If it were my diet, someone would have to add a line about quantities. If potatoes are OK, does that mean a large fries is OK? Probably not.

It's a fine guideline. It's not going to hurt you. There are a number of low-carb diets out there with rigid and specific rules (For instance, Atkins lets you drink spirits but not beer (and I think not wine during phase 1), but if you don't want rigid and specific rules, you won't like them - so in a sense, everything is "allowed," since you're not following an exact diet. They're of limited value anyway, and pseudoscience abounds.

Potatoes and rice aren't junk foods, but they are not especially nutrient-dense, so I'd minimize them if you're trying to reduce carbs. Stick to stuff that packs lots of power - lean meat and fish, fresh produce, olive oil, fruit.

Atkins distilled: Meat, whole dairy, eggs, some vegetables, some nuts, some wine. No grains or starches or fruit.

Super easy. He just padded out the book with phases and such, and broke down veggies into good and bad.

There's also a distinction to be made between LOW carb and NO carb. That description above sounds like NO carbs.

There is a gentler approach that also works, and I think it's closer to the notion of "the Zone" but I read about it in a book called the "carbohydrates addict diet" in which they stipulate that we all need to eat WAY fewer carbs, and way more protein.

The main thing I took from that is that meals must have protein at the center, then veggies as wanted, but very little, or at least, MUCH LESS pasta/rice/bread etc.

So: Protein, veggies = YES; Carbs less Yes.

This approach allowed me to EASILY stop snacking all the time, because I wasn't hungry between meals once I made sure I ate some protein!

Of course, I'm still not ready for bikini season, but that's a whole other story.

I'm not sure it's healthy or reasonable, but it works for me for weight loss.

That advice is fairly close to what works for me, although I'm a little more restrictive about grains, even if they're whole grains.

During the week: I reduce carbs at the same time that I'm keeping to a moderate level of calories because it keeps me from being freakin' hungry.

Weekends: when I eat socially on the weekends, I have what I like for those 2-3 meals, and don't try to track calories or carbs.

During the week, I avoid most grains, pasta, potatoes and all sweets (that includes honey, maple syrup, artificial sweeteners, regular fruit juice, and concentrated fruit juice). A little flour or potato can find its way into a soup or casserole for thickening, or a little barley or quinoa might stretch a cold veggie-based salad, and I sometimes have oatmeal with a little fruit and flax plus a hard-cooked egg for breakfast, but I usually don't have a substantial discrete serving of grains on my plate.

My usual carbs come from:

* beans and lentils (I love my mulligatawny and my black bean soup, and have 1-2 servings every day)
* all other vegetables -- carrots, parsnips,etc. are fine. Don't worry about things like the glycemic index, which has demonized carrots for many people. Eat your naturally sweet veggies with some oil to blunt that blood sugar response, to fill you up, and because it tastes good!
* a moderate amount of fruit (eaten with yogurt and/or nuts to help keep the sugar bounce low)
* dairy (milk for my tea, yogurt, and a little regular cheese, not that horrible fake low fat stuff)
* nuts and seeds, including natural nut butters and peanut butter

I'm an omnivore, so moderate portions of meat, poultry, fish and eggs help with protein, and I use olive oil on my salads rather than some fake diet dressing.

When I plug my numbers in, I find I'm getting about 120-140 grams of carbohydrate a day. Nowhere near ketosis!

I find that going through the week eating sensible food that I like, and really enjoying things like Yorkshire pudding or wine or ice cream on the weekend works for me. I don't feel deprived during the week, and I don't binge on weekends.

Yeah, your simple advice is fine except for the potatoes thing. According to the South Beach diet, which is a nicer, gentler, Atkins diet, ditch potatoes and starchy vegetables like beets.

I find that the low-ish carb thing helps me to lose weight, and I too have a problem with lots of rules. This is what I do:

Breakfast and lunch and snacks:
Make sure I eat at least one egg, no breads/potatoes/rice, lots of veges and lots of fruit (that's the main departure from strict low-carb stuff, I guess). A handful of nuts.

Dinner: Whatever I want but about 2/3 the portion I would normally give myself.

Dessert: this is key and what keeps me sane when I diet. I always, always have dessert. This may include cheese/crackers etc. Or it may be a glass of wine. Or, of course, a bit of chocolate cake. But I always have it. For me, the mandatory dessert is what keeps me on a diet, and far less likely to give up on the day/week/whole damned thing.

tldr: low carb breakfast/lunch; small dinner; always a small dessert

oh, and to add... that regimen (along with exercise) gets me losing about 3lb every 2 weeks. I've been doing it since Xmas and have lost 7 lb, and this is pretty standard for me.

Pork rinds and diet Dr. Pepper. That's all you need to know about the Atkins diet, hon, that's what they sell at the drive in movies that you're allowed to eat while you're on it. ;-) I know this because I was on it years ago without noticeable success - I made it through the movie but then gave it up completely when I found myself rolling up slices of salami coated with cream cheese for party hors d'oeuvres. Fuck that. Life without the occasional cracker or piece of good bread? Bah.

The only thing that ever worked for me - and I need to get on the diet bandwagon too, big time, goddamnit, - was eDiets. It costs money though which is not an option for me right now so I guess I'll go back to the old counting of the calories & limiting of the portions. Or go vegan, which I've kind of been wanting to do anyway. Or I would if I didn't love cheese so. Oh cheese! Cheeeeeese!!

There was a really simple diet around a while back that I liked - I didn't really DO it or anything, just thought about it for a bit - and it said: No snacks, no sweets, no seconds - except on special occasions. That is so straightforward that maybe it would actually work.

Less food, more water ("unsweetened tea" and "unsweetened coffee" count as "water" in my world) and more walking are the only diet rules that ever worked for me.

I lost close to thirty pounds some years ago when I had an unexpected, brutal interpersonal crisis. I've kept 25 of the pounds off with the above rules: less food, more water and more walking.

I accomplish "less food" by rules about the manner of eating, rather than the content of eating, like gaspode and mgl say. No seconds, take 2/3rd the "normal" or expected portion (1/2 at most restaurants) and immediately box up or save the remainder for another meal. I'm a grazer, not a meal-eater, so the no snacks rule doesn't work for me, but I limit my snacks to only things found in nature (fruit, nuts, cheese and popped corn).

The best diet I followed involved as many vegetables as I wanted, I *think* lots of fruits (like, say, an orange or apple for a snack and a bunch of frozen berries with orange juice in a morning smoothie), as few carbs as possible (but if you had them, make them good whole grains and stuff) and a fist-sized serving of lean protein.

And this is the key: one "free day" per week (or, like some have said, have the weekends free). I didn't feel deprived, I didn't feel like I had to eat weird food when all of my friends were out for a birthday dinner or something, and I found myself appreciating my healthier diet and craving "bad foods" less. Butter and oil and stuff was allowed in moderation, but nothing fake (which, again, really helped not feel like I was being deprived).

I had done Atkins before, although my then-partner was the one who was really gung ho about it, and that discrepancy is probably part of the reason I'm in my less-than-fit state today. It's really hard to maintain that kind of thing if your partner and other family members/housemates don't eat the same way. Conversely, it's really hard NOT to gain weight when you're eating "normally" but the only things in the house are full-fat.

I just need a super clear-cut "Can Haz/Can Not Haz" kind of thing.

Mine is not so much a diet, but a life-style change. I have had fairly good luck with eating a lot more fresh or fresh-frozen fruit during the day, the grazing thing. I also eat a large well-rounded, anything I want breakfast.

I only need a little soup and a half-sandwich for lunch now, and my suppers have been little more than a green salad. My urge to snack at night has completely disappeared. Basically, I just shifted the bulk of my eating to first thing in the day.

The hardest part of this for me is I don't like melon in any form, so the variety of fruits I can get fresh is cut considerably. Luckily though, I currently live in the agriculture capital of California.

The hardest part of this for me is I don't like melon in any form

I am the same way! Never realised how much it put a cramp in my fruit-eating style until I tried to really up the amount that I ate.

I try to follow that guideline (or rather a similar one) to the one you quoted, it really is a fine guideline of what to avoid. Eat your veg, bread is not veg. Sodas and sugars and not good. That sort of thing. But here's something that really makes a difference (rather quick) that the friendly neighborhood bodybuilders use before showing off in competition, which might give you that extra 'oomph' at the start of a diet. (They are fitter than anything, but at competitions they need to get rid of as much body fast as possibly without loosing muscle)

1) Do not eat breakfast before workout. As soon as you are out of bed, start working.
2) Once they do eat, it's non-fat all the way. Favorite is hot oatmeal porridge.

Sounds rough? Not really, a brisk walk counts as 'workout' they say, it's getting your heart pumping that's key, so one guy simply walks fast to work, eats porridge once he's there and claims he looses 5 kilos in a week on this. I did a similar regime before heading out to the beach and it did have a great positive effect on my health and wellbeing (probably all that extra walking, which is never bad). I have no idea if I lost weight, as I don't weigh myself but I did feel fit and squeezed into some really tight skirts. You're in land of the fruit, your fat free breakfast could be fruit salad! Yum!

losing muscle. Though loose muscle would be bad too.

"it's getting your heart pumping that's key"

I forgot about that part. Luckily for me, just making the bed, cleaning the kitchen, and taking a hot shower is enough to kickstart my heart.

I tend to agree - there are a lot of ways to reduce your overall calorie count, and pack better nutrition into the calories you do take in, so there is an endless selection of diets and rules to choose from - all of them, though, work by reducing your calorie intake. But exercise is probably the single most significant key in losing weight and keeping it off. When you think of the incredible variety of human diets all over the world, you can see that there are a lot of ways to eat healthy and not overeat. There's no magic diet, though there are good practices for better nutrition, energy throughout the day, etc. But getting your heart pumping - which increases your metabolism not only while you exercise, but for many hours afterward and eventually around the clock - is something that can make a real difference in weight, even if you change your diet not at all. Also, if you build muscle, you'll have more calorie-consuming mass and less inert fat, meaning you'll burn even more calories passively.

So, eat healthy in whatever way you determine that to be, but maybe add an hour walk in every day? Or if you already walk long distances, do something that will elevate your heart rate a little more - cycling, light jog, swim. Burning 500 more calories a day than you do right now has better impact overall (because of the ancillary benefits) than reducing your intake by 500 calories a day.

I was gonna get all blahblahblah but in the spirit of the question...

tl;dr: ORAC values (links to USDA pdf). I am obsessed with them.

Mark's Daily Apple

Paleo Diet

Glycemic Index

I lost 70 lb. on South Beach Diet (a low carb diet) in 2005. If you want alcohol while dieting, I found red wine to be the best (I prefer merlot).

I found it was extremely helpful to read the first part of the South Beach Diet book before beginning the diet. It gives you enough background that low-carbing starts to seem like common sense and you can spot high-carb foods a mile away. Only after reading the first part of the book (about the first third) where the diet is discussed, did I look at the meal plans and recipes. I followed Phase I religiously and after 2 weeks I'd lost 25 lb. I was hooked at that point, and eventually lost too much weight (168 lb. at 6'-2").

I gained a little back, then a little too much. Now I ride a bicycle a lot and low carbing just doesn't work; I need the energy in carbs. If I don't carb up before riding, I'm tired and listless for the rest of the day.

Still, I heartily recommend the South Beach Diet. You can get a copy of the book in most public libraries.

Oh... and when low carbing: SPINACH IS IT.

My Before & After shots

Now I ride a bicycle a lot and low carbing just doesn't work; I need the energy in carbs.

Same problem with running. You have to have some fuel. Also, you can't go lower-protein (some people argue that we, especially Americans, eat way too much protein), because you need the capacity to always rebuild muscle. The Zone 40/30/30 thing always seemed to work pretty well for me at a fit workout weight.

The classic warning on any diet, but especially the Atkins/South Beach because it does produce dramatic weight loss in the first phases, is (as is true of almost all fad-type diets) almost everyone regains the weight within five years, and sometimes more.

That's one reason I'm a big exercise proponent (not that you'd know it at the moment) -- exercise is a habit, a permanent lifestyle change that you can enjoy for its own sake, and doesn't require the constant monitoring and food option restrictions that a formal diet does.

I find when I'm generally low-carb in my intake I lose the weight. I think carb-eating feeds carb-eating if that makes any sense. The less bread, pretzels, pasta, etc. that I eat, the less I miss it; and if I do eat any of those I try to make it as healthy and moderately-portioned as possible (whole grain, etc.).

It was easiest for me when I started remembering to substitute instead of go with my usual habits - instead of a sandwich or a pita for lunch, I have a big salad; instead of a bagel for breakfast, I have oatmeal. I also make sure to eat breakfast, to not eat after a certain time of night, and to eat protein if I feel hungry (I'm vegetarian so I eat a bit of cheese, some fake meat, nuts, a glass of milk, cottage cheese, a yogurt cup...). The eating protein thing is key to not feeling deprived; it fills you up.

Oh and I do drink; I have wine, and limit my beer intake.

BTW, someone mentioned eDiets - it does work. It gives you a menu, a grocery list, and recipes... the recipes are pretty uncomplicated. You don't have to think about it. The No-S Diet is pretty easy too, it's just guidelines.