In the original Atkins book during induction, people were not allowed to eat vegetables. He said you could have a cup of lettuce if you wanted one. Kind of like olives or heavy cream are in todays version. Is there a medical reason that the veggies are now a big part of induction or was it done to make the diet a bit more "user friendly"? I have not lost any weight forEVER and I was thinking of the fat fast, meat fast, etc..and I thought..why not just try the original diet without all the vegetables.

Personally, I think your body needs vegetables. I did the fat fast, the meat fast...you name it. Nothing worked for a period of time... Sure, I lost a few pounds with each "fast" but felt yucky. I just watch my veggie consumption...never eating more than 3/4 cup of a veggie per day and there are days I have more salad greens than veggies (like today, had 3 cup salad and will have another salad with my roast beef tonight). I suppose if you eat adequate salad greens your body won't get constipated (which happens for those who eat mainly protein).

The reason the veggie limit was increased was because not eating veggies didn't prove to be more beneficial to weight loss, and even a few veggies in a day can provide at least some much-needed nutrients and a little fiber.

You're not going to get much fiber from salad greens unless you eat quarts and quarts of them, but a little fiber is better than none. To this day I just scratch my head when I see people eating (especially post-induction) rarely any veggies other than salad, and even their salads are mainly greens while at the same time need to consume all types of supplements to keep their nutrient intake where it should be, while by being more careful about the kinds of veggies eaten a person can practically eliminate the need for supplements. There are some greens with good nutrient content (kale, parsley), but unfortunately most people don't include them and instead use lettuce (and even worse yet, iceberg lettuce). Spinach is a great source of nutrients if consumed in some quantity (1 cup of raw spinach has a decent amount of vitamins, although nothing to crow about, only 2 carbs and 1 gram of fiber). Cos or Romaine lettuce has 1 gram of carbs and 1 gram of fiber, so all carbs are negated. One thing both spinach and lettuce do have in their favor is that they are fairly good sources of folate, which is severely lacking in many veggies.

I'm not sure if all that rambling really helps or not.

I believe the 20 grams of carbs taken from veggies does help to keep people regular. Constipation is NO fun. Plus the veggies are a very good source of vitamins. I cannot imagine doing Atkins without veggies.