I've got a "seen it work, thought I'd try it" twist for you:
Although I originally tried Atkins probably 15 years ago with a co-worker, it was too restrictive for me and I dropped it. And forgot about it.
About 4 years ago, I started researching a natural diet for my dogs--my oldest dog at the time had arthritis and a few other complaints and I couldn't keep weight off of her. After watching my pup of 9 months completely freak when my old girl got very sick, I'd decided to get the old one's "replacement" (not really, but you know what I mean) early to give the younger one time to become attached and hopefully not take it quite so hard when my old girl died--which could be any day. Anyway, when looking for ways of relieving Kiva's (that was my old one's name) symptoms naturally, since she'd topped out on pain medication, I came across such things as "Give Your Dog a Bone" and related books and after talking with the breeder from whom I'd gotten my younger girl and was going to get the new pup (she'd been in the process of switching her dogs over for much the same reason--one really old guy)... anyway, to make a long story less long, my little guy, Corwin, was weaned on a raw meat plus veggies diet and at the same time, I switched my old girl (12.5) and young girl over. Kiva went on to live to just shy of 14, had slimmed down a bit, toned up, and was actually trotting around some days--and this with some other problems that should've taken her down two years earlier, my other two, which having a little bit of fat are never off my more than about 5-10% no matter what, are quite muscular, no health problems, good coats, eyes, heal quickly, strong...
Heck, I'd love to be so healthy! Hey, dogs have very similar digestive system as humans. One of the reasons they probably took up with humans 10k+ years ago included similarity of social structure and compatible food requirements, I thought... so if they're doing so well on a no grain, mostly meat with veggies and some fruit diet, why am I supposed to do so well on exactly the opposite?
The closest thing I could find was Neanderthin, which lead me to reading up on pretty much all the low carb variations and noting some pretty interesting similarities across the board and ultimately to here.
The only ones in my household on high carbs are the parrots so I guess you could say we think the food pyramid if for the birds
Dianne
who *does* cook her chicken, though