Well, personal experience for me has been good and hopefully continue to get better. I am a vegan, I have been a vegan for almost seven years now. When I first went vegan, I dropped weight, which was good, (note: a vegan diet is supposed to get you to your optimal metabolism.) Well, I'm still a big ****er, heh:

6' 4"
265

I only started training about a month ago, and have been trying to stick to it and just improve my training methods. A vegan diet is something I can not stear away from, for the ethics keep me in line and from cheating. I sincerely feel 95% better as a vegan physcially and emotionally than I did when I was eating the typical American diet (meat and dairy).

I have a lot of family members that are on the Atkins diet, and yes - they are dropping weight, however they are all ****in' couch potato's. Another side note - my mother and a friends mother that are on Atkins both say "I feel like I can't do much, I have no energy." Hence - Carbs are not in diet as much.

Luckily I've dropped about 10 pounds since starting my training, which I'm glad. After reading a lot on here, I've discovered one thing that is helping. That's doing cardio on an empty stomach. I do cardio everyday. I hope any of this gives you any insight.

Sorry for the lengthy post, just thought I'd throw my two cents in there. I hope all goes well for you. Thanks!

Nick