given me a problem about this substitution.

Now I was a person who used to eat the whole basket of rolls at restaurants and ask for more! I actually thought that if I filled up on bread, I'd eat less of that "fattening food" (but somehow, I always cleaned my plate anyhow and asked for dessert). That's how brainwashed I used to be about this kind of stuff.

[jennyp]

Moreover, I just had some blood work done and my good cholesterol is up and bad is down, even though I've had bacon and eggs for breakfast every day for the last three months!

Could you please post your HDL/LDL/Triglyceride numbers here? Also, do you have numbers from before you started on the diet?