[carbless_in_seattle]

Well...

This is how the atkins diet works:

Your bodys number one source for fuel is carbohydrates. When your body has adequate carbs to do all the activities you are including in your daily life, any excess of carbs, along with fat, get stored as fat. When you reduce your carbs, to a less-than-adequate amount (less than 20g) to do your daily activities, your body looks for alternate sources of fuel. If you are also starving yourself of fat, your body is going to hold on to any fat that you have and turn to protein (muscle). The atkins diet works, because it lowers carb intake, forcing your body to turn to other sources of fuel, because the induction menu is 65% fat, your body says to itself "we don't have enough carbs to go up this flight of stairs! but look at all this fat we've been getting in...lets use this for fuel". So the body starts burning fat for fuel. You might think..."well..what happens to the extra fat if i don't burn it all"

Now because the Atkins diet has restrictions, ie: you're limiting yourself to 20g (of specific) carbs per day, and carbs can only be 5% of your diet in induction, this in-turn controls the amount of fat you eat. So naturally, based on the amount of carbs you are allotted, atkins has a side-effect of being a low-calorie diet which keeps your fat in check also.

If you switch to low-fat. Your body is going to say "holy cow! we're all out of fat, stop using this for fuel and store it!" And so you will gain any weight you lost back. Then your body will switch back to carbs for fuel, and if you're doing a low-carb version of low-fat as well, it will switch to protein (muscle).

anyway, hope any of this info helps. It's kind of a Cliff's note version of what's going on, if you want more info you should check out some articles online.