I'm doing it because two of my doctors told me to lose weight within 1 month! What a moral killer.
One was because I have PCOS and the doctor told me I need to get back to my old weight of 130 to help lessen my symptoms (symptoms like insulin resistance). The second doctor was my orthopaedic surgeon who told me that I needed to lose weight to help my knee recover from my multiple injuries and surgery.

I've been a lacto/ovo vegetarian for 21 years. My diet had always been super high carb, and I just didn't feel healthy. I was overweight, I had high blood pressure and fibromyalgia. I felt sluggish all the time. I knew I wasn't getting much protein, although medical tests always showed I had no vitamin deficiencies whatsoever. When I read last summer on a fibro support board that some people were getting some relief from fibro by doing low carb-- I was willing to try Atkins-- because I was often bed ridden at that time. The fibro eased up some-- but what was most surprising was that my blood pressure dropped within 3-4 days of switching to Atkins! I combined my diet with doing exercise videos, and I dropped 21 pounds last summer. I felt healthy enough to go back to work. Unfortunatly, I found it a bit hard to be a vegetarian low carber with a job. (I'm not one for cooking a lot! LOL!) But it can be done. Still-- I let my lc diet go, then I went into the hospital and really scarfed up the high carb vegetarian menu they served there-- and I put 10 lbs back on (but not the whole 21!)

Today, it's all about health, not weight loss:
Now, I'm pregnant and doing my best to watch my carbs for the health of myself and my baby. (My hbp came roaring back when I went back to eating super high carbs, and that very seriously endangers both my life and the life of the baby-- because if my life is endangered, then the doctor's will want to terminate the pregnancy.) One of my doctor's has given me his blessing for controlling my bp this way. He says American's eat too many carbs anyway. And I've got lot's of support from other mom's and mom's to be who are controlling either hbp, diabetes the low carb way. (Most are doing Atkins maintanence during the pregnancy.) Since this is my first pregnancy, I wasn't sure this was the right way to go. (I haven't gained as much weight as you usually associate with pregnant women.) But my latest ultrasound showed the baby is growing just fine, and is healthy. It has thus far amazed me-- I was totally prepared to eat like a cow during pregnancy, because I've always been told it's the time to eat anything you like, to eat for two, and not to worry about your weight at all. Low carbing is the last thing I thought I'd be doing right now. But instead, health problems derailed my "eat whatever you want diet." And it looks like if I have a healthy pregnancy, it will be due to watching my carbs. A healthy baby and a healthy mom will be the biggest rewards. The lack of excessive weight gain will simply be icing on the cake.

Faith

Here's my story.
My cholesterol was 320. I lost 70 lbs. last year doing Weight Watchers. My cholesterol was still high...262. My doctor told me if I didn't get it down, we were treating it aggressively (familyhistory of early heart disease). So, since the only thing that has cholesterol is animal product, I decided to give up meat. I still eat eggs and dairy.
Since I became a vegetarian in January, my insides feel good...everything "works" good and my cholesterol dropped to 208. even though I was living on carbs and sugar. Needless to say, I gained about 30 lbs. back.

So, to make a long story short, it's to take off the 30 lbs. I gained and help me get back on the losing track and make goal.

My mom suggested it and I said no way. Then she opted to buy me groceries and sort of explained the process. At the grocery store absolutely everything that I usually buy was a no-go and I was pretty upset (I live on spaghetti!) I haven't read any of the books- mainly because I know it's meat heavy and even though I know I can make substitutions it will hit a nerve and turn me off (yeah I know that's ridiculous). I've been trying to consume 20 carbs or less a day for little less than a week and I've lost 7 lbs! So eventually soon I'll reasearch more about Atkins.

The diet doesn't seem to be as ridiculous as I originally thought it was. Now I'm kind of appauled at how many carbs I used to consume. No wonder I'm fat, and no wonder I've gained weight since I became veg.