Vickie, I am very sympathetic with your point of view.  I have had terrible
weight loss frustration myself.

I did not grow up chubby, but at some point, without making any major
lifestyle changes, I started gaining weight.  Over a period of maybe four
years I gained about 80 pounds!  For a long while I was a dedicated low-fat
dieter eating most of the "healthy" foods and avoiding the "unhealthy" ones
according to all the low-fat gurus.  Well I lost a bit of weight and then
STOPPED COLD for a long time and found I could only lose by starving
myself.  In the meantime my HDL cholesterol was very unhealthily low, I had
heart palpitations, and terrible energy fluctuations.

A switch to Atkins set me solidly into the low-carbohydrate diet camp.
Finally I lost weight without constant HUNGER torturing me.  My cholesterol
got ever so much better, my heart palpitations vanished, my hypoglycemia
vanished, and I just plain felt so much damn better I couldn't believe it.

On the other hand I stopped losing on Atkins too, and was troubled by
cravings on the program.  CAD worked okay but made me groggy and I didn't
lose anything.  The Zone was a joke for me, I was constantly starving--not
just a little hungry either, but so hungry I -constantly- thought about
food.

Now I'm thoroughly enjoying NEANDER THIN as a diet but am not finding any
weight loss either.  In fact I'm up five pounds.  This I attribute to the
fact that I'm just too profligate with fruit, but this supports my believe
that Ray isn't hard enough on fruit for those who need to lose weight.

Ultimately I'm convinced now that while some people don't need it,
ultimately calorie-counting is going to have to be part of my weight-loss
regimen.  I'm going to have to wait for my wife to have her baby for that
though, since it won't work for me to try to restrict calories without her
help and support (and besides, she'd resent it if I lost much weight while
she was forced to avoid further weight loss).

Certainly I've learned enough that I know I will be avoiding cereal grains
and beans for the rest of my life.  Dairy I'm a lot less skittish about
although I'll keep avoiding it for now.  But excessive fruit intake is
clearly always going to be a problem for me.  And I think I'm just plain
going to have to count calories once I seriously want to lose weight.  I'll
probably use a combination of Atkins, Protein Power, and good old fashioned
calorie counting to get it done.