The Atkins diet is a diet tailored to the average lazy American who sits on the couch all day watching TV and playing video games. They aren't ACTIVE enough to require carbohydrates, so you cut them out of the diet and BAM, less calories in than out, so they lose weight.
It also works well when used for a month or two at a time...I lost like 25 pounds on it and I wasn't even that overweight.
All you hear about now, though, is people who have cut the carbs from their diet only to end up f'ed because they pigged out on bacon and sh!t until their cardiovascular system just gave up. I think the original designers of Atkins and South Beach didn't plan on people eating common high-fat, high-cholesterol, low-carb foods...rather they expected them to go onto diets of lean meat, fish, and lentils. But we all know that NO ONE except health-nuts can stand that sh!t.
Plus, if you're athletic at all, your body NEEDS carbs. Sitting around all day your body is more than content to go into ketosis and burn off fat reserves for energy, but when you become athletically active, your muscles require sugar to operate, which can be straight sugar or complex starches which break down into sugars. If you dont' have that, you're limiting yourself.
Even when I was on Atkins, it was a bastardized version of Atkins. I still ate fruits and vegetables AND drank a hell of a lot of fruit juice and got my simple sugars from there for energy. The key behind the Atkins diet is that we eat WAY too many carbs as-is and don't even realize it. Cookies, cakes, snacks...ALL of those are just calories we don't need and don't want. Cut those ALONE out and do some exercise and you stand to lose bodyfat.
I also never drink soda or beer. That's just personal preference. But it's worked out pretty well for me.
