don't do it, CS. The Atkins diet is just another form of a common fraud which makes somebody a bunch of money every few years. Here's how it works:

When the body stores starch, it does it by having a tiny grain of starch in a cell, and the starch is surrounded by water molecules. When we suddenly stop eating carbs, the body removes the starch so it can metabolize it as fuel. The water that had surrounded the grains isn't needed any more, and we urinate it away.

Water is heavy, and when we've lost the water, we think we've lost weight. In a way, we have, but it's a trivial, temporary loss.

Authors fool people by emphasizing what we DO eat. They say eat a lot of fruit and call it the Beverly Hills Diet. Or eat a lot of meat and call it the Atkins diet. But what they are really doing is pulling the no-carbs-lose-water trick.

The Atkins diet sounds especially bad because protein food (meat, cheese, eggs) is the highest calorie food there is. Also, it contains saturated fats which we know are not good for us.

I don't follow diets much, but if I were you, I'd try something like the old Scarsdale diet, which was published by a now-defunct cardiologist.

Then think of a way to get exercise which is fun for you. "Don't work out, play instead!" That's my motto.