Very cool discussion guys.
I changed to a very low carbohydrate diet in May of 2007. I am 5'9" and weighed 208 pounds. I didn't look "obese" but I was definitely soft. As I write this I am now 185 pounds and feel great. I dropped most of the obvious carbs from my diet, including bread, juices, potatoes, rice, etc. I modelled this after the Paleo Diet. I read a lot about it and it made sense. I also dropped milk from my diet, and stick to water.
My typical day starts with a few eggs/bacon and a piece of fruit for breakfast. I eat a lunch consisting of some sort of meat, including beef, fish or chicken, and a piece of fruit or two. Snacks are nuts, grapes, etc. I have them whenever I feel the urge.
For dinner - meat with vegetables like green beans, peas, etc. And I indulge in an unsweetened protein shake, mixed with water, in the evening.
I have never felt better. My poundages for exercises have not dropped on ounce, and in fact some have increased significantly. I have veins popping up in my upper torso and legs that I thought never existed, lol.
I think the need for carbohydrates in our diet is vastly over rated. I am also a competitive cyclist, and was brought up on the notion that we had to carb up all the time, take carb replacement drinks during long rides or races, and carb up immediately afterwards. If you didn't, you would "hit the wall" after about 1.5-2 hrs.
That was true, when I had a high carbohydrate diet. Not so with a low carb diet. This summer I raced in quite a few 50 mile events, taking 2-2.25 hours. I did them on nothing but water. No "wall" was found!
Any downside to eating like this? Well you have to work harder to get the right foods in restaurants and in convenience stores, since they are all sugar and starch crazy. And my clothes are all too big now!
And finally, you get drunk very fast when you eat low carb. Apparently alcohol screws up the biochemistry of low carb diets. I stop at one beer every once in a while now.