Observations on my sister's Atkins experience

My sister has been on the Atkins diet for a little over 2 months now I think, perhaps almost 3 months. She is 18, and she lost about 20 pounds. This is good, because she was getting kinda huge, and she knew it. She had been kinda pudgy ever since late childhood. She was practically bursting out of her clothes, and since we live in Asia right now, it is next to impossible to find clothes that large. Now she is back down to a 10 or 12 I believe. So, she is not thin by any means but she looks pretty good.

Quite a few people caution her, tell her to quit (all those "experts" out there), and some are just curious.
Now the thing is... her diet before was PURE junk! She hates vegetables and so she was eating stuff like pop tarts, sugary cereals, macaroni and cheese, lasagna, hamburgers, pizza, lots of desserts and sugary things.

For atkins she has been eating 2 eggs and sometimes a sausage link or two for breakfast; roast chicken and roughly 1 cup of lettuce for lunch; more lettuce and perhaps chicken cooked another way, or else beef (spaghetti, beef stroganoff, mexican) with perhaps a bit of cheese, salsa, guacamole, sour cream, a few olives or a bite or two of beans. Probably 1 serving of broccoli, as well.
This is WAY healthier than she was eating before, even though there are a lot of animal products. If she is eating out, she'll get burger king and not eat the buns. Snacks can be nuts, or one slice of fresh pineapple, or a few slices of raw bell pepper, or a slice of American cheese (yuck).
This is really a way that she can eat and lose weight, because she doesn't feel deprived, she LOVES animal products, and she has experimented and found some veggies she actually likes.
Since she's been atkinsing for a while she is adding back more carbs (on to phase 2)... She has gone a little bit off the diet over the holidays, one day only kind of thing, and she has discovered that she really reacts to wheat (makes her lethargic and gassy), so that was another good discovery.
So, to all the detractors, I think as she progresses she'll lose more weight and gradually add back more healthy foods and end up in a way of eating that is much healthier than before. This is just a long, slow phase for her. It's also been a good discipline for her in developing self control in the area of food, something she never had before. AND she knows that when she goes back to America this summer that she'll be smaller than almost ALL of her friends! (Sad but true) (And she will by no means be a stick!) Tweet