[karnul]

I will try to answer the original question in hope that the original poster hasn't given up on an answer...
I think that annemj has touched the real problem - from what I have seen (my father has been doing Atkins for nearly 2 years) - people on Atkins seem to lose weight, but they pay with their health. So what are the difference between the two approaches?

Basically, Atkins is a diet and a product that is meant to sell you quick weight loss. MB is a suggested way of life that if you choose to adopt could offer health benefits including long term weight loss.
(I personally know someone who has lost nearly 60 kg over 4 years with MB - and he keeps his weight. Incidently with losing his weight he also lost his digestion problems, headaches and sleep problems)

So why does Atkins work? If you really understand MB than you can understand why it works. Atkins is a low carb diet meaning that carbs are not readily available, and the body has to get them from fat reserves - which is the body's way of dealing with excess carbohydrates to begin with.
Also - funnily enough, eating so much animal protein is very tiring for the digestive system and requires a lot of energy - sometimes more energy than the nourishment you get from the food being eaten.
From my understanding of MB (and sadly, from what I have saw in people around me) going on Atkins may cause you lose some weight and even keep that weight for a while, but it will make you overly tired, agitated, and will cause digestive problems in the long term and a tendency for colds and flu.

Moreover, excessive eating of anything will result in accumulation in the body. Maybe you will develop high blood pressure or high cholesterol, mucus or some other discharge, but these are only symptoms of the body being out of balance and not being able to dispose of this excess properly.
In the long terms these accumulations can result in serious health problems. Also, the Atkins diet is very acid forming. While alkaline blood condition keeps us strong, when the blood becomes acid one can easily be affected by colds, flu, and any kind of infection.

In MB we try to adapt the diet according to one's constitution, condition and activities. Atkins diet perhaps can be an appropriate diet for a specific person - lets say that they live in a very cold environment and have to do extremely hard physical labor that requires readily available proteins - under these conditions, eating a lot of animal protein actually makes sense. But for people who live in moderate climates and do office work and hardly do any physical activity this diet can mean disaster.

Everytime I discuss diet with anyone, I keep stressing one thing - listen to your body. Our body is constantly telling us what we really need, and in the end, all we have to do is to listen.

Karny