Thanks for all your great replies so far. I can tell that you have all thought about this a lot, and I'm sure you are very well equipped to reach your goal.

Just a few points in response to some of the issues you raised:

- I agree that low-carb condiments etc. could be useful if used in moderation. That's why I specifically used the pizza as an example. I still believe that a big low-carb pizza would be worse for you than a single slice of real pizza used as a treat once in a blue moon. Also, for instance a single piece of 70% pure chocolate is infinitely more satisfying than many replacements you can find if you've got that sort of craving. So do you eat that one piece of chocolate and enjoy the full, intense taste... or do you go for a bag/bar of some replacement with an igredient list as long as your arm?

- If it's possible to stay at the same weight while doing Atkins, then surely it's also possible to gain weight - that's just a matter of margins. But most likely, what will happen is that if you don't lose weight, you get disillusioned and give up - and then you gain more weight.

- I think many of us (and I've been guilty of this too) do tend to eat beyond fullness sometimes, regardless of which diet we're on. Just ask the bingers. That's a psychological issue, not just a physical one.

- I may be wrong on this, but isn't the Atkins approach to fat that it is not harmful in a low-carb diet, but they're not disputing that it can be harmful in a high-carb diet? In that case, people are not better off with low-carb junk food than the regular stuff if they're not really low-carbing, but just trying to make a high-carb or "half-*ssed low-carb" diet less bad.

- Angeline, great post! I completely agree with you.

- Lisa, I also agree with you, and please note that I said "highly processed". Of course just about everything we eat is processed, but there are varying degrees, and I'm talking about the sort of stuff you mention at the end of your post.

- WeeOne: you should definitely try to educate your colleague. I'm sure you can find a way of doing it without hurting her feelings. Maybe you can find an article on this issue on the web (I'm sure we're not the first to have thought of this), or you can also go with the old "studies show" approach. "I just heard that low-carbers who don't use many replacements but make most of their food from scratch lose up to 50% more weight per month than people who don't. That's really made me think, and I will try to use less replacements from now on."

- Finally (and I know this is not a popular opinion here), low-fat/hi-carb diets do work for many, many people, especially if you look outside the US. But by that I mean food as close to its natual state as possible. Look at most of Asia, for instance, they are slim people who eat lots of rice and veggies, but use meat more or less as a condiment. Obviously they're doing something right. So that sort of diet is not doomed to fail, but I think it's a matter of personality what works for you. We - as a rule - have not been brought up with veggies as the main part of our diets, so we find it hard to eat enough of them to fill us up, but many people in the world can easily stay satiated on that sort of diet. And they don't have the blood sugar problems that we do.