Not if you ask anyone who has lost weight on the Atkins Diet, which cuts out sugars and carbohydrates and pushes protein and fat.

"It is, without a doubt, the most successful diet I have ever been on," Dawn Sweetser, 26, of Boston's North End, said of the Atkins Diet. "And I've been on plenty of diets."

The protein craze may be the hottest diet fad of 1999, but it isn't new. The Atkins Diet was introduced in the early '70s; repackaged three years ago as "Dr. Atkins' New Diet Revolution," it quickly made its way onto the bestseller list.