Hello I am a newbie with about 20 pounds to lose. I have
done the induction period on the atkins before and then
never lasted much beyond that.

If you lose your target weight on the Atkins and then switch
to a low fat/low calorie diet will you gain weight back or
could you maintain??

Well before doing ww I did Atkins and lost 16 pounds on induction for about 8 wks then I switched to doing weight watchers and I have lost about 10 pounds more. So I think you can still lose weight, doing low fat after Atkins.

yes, you will still loose weight.

I switched to Weight Watchers after doing Atkins -- don't ask me why because I don't know -- but I gained back 45 lbs. And it's taken me a year of playing around with other plans to lose most of those back -- I still have 10 of them on.

So I'm back to Atkins for good.

Man hockeyfan7, I thought I was the only one who played around with
other plans and lost and gained the same 10 pounds for a year.
But, it's good to know that you can switch to another plan (as long as you
follow it) and still lose or mantein.

I tried to switch for a few days, and gained back 3 lbs. I know it's not much, but I'm terrified of ruining what I've worked for so far. From what everyone tells me, when you go off Atkins, you're probably going to gain back about 5 lbs, no matter how strict your new diet is, simply because re-introducing carbs will make you retain water again. After that, it's up to you. I see success stories all the time from people on other plans, so whatever works for you-whatever you can live with permanently, is the best plan.