Hi jerseygirl, I hope the atkins diet is working for you. Actually people experience constipation, bloating etc on the atkin's diet as a result of the consumption of so much protein and fat. I guess you're eating more healthy on the atkin's diet than your diet before, so you feel better. Even though people consume so much fat on the atkin's they do lose weight so long as their body gets used to to the intake of protein. So as long as that happens you should be ok. Well take care and good luck.

Hi jersey girl,

i have been on atkins on and off for a year. I have lost around 20 pounds. When I first started I also felt better about myself, and had much more energy. Some negative side effects I had were bloating, constipation, and mood swings. However, these subsided in the first few weeks. I am glad that I have lost the weight; however, this is a diet where if you go completely off, you will easily gain the weight right back. I went off a couple of times and easily gained 5 pounds in the first 2-3 weeks. It is then easy to lose the 5 pounds once back on it, but that is not healthy. Looking back I wish I chose a healthier diet to do, but unfortunately I feel I have to stick to this one, otherwise I will gain all of the weight back, and my wedding is coming up in less than 6 months so that isn't an option right now! Good luck and feel free to ask any more questions!

No matter what diet you go on, you have to stick to it or you will gain the weight back. Even if you just cut calories and started eating healthy food, after you lose the weight, you can't just start eating pizza and drinking beer and expect to keep it off. In order to lose weight and keep it off, no matter what diet you use, you have to change your lifestyle and stick to it.

I have tried dieting many times with no success. A few years ago when people didn't even recognize me anymore I resorted to atkins. It was awesome I lost like 25 lbs. The thing is, like after any other diet you need to refrain from going back to the old habits that initially got you fat, or you'll obviously get fat again. I'm surprised you feel great though. While atkins can be very effective, it is not very healthy for long periods of time, gives me diarrhea(sorry), and makes me tired probably due to the lack of energy-giving carbs in the diet. I want to lose another 10-15 lbs now then I will be where I want to be, so its off to the jogging trail and back to another couple of months of wings and michelob ultra for me.

i read somewhere that your body should need about 2 weeks of a consistant eating habit to adjust to it and then begin losing weight more efficiently (or gaining it by storing fat if your eating habits are bad ones). Another thing related to this is that some people lose alot of weight in their first week but it is mostly just "water weight". This could just apply to this particular diet or perhaps dieting in general, I have forgotten the exact details.

As far as atkins goes, if nothing else it has at least made people a little if not significantly concious of different (good and bad) types of carbs and calories and even fat. My reason for liking atkins is that it is pretty much the way man lived in his early stages before we had all of this processed junk we have in this age. If you think back to how you were told cavemen looked, they were forced to be muscular and fit (survival of the fittest) to be hunter-gatherers and had access to mainly meat, greens, and grains. Their life span was only 30 or so years old but lacked mordern medicine.

My conclusion, if a modern person ate only things like low fat protien sources (like egg whites), veggies, and took their vitamins they would be cut and defined and healthy (and add carbs for mass). So how accurate am i?

I did atkins some last year, and really liked it! I lost 9 pounds in 2 weeks, but unfortuneately, none after that, and I stayed on it for a while! While I wasn't big to begin with, I still felt "fat" and wanted to lose some weight. I too, lost my gassiness and bloating on this diet! I felt great! And I read that the reason why people get gassy & bloated a lot is because people's body sometimes don't digest carbs very good...When I was on this diet (not eating carbs) I was never bloated or gassy anymore (something I was every day before!!!) it was awesome! The bad thing about this diet is that you get such bad cravings for sweets that you just totally binge one day and eat all kinds of stuff and then gain the weight back in no time! That's something that happened to jessica simpson, and me too!!! Good luck to you atkins dieters!