Like any diet you have to turn it into a lifestyle in order to maintain the weight. Once you in a while you can go off the strict plan and indulge but overall you have ti keep your carb gms pretty low. Another thing that you also have to add is exercise.. es if you are going to bump up your carbs.

The last answer was right. it has to be a lifestyle. I would strongly recommend you don't do this diet because it is really bad for you. You need carbs, you need fats, and protiens A balence diet is the best 60% carbs, 20% fats, 20% protien

dirtlover had a good answer. If you just stick to a 2000 calorie a day diet. 60% from carbs (1200 calories), 30% from fats (600 calories), 10% from protein (200 calories) dirtlover stated 20/20 for fats/protein. The new recommendations out are going 30% to fats and 10% to protein. A "higher" protein intake is great if your lifting weights and want to bulk up. BUT, you still need carbs and fats. A few simple tips: A good diet; eat healthy. Count your calories and stick to that 2000 a day diet- 60-30-10; don't eat out a lot. If you pick up nutritional information from some of those fastfood restaurants such as McDonalds you'd be suprised. Some of their sandwiches have 400-500 calories!!!! Quit drinking soda drinks or at least cut down your consumption; cut the cals and sugar right there. Most of the people I've consulted drink way too much (up to 1200 calories per day) and too little water. That brings us to a different issue but to talk about that real quick; do what I do. I take 5 quart bottles, freeze three of them. Drink two in the morning and three in the afternoon-evening. It's a lot easier than trying to guage your water consumption. Exercise; everybody knows how to exercise in general. Quick tip: make it enjoyable as you can. Try doing something varied. Running, walking, biking, swimming, or try something fun...tennis, martial arts, basketball, etc...just a general good lifestyle and staying active is a big part. To Good Health!

If you want to lose weight quickly, this diet definitely works, as long as you keep a healthy diet after you are finished with it in order to maintain your new weight. But studies have shown that in the long run it is unhealthy if kept up for a long period. I am not sure of the actual scientific reason that they say it works, but the main reason the Atkins diet seems to work is because you have to look really hard to find things you can eat (especially if you really like high carb foods), and you end up eating less because of it.

The principle behind the Atkins diet, from what I've heard, is that your body normally burns the calories you get from carbohydrates first. It's only by cutting the carbohydrates that you're sure to really burn those fat calories (which, I think, are burned at a higher rate... that's why you lose weight faster and everyone raves about Atkins). The problem is that, after people reach their goal weight, they stop dieting and bring back the carbohydrates too quickly. Your metabolism reverts to where it was before you started the diet, you're back on your old eating habits, and you gain the weight back. Diets don't just magically end when you hit a certain weight. In the case of the Atkins diet, you're supposed to gradually reintroduce carbohydrates into your diet until you reach the right balance. People just get too excited or impatient and forget that important step.

Yes, high protein / low carb diets work, and are perfectly safe if done intelligently. First low carb does not mean no carb. In fact you should be eating plenty of vegetables. And fiber must be watched closely on such a diet. One of the reasons is it helps control insulin. Out of control insulin causes major fat gain, and a lack of dietary control by bouncing your blood sugar all over the place. Another reason is that protein slows the digestion, is very filling, and is more thermogenic (i.e. uses a lot of calories to process). By slowing down the digestion, you feel fuller longer, and it slows down the digestion of other foods you ate at the same time, keeping a more steady level of insulin. I used to follow the high carb low fat diets, but after learning some facts, decided to try a high protein, lower carb, healthy fat diet. I was shocked that I could eat as much as I did, and still lose fat. Two things should be mentioned. You need a good mix of fats. You actually do need saturated fat, but not in the amount we normally consume. And we also need omega 3, which the American diet lacks. Fish and fish oil capsules are the best sources of this fat, and the health benefits are enormous. Second, high protein is safe on the kidneys. People, including misinformed doctors, have mistakenly stated that high protein diets are dangerous to the kidneys. This myth actually came about because of a study done on people who already had kidney disease. No study has ever shown high protein diets cause any damage to the kidneys, and I know of at least one that not only proves it is safe, but improved insulin sensitivity in diabetics at the same time. Now as far as gaining it back, you need to exercise with any diet. You should not do one or the other. And weight bearing exercises are of the utmost importance. Dieting without lifting weights will cause a loss of muscle while dieting, and will slow down the metabolism, while if you were to gain muscle, you would actually increase your metabolism. But regardless, after you lose all the weight you want, you bring your “healthy” carbohydrates up, and keep working out. The two biggest reasons people regain the weight is because they lost muscle, and they quit, and went back to their old habits when they finished the diet. Now if you want a healthy diet that works, and is low carb, but higher then Atkins, and gives you one meal a week where you can eat whatever you want, check out this link: http://t-nation.com/readTopic.do?id=473067 The benefits of this diet is that they first posted the original diet, and had a lot of people try it out, send in their results, and problems, and actually learned a lot from those people, and made it even better.