A year of Atkins
I've been on Atkins a year today, so I decided it was worth tooting my own horn a little and posting my story...
I'd been slightly overweight (not fat, just plump) most of my life, except for a foray into eating disorders (anorexia, then bulimia) during my teenage years. After my ED days, I got back to a normal weight, then gained 10-15 more pounds and stayed there for most of college (mainly by riding horses several hours a day). I graduated from college and began working long hours at a desk job, and between relying on restaurants and convenience foods and getting no exercise, packed on another 20 or so lbs in pretty short order. The collapse of a serious relationship was responsible for the next 40 lbs, what with using food and alcohol as emotional medication, and I wound up at 210 lbs. I wasn't motivated to do much of anything for a while, though, not to mention that I was pretty scared of engaging in dieting behaviors. It took me about a year to make up my mind to work on the weight, and I started a standard-issue low-fat/low-cal diet in late summer 2001. I lost 25 lbs over the next year, but my weight loss slowed, then stopped, and I was tired of being constantly hungry. When I read Gary Taubes' New York Times article about Atkins in early August 2002, it was like a light went on in my head. I did some research, read the book, and jumped in when my then-boyfriend went out of town for two weeks.
I don't remember exactly how much I lost on Induction, but it was in the neighborhood of 6 or 7 lbs, and I was a believer. My boyfriend came back from his business trips, and rather than laughing at me for being on a silly crackpot diet, thought Atkins was a great idea and decided to join me. He'd had family members who'd lost weight on Atkins and SugarBusters, so he knew the basic concepts were pretty sound. I began learning to cook, since I couldn't rely on Tuna Helper or Rice-a-Roni for dinner any more, and he was more than happy to eat whatever I fixed. Neither of us had much trouble with cravings, and we didn't have so much as a bite of forbidden foods until Thanksgiving, when we'd already lost about 30 lbs apiece. We ate carbage at the two big holiday meals, but that was it, and we went right back to plan the next day. We'd gotten engaged by this point, too, and the upcoming wedding was definitely a motivating factor! Except for very occasional and minor cheats (like, a small serving of a "bad" food once every month or two), we've been eating on-plan ever since. We added in exercise (weights and cardio 5-6x/week) once I was almost at goal and DH hit 200lbs, and dropped our body fat a bit more. The result was that I've lost 53 lbs, gone from a size 18 to a size 6, surpassed my original goal, and hit <20% body fat. DH has lost 52 lbs and gone from a 44 to a 36, though he'd still like to lose 10 or 15 more pounds. The first 30 lbs came in 3 months, after which my weight loss slowed to about a pound a week and then to a pound a month as I got close to and then past goal.
Throughout my weight loss, I tracked calories and carbs pretty closely, but I didn't actually restrict the calories and usually ate in the range of 1800-2100/day (30% more than I'd eaten on low-cal, and I was losing twice as fast). After doing a by-the-book two-week Induction, the only real modification I made was to decide not to count carbs from green veggies, but to restrict my non-veggie carbs (from dairy, nuts, splenda, fruit, wine, and frankenfoods) to 10g/day and eat as much green stuff as I wanted. My normal carb intake was in the 20-30g range, most of which was natural, unprocessed, very-low-GI food. I drank an Atkins shake pretty much every morning for breakfast, but I used the Atkins bars only for emergency meals, limited the SF candy to our weekly movie trip, and drank no more than two drinks a week. I made low-carb desserts about once a month, ate no more than one serving a day until they were gone, and never used any LC breads or pastas, because I just didn't miss them. And like I said, I almost never cheated -- two high-carb meals, and occasional small servings of a single carby food -- and I think that's why I never really "stalled" beyond occasional pauses of a week or two. I also think that not snacking had something to do with it, since snacking between meals doesn't seem to make me eat any less at mealtimes, so it's just extra food I don't really need.
I'm on maintenance now and trying to eat 70g/day, but I'm struggling with it since I'm not much interested in whole-grain breads or starches -- that's a LOT of carbs to get from dairy, veggies, fruit, and nuts! I eat 3-4 servings of dairy, umpteen green vegetables, and 2 servings of lower-GI fruit (apples, melon, berries) or starchy veggies (peas, corn, butterbeans) a day. Protein is somewhere in the 100-150g range, on the explicit advice of my trainer because of the weightlifting. I don't shoot for a certain percentage of fat, but I do get a pretty good bit from meat, cheese, salad dressing, and cooking fats (which I use with a pretty free hand). Needless to say, I don't plan on going back to eating "normally", because I don't want to regain the weight.
I've had my moments of frustration -- feeling like crap for my first full month, getting tired of spending so much time in the kitchen, being horrified at the grocery budget, and now having to work at eating enough carbs -- but overall I'm thrilled with my results. I look almost like a different person; I'm never going to be a supermodel, but I'm actually pretty small now, and I think I look pretty good. I feel great physically, because I'm in very good shape and have stabilized my blood sugars. I'm never going to eat refined carbs again on any kind of routine basis, but I'm totally 100% OK with that. I don't miss them, and I like the way I eat, the way I look, and the way I feel much more.
The moral of the story is that Atkins really does work. Yes, it takes patience and dedication, but my results have been everything that DANDR promised they would be. Like someone else said around here the other day, if you work for it, it'll work for you!
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I hope everyone reads this post. 
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