You know the Atkins plan has taken over the collective consciousness when 7-Eleven, home of the Big Bite hot dog and the Supersize Slurpee, hawks Atkins products. (Subway and T.G.I. Friday’s are similarly on board, but somehow those product pairings don’t seem quite so obscene.)

I can’t help thinking that the success folks’ get on Atkins has more to do with _controlling_ their carbs, rather than controlling their _carbs_. E.g., if you watch what you eat, you generally eat less. In full disclosure, our one attempt to do Atkins succeeded for only two weeks or so, after which point I lost next to nothing and hubby lost only a smidge more, so I have a bias as to the plan’s results. My dad-in-law, though, has had great success – but those pork rinds he gets to eat for snacks just strike me as wrong, somehow…