Low-carbohydrate diets predate Robert Atkins' eponymous phenomenon by more than one hundred years. The theory behind the diets goes like this: Food contains starches, which your body very quickly converts to glucose. When glucose levels spike right after a meal, in order to prevent blood sugar levels from getting too high, you convert them into triglycerides for storage (usually in fat). When your blood sugar gets very low, said fat stores (ideally) get converted to ketones, which your body can use like glucose. Low-carb diets work on the theory that the modern American diet never allows blood sugar to fall low enough for step 2 to occur.
On a whim, M and I are trying a one-week low-carb diet. Lunch and dinner we can handle. But what do you eat for breakfast when cereal and fruit and bagels are off limits? I can only eat so many hard boiled eggs before I go nuts.