Maggie, I didn't have to go on a special diet. When the pills kicked in the weight started going away. It was mostly fluid retention, I think, so a diet would have made little difference.

What I mostly remember about that time was that my brain was like mushy porridge. I couldn't think straight, and every sound seemed really loud and annoying. I was sitting in a library with some of my students and all I could hear was the loud whooshing of the air conditioners, which I had never noticed before - or since.

My main suggestion for the Atkins diet is to read the original Atkins information and not the myriad of people who think they know what it's about, don't have the original information but are happy to sound off about it. It's mostly lots of veges or salad and protein.

But also avoid white carbs - pasta, rice, potatoes, white bread etc - and substitute vege based carbs like carrots, sweet potato, etc and use legumes for some of your protein. One of my fave recipes is to mash up white beans or canellini beans or chickpeas (instead of mashed potato) and add fried onion and other veges, feta cheese, whatever flavours take your fancy, shape them into patties, coat them in panko breadcrumbs and shallow fry them. Yum! The beans hold the patties in shape, but also add protein to the meal.