We have been low-carbing for 2 years on Sugar Busters, which caused me to gain weight (from 148 to 155), but everyone else in my family lost --- my husband lost 60# and is back to his 174 which is what he weighed when I met him. My longtime baseline weight was 130-135. I felt great while I was SB, but got off of it because I was gaining, and went low-fat low-carb (Body-For-Life without most of the carbs) and doing the Joyce Vedral workout and finally lost a couple of pounds. Miserable the whole time, by the way...Starving all day with hunger never going away!

So one month ago I got on heavy duty Atkins, (rest of family living well on SB) and I've been gaining weight and inches every since. I am currently on the fat fast, drinking tons of water, using L-carnitine, EFA's, and Q-10 coenzyme, and am decaffeinated. Throughout the last 2 years, I've been such a stickler about not cheating. I count my carbs religiously (less than 20/day), including the couple of pieces of Trident gum (Splenda/Recaldent) that I chew while at work, and my scrub pants are getting tighter. A couple of the other nurses that I work with are also on Atkins and losing weight, but they are as distressed as I am because they are watching me gain, and they know I'm not cheating.

Thyroid's OK, trig's and Chol are way normal (on low end) and I don't fit into those "yeast" or "syndrome X" profiles. I take low-dose birth control. Otherwise, no meds.

I have not done any Joyce Vedral since I started Atkins a month ago...but I take the stairs at work, and it KILLS my quads since I've been doing Atkins. The stairs have never hurt me like this, and I was used to doing them 3 and 4 flights at a time with very little trouble prior to 4 weeks ago.

I have contacted the Atkins people on their website, and am waiting for a response about what I should do.

Have you ever encountered anyone with my problem?