[Overpaid Slacker]

Chris -
Atkins definitely works, and I don't think it's about reduced calorie intake, per se.
At the risk of sounding like an Atkins apostle, he makes some good points in his book (which the vast majority of people "on Atkins" have never read, I've found out).
I think his most persuasive point is that in the last 100 years there *has* been a massive change in the American/western diet that the human animal hasn't evolved to cope w/ -- your body is going to assume (if it's "normal") that there's a famine around the corner and will store any and all excess energy -- add too much energy w/o the famine and you get fat and all the health problems (heart disease, diabetes, etc.) that go along with it. The amount of raw, nutritionally barren energy in the diet has skyrocketed.

200 years ago, the average person ate less than 10 lbs of sugar a year. In the 1890s colas erupted onto the scene and when you were thirsty, you got a big shot of sugar with your water. Result -- annual sugar intake was up to 100 lbs in 1928 and 138 lbs by 1990. [and this is just sucrose, not counting other sugars and the carbohydrates in pasta, spuds, beans, etc.]
Add to this that not only were colas introduced in the 1890s, but at the same time, mills began producing white, nutritionally useless flour very very cheaply. Cheap bread -- great! But put that flour together with sweetness or saltiness and you've got 95% of our junk food. (if you've ever been on Atkins and gone into a grocery store, you know that 80% of the stuff in the aisles is straight-out carbapalooza - you do most of your shopping around the perimeter of the store -- produce, meat and dairy)

19th century diet - lard, butter, eggs, bacon, beef, pork, etc.
19th century daily energy requirment, for an industrial/agrarian econoomy - pretty high.
19th century non-congenital heart disease: virtually none.

20th/21st century diet - carbs carbs carbs (energy energy energy).
20th/21st century daily energy requirement, in a service economy - enough to type and operate home theater remote controls
20th/21st century heart disease and/or diabetes: well, you know where this is going.

I encourage everyone to read the 1st 50 pages of the New Diet Revolution (it'll take about 30 minutes, tops). It's tough to gainsay his points.

Final point about Atkins -- it's not about "no carbs" which soooo many pinheads do for a couple of months, drop weight and then balloon right back up again. Zero carbs over a long period of time is dangerous. Atkins is about carb awareness/maintenance. Want carbs? Fine, have some, they're good for you in the right form -- just be moderate. Once you've "done" Atkins you're much more carb aware and realize that the "normal" diet is obscenely carb immoderate and you've been oversaturating your body w/ energy it's not going to burn contemporaneously (unless you're an X-Games competitor).

JP