Great to see some feedback! I've known about Dr. Westman for ages and like most of what he has to say. I've always ended up back at the basic Atkins principles because it works best for me. I also love the simplicity of it.

I have learned over the years that there are lots of things I don't do well with digestively. I am happy to give up grains...all of them including corn....because I have a horrible time digesting them all. Gluten free goods (I'm celiac) have too many weird additive starches and the like, so in the end, I love Atkins because grains are no longer an alternative for me.

Since infancy I've had dairy issues, and I use very little of it. I found out that once I eliminated all grains, my system could deal with a tiny amount of dairy. So butter doesn't bother me, limited hard cheese is ok, and I whip up 2 TB half and half for my cappuccino every day, and that's it for dairy. Experimenting has shown me this level of dairy doesn't bother me and I can lose weight eating this limited amount.

Beyond that, despite the fact that I'm a true vegetable lover, a great number of them also bother me terribly. So Atkins also makes that easy...lettuce, celery, cucumber...those are no problem. I avoid most of the other veggies for now. And I love meats and do well with eggs, so those fits in good too.

The things I eat each day make me end up with at least 60% fat. Protein can end up at 35 or so. How I'd do more than that, I really don't know. I'm eating to satiety every day, but that old Atkins advantage of no having hunger is really true for me as long as I eat virtually no carbs other than what is in the limited dairy I eat.

I still belong to Dietdoctor.com and have a lot of favorite recipes there, but for the most part, I wasn't losing weight as well as I wanted while using all those recipes. I think they had too many ingredients in them in some cases, and also, I think I ate too much because they were yummy.

I have Dr. Fung's books and have tried various forms of fasting. I find a 24 hour fast quite easy to do and I do that occasionally. Once I did a 36 hour fast and didn't like that, plus I didn't see any advantage to it. But what I do is a 16-18 hour fast every single day from early dinner to my next meal (breakfast/lunch, whatever to call it). I think that is definitely a good thing as I only eat and only want 2 meals a day. I'm never hungry.

I know at least 3 close relatives who would definitely benefit for Atkins '72, at least as a starter place for losing weight. Wish I could convince them. When I've discussed it with my SIL she just says "But I can't give up bread." The other two get defensive and say they are eating healthy. Never mind exactly WHAT they are eating. Sigh.