I wanted to lose around 60 or so pounds, so I started the Atkins diet. In the first two weeks of the diet I had lost about 6 pounds.

To be successful on this diet I had to cut out my carbs such as, bread, soda’s, potato’s, milk, and things like that, but had to eat a lot of meats and veggies.

I also walked every night as well as bike riding whenever possible. The diet got a little difficult when you had cravings for bread and milks and deserts.

But having the strength and will power to stick to the diet helped a lot. Over the years I have tried many diet programs such as prescription diet pills, over the counter diet pills, diet shakes and diet food plans, but none seemed to work as well as the Atkins Diet.

I am now at 190 pounds and feel a lot better with more energy than I had before and I feel a lot healthier. I would recommend this diet to anyone that is serious about wanting to lose the weight.

I tried a combination of starvation, diet pills, illegal speed, and the Atkins diet and while it worked, almost too well, I eventually developed heart palpitations and ended up spending two weeks in cardiac intensive care.

Once I started eating normally, all the weight came back plus about 20 extra pounds.

After the birth of my daughter, I wanted to get back to my pre-pregnancy weight so I started researching a more healthy way to lose weight.

I first tried the South Beach diet, but all I could find were cook books which listed a ton of recipes, but no real guidance on how to follow the diet.

Eventually I decided upon the Weight Watchers program after attending an introductory meeting at my place of employment. The program offered at work was quite expensive, so I decided to enroll in the online program, which was only $16.00 per month.

Weight Watchers flex plan was very easy to follow, and I was able to get all the support I needed online from the comfort of my own home. The online program materials are very thorough and I found many good tips and tricks on the online forums.

I did purchase a few of the Weight Watchers cookbooks, but eventually learned how to make over our family recipes so that I could eat the familiar foods I loved without all the fat and calories.

Basically, you are assigned a certain number of points based on your weight, and the points are calculated on each food/drink item by a combination of calories, fat, and fiber. As you lose weight, your daily points allowance is lowered until you reach your goal weight.

You can plan ahead and eat any food you want as long as you stay in your points range. You also get 35 flex points per week to use for a special treat you just have to have or a special dinner out.

As a plus to the Weight Watchers program, you are encouraged to drink water, eat healthy oils, take vitamins, and eat daily dairy servings.

After a while, foods I used to eat all the time, especially McDonalds burgers, tasted horrible and greasy and if I ate a high fat calorie meal it made me physically ill, which was just one more incentive to keep following the Weight Watchers program.

After a week or so into the program, Weight Watchers introduces activity points which can add to your daily points allowance, by doing such things as walking, biking, jogging, strength training, dancing, even housework. You are allowed to use your activity points to add to your daily points allowance.

As I have a back and shoulder injury, I started exercising by walking around our neighborhood and eventually worked out a route that covered three miles. I walked the neighborhood every other day, alternating with an exercise DVD called Walk off the Pounds.

For online members, Weight Watchers sends out all sorts of materials that offer support and recipes to help you through the holidays, and gives many ideas for recipes that are similar to familiar holiday dishes, but reworked into healthy recipes.

I can’t say enough good things about the support the Weight Watchers program offers. The Program recommends you lose no more than two pounds per week, and I reached my goal weight in a little over six months.

The maintenance program is really easy to follow as well. You add back about six points a day and monitor your weight at weekly weigh-ins and stay at that range as long as you don’t gain more than two pounds between weigh ins.

I feel that following the program helped teach me how to prepare healthy foods and eat reasonable portions.

Besides the fact that I look better and feel better about myself, the health benefits have been a real plus. My blood pressure normalized and my cholesterol levels are perfect.

Another plus, as I do all the cooking for the family, my husband also lost 40 pounds simply because he only ate the foods I prepared. Weight Watchers says it’s not a diet, it’s a lifestyle change, and I could eat this way for the rest of my life.

When I lost weight in the past it was right after the birth of my first child. At that time I weighed 170 pounds (after I had her) and wanted to get down some where between 140 to 150 pounds.

I read several diet books before finally deciding on one diet.

The diet I chose to do was the Atkins Diet by Dr. Atkins. I began the diet around the beginning of May 2001. I followed the diet which was not easy to do. If you are not familiar with the diet, it is a high protein, no/low carbs diet.

I had to cut out all of my starches and sugars which meant cutting out bread, soda, tea, pasta, potatoes (of any kind), certain processed foods, etc.

Basically on the Atkins Diet you mainly drink water and eat lots of meat, some fruits and some vegetables. It was hard at first because I would get caffeine headaches, felt like I was starving to death and was always tired. I had almost no energy.

After I was on the diet for about two weeks, it did become easier. I tried to have one cheat day per week but on that cheat day, I did not over do it.

I would limit myself to how many carbs I had that day so I had to watch my intake of sugars, starches and of course, the carbs. If I had a sip of soda, it felt disgusting.

My teeth felt like they were just caked in sugar which was a gross feeling. Anyway, I started losing weight almost immediately. I think after the first two weeks, I had lost about five pounds. At the end of those two weeks, going without carbs no longer had an effect on me.

I didn’t need them anymore. I also seemed to have more energy and no longer had caffeine headaches. I continued with the diet but did no exercise what so ever. I did not have time to exercise as I was a single mom and worked a full time job.

The job that I worked required me to be on my feet and moving around the entire day so keeping active was no problem.

After I had been on the diet for two months, I did lose a total of twenty-five pounds which put me at my goal or target weight of 145. I felt great!!

As you can see, the weight pretty much fell off with this diet and I was very impressed……until one day in August.

In August I became violently ill. I was so sick that I ended up going to the hospital. The doctors could not figure out what was wrong with me. After a CAT Scan and an Ultrasound, they determined what the problem was.

It turned out that this high protein (high fat) diet had ruined my gall bladder forever. They scheduled me for surgery the following week with a general surgeon.

There I was a week later laying on the operating table under the knife. The surgeon removed my gall bladder which was the size of a Nerf Football, highly enlarged. Even though they removed my gall bladder, the ducts are still there.

To this day, I still cannot have fried or greasy food as it causes those ducts to become clogged and it makes me ill. Sometimes I get sick without eating those types of foods and when I do, I vomit bile which smells like sewage and I’m usually out of commission for about a week.

All I can do is lie in bed in severe pain and wait for it to pass. I’ve never had gall stones, oddly enough. I would not recommend this diet to anyone who appreciates not throwing up bile, having severe cramping and does not wish to have surgery.