'I didn't even feel hungry'

Clinical trials published last week show that the controversial Atkins diet really can help people lose weight. That's not news to Suzanne Levy, now a size 12

26 May 2003

As moments go, it was one of the sweetest. I'm in the changing rooms, trying on a skirt. It fits - and it's a size 12. I'm blinking, squinting at the label. Is this a mistake? I've been a 14, and then a 16, for years. But there's no mistake - I look at the mirror, see my newly slim shape, and feel like weeping. I love Dr Atkins.

And it looks like it's not just me. Last week, the first clinical trials of the Atkins diet were published in the New England Journal of Medicine. The diet, which involves cutting out carbohydrates such as bread, pasta and rice, but eating plenty of protein and usually forbidden fats, has sold millions of copies and is much praised by celebrities such as Renée Zellweger. It has attracted plenty of controversy, too. Yet these trials show that people lose weight faster on this diet than using other methods and that it doesn't appear to damage your health, as its critics have suggested...

Full article: independent.co.uk