I feel that the beauty of a successful Atkins experience is that it is both a radical change and a gradual one at the same time.
Induction requires one to jump in with both feet first. This allows one to see immediate results and is the best encouragement to continue on. With other diets that I have been on, I would try for a month, hate the radical change, and see maybe one to two pounds lost at best. Then I would get depressed and slip back into my previous eating habits. (which were worse than horrible).
I feel that the initial stages of the diet allow people like me (with portion control issues) to feel very sated by allowing unlimited food and calories.
The strange thing started to happen about two months in, I no longer had portion issues. In fact I no longer really needed my food scale. I was eating a more normal volume (amount) of food and still feeling sated. It was as if the first two months were a gradual change to more normal portions of considerably healthier food in stead of a radical change. When I began to track with fitday I noticed that my amount of calories has continued to drift down without any hunger or need to increased volumes of food. I am willing to bet that the most successful people on this board have made that transition from very high calorie, high fat diets to a much more healthy combination of meats and veggies, perhaps without even realizing it. Something that previously would not have been possible.
BTW, I refer to volumes of food because I feel that there is also an emotional component to my eating and the volume of $8it I shoveled into my mouth when depressed was usually Fat and Carbs in an ungodly combination.
So in summary, as I have wandered abit, Atkins is both a radical diet and a gradual change in lifestyle and perhaps because of that dichotomy there is such disagreement among Critics and Supporters.
Finally, in conclusion there is really just one more thing that has to be said.

Thank You Dr Atkins.