Hi
The best thing  you can do is eat lots of fruit and veg.

When you cook veg, get used to steaming them.  Put 2-4 ounces of water in a
saucepan, get it boiling, put in the veg (cut up big things like carrots),
and cook at least five minutes and preferably 10.  The veg will probably
change color twice and then it should be tender enough to eat.  Don't cook
more than ten minutes or it will change color a third time and then it's
mushy.  But cook more than five minutes or it will be hard to chew.

Eat the fruit raw and when you use yogurt, like with berries, use plain
yogurt.  NOT La Creme which has significant fat.

Cut way back on chips and fried potatoes and don't put sour cream or butter
on baked potatoes.  What you can do is spritz Pam on cut up red potatoes or
sweet potatoes, and then sprinkle on lemon pepper, one of Mrs. Dash's
fourteen varieties, or this mix which I got from Cooking Light magazine;
it's an Emeril LeGasse recipe
1 tablespoon each onion powder, garlic powder, oregano, thyme, black pepper
and paprika
1 to three teaspoons cayenne depending on how hot you like things.

This mix has to be refrigerated for some reason but don't worry, it's great
with fish and chicken and you'll go through it pretty fast.

Soup is a great way to cook veg.  When you make it, chill it overnight and
then take off the white or yellow fat that has risen and hardened on the
surface.

You can roast poultry with the skin on, but take it off before eating.

If you like stir fry, use no more than 1 tablespoon of oil per serving for
cooking, and use a healthy oil like olive, canola, or sesame.  And don't use
more than 3 tablespoons of cooking oil a day -- to help with this steam veg
instead of stir frying.

Don't concentrate on salads, you will get bored.  When you do eat salads,
use a fat free dressing.

Limit how much cheese you eat, and then make sure it's a hard cheese like
cheddar or parmesan.  Cheese has gobs of fat in it.

Of course, don't cut out everything with fat, especially not at the start.
But if you are eating pizza and chips and fried potatoes and hot dogs and
mac&cheese and chili with cheese and heavily marbled beef all the time
during the week, you're not going to cut your fat.

I'm not surprised by your results from Atkins, it was what I would have
expected and I know other people who had the same result.

That low carbing increases cholesterol is a misconception.
Most of the time, it does not.

Our bodies produce our own cholesterol, at the approximately 4:1
ratio compared to the dietary cholesterol. If you have unstable blood
sugars, you will have high chlesterol of the worst kind, due to
that. Once you start low carbing, normally your blood sugars would
improve, and so would cholesterol. Below, I will attach a study
abstract to that effect.

Weight loss, as such, also improves blood lipids. Numerous people in
alt.support.diet.low-carb report great improvements of blood
lipids. Some, occasionally, report deterioration of blood lipids, but
they are in the minority.

Can you tell us what is your weight and height, age etc and what kind
of health issues you have and what are your cholesterol numbers are.

As a disclosure, I am not on a very low carb diet, I am on a calorie
controlled diet (portion controlled), but I do eat lower carbs.

I eat a couple of eggs per day and my cholesterol is 175/102/56, which
is not bad. That eating cholesterol is bad is an idea that is not
confirmed by careful enough controlled studies.

Eating low fat and low cholesterol decreases cholesterol, mostly by
reducing good cholesterol rather than bad.

i
Ann Intern Med. 2004 May 18;140(10):769-77.     Related Articles,Links  

Comment in:
Ann Intern Med. 2004 May 18;140(10):836-7.
Ann Intern Med. 2004 May 18;140(10):I10.
 
A low-carbohydrate, ketogenic diet versus a low-fat diet to treat obesity and hyperlipidemia: a randomized, controlled trial.

Yancy WS Jr, Olsen MK, Guyton JR, Bakst RP, Westman EC.

Center for Health Services Research in Primary Care, Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center, and Duke University Medical Center, Durham, North Carolina 27705, USA.

BACKGROUND: Low-carbohydrate diets remain popular despite a paucity of
scientific evidence on their effectiveness. OBJECTIVE: To compare the
effects of a low-carbohydrate, ketogenic diet program with those of a
low-fat, low-cholesterol, reduced-calorie diet. DESIGN: Randomized,
controlled trial. SETTING: Outpatient research clinic. PARTICIPANTS:
120 overweight, hyperlipidemic volunteers from the
community. INTERVENTION: Low-carbohydrate diet (initially, <20 g of
carbohydrate daily) plus nutritional supplementation, exercise
recommendation, and group meetings, or low-fat diet (<30% energy from
fat, <300 mg of cholesterol daily, and deficit of 500 to 1000 kcal/d)
plus exercise recommendation and group meetings. MEASUREMENTS: Body
weight, body composition, fasting serum lipid levels, and
tolerability. RESULTS: A greater proportion of the low-carbohydrate
diet group than the low-fat diet group completed the study (76%
vs. 57%; P = 0.02). At 24 weeks, weight loss was greater in the
low-carbohydrate diet group than in the low-fat diet group (mean
change, -12.9% vs. -6.7%; P < 0.001). Patients in both groups lost
substantially more fat mass (change, -9.4 kg with the low-carbohydrate
diet vs. -4.8 kg with the low-fat diet) than fat-free mass (change,
-3.3 kg vs. -2.4 kg, respectively). Compared with recipients of the
low-fat diet, recipients of the low-carbohydrate diet had greater
decreases in serum triglyceride levels (change, -0.84 mmol/L vs. -0.31
mmol/L [-74.2 mg/dL vs. -27.9 mg/dL]; P = 0.004) and greater increases
in high-density lipoprotein cholesterol levels (0.14 mmol/L vs. -0.04
mmol/L [5.5 mg/dL vs. -1.6 mg/dL]; P < 0.001). Changes in low-density
lipoprotein cholesterol level did not differ statistically (0.04
mmol/L [1.6 mg/dL] with the low-carbohydrate diet and -0.19 mmol/L
[-7.4 mg/dL] with the low-fat diet; P = 0.2). Minor adverse effects
were more frequent in the low-carbohydrate diet group. LIMITATIONS: We
could not definitively distinguish effects of the low-carbohydrate
diet and those of the nutritional supplements provided only to that
group. In addition, participants were healthy and were followed for
only 24 weeks. These factors limit the generalizability of the study
results. CONCLUSIONS: Compared with a low-fat diet, a low-carbohydrate
diet program had better participant retention and greater weight
loss. During active weight loss, serum triglyceride levels decreased
more and high-density lipoprotein cholesterol level increased more
with the low-carbohydrate diet than with the low-fat diet.

I never had a weight problem until I was directed to go on a low-fat
diet for my hereditary high cholesterol.  

I did it for five years.  All that happened was that my HDL (good
cholesterol) dropped from a healthy 60 to 15, my LDL went from about
150 to almost 300, and I gained 45 pounds in 5 years.

On low carb, I was able to lose the weight, my HDL went back up,
and my LDL went back to where it was in the first place, which,
while not the numbers the doctors want to see, is a lot better than
what it did on low-fat.

From what I've read, high cholesterol levels alone, without other
risk factors for heart disease, are not a health risk for women until
after menopause.

Another disturbing fact is that all the ads for cholesterol-lowering
drugs that I've seen have the disclaimer "has not been shown to reduce
the risk of heart attack or coronary heart disease".  If all they do
is artificially lower the numbers to make them more pleasing to the
doctor, but don't lower your health risks, just what is the point of
risking liver damage by taking them?

Were you low carbing the standard 6+ months before the
test?  If not be sure you understand that about 80% of
people see cholesterol improvements on low carb, but it
takes 6 months.  Test earlier and you aren't seeing
what your results will be you're seeing noise.