WANT to lose lots of pounds on your New Year diet? Specialised diet products should do the job nicely, especially when we're talking about the pounds in your purse...

The Atkins Diet still causes controversy. Its fans say it's the best thing since sliced - lo-carb - bread and succeeds where all other diets have failed, while its detractors are seriously concerned about the medical implications.

Whatever you think of it, there's no doubt that it's been a huge marketing success. And the low carbohydrate diet has spawned an entire lo-carb industry. Tesco, for instance, has launched its own Carb Control range that includes everything from bread and biscuits to pizza, pasta and cakes.

Fancy a treat or cheat? There are plenty of goodies to tempt you from the choice of low carbohydrate products.

Like the Atkins diet itself, these foods break many of what we've always considered the basic rules of healthy nutrition. They might be low in carbohydrates, but many of them are high in fat and calories.

Take Kit Kats, for instance. An ordinary Kit Kat is 26 per cent fat - 17 per cent saturated. The lo-carb version is 31 per cent fat - 20 per cent saturated.

Atkins Morning Shine breakfast bars are 21 per cent fat, contain a depressingly long list of ingredients and carry the cheerful warning that "excessive consumption may cause a laxative effect". Mmm.

And Atkins milkshakes have a list of about 50 ingredients, starting with water, milk protein, genetically modified soya bean oil and cellulose gel. Oooh yummy.

From our fairly random research of lo-carb products, the only one that actually appealed was Hovis lower carb white bread, which not only had fewer carbohydrates but actually fewer calories, more fibre and tasted good.

Bread, chocolate, milkshakes, cereals... there's no need to miss any of your favourite foods if you're on a lo-carb diet. But it'll cost you.

Atkins' Morning Shine Apple Crisp Breakfast Bars are £4.49 - more than three times as much as Alpen bars, for instance, and more than double even top-of-the-range Jordan's.

Hellmann's lo-carb tomato ketchup is £1.49 - three times as much as normal. A small lo-carb Kit Kat costs 58p - 10p more than the ordinary large version. Lo-carb Rolos cost a whopping £1.30 - nearly three times the normal price. Hovis lower carb white loaf is 97p - against 72p for its classic white. Atkins' Advantage Shake is £1.58 for a third of a litre, but a Frijj milkshake is only £1.43 for a litre.

A successful diet, of course, is whatever works for you. But just be careful you're losing the right sort of pounds...

DO you owe a fortune on store cards? Are you too afraid to open your credit card statement? If so, don't panic. Here's how to get your debt under control:

INTEREST FREE CREDIT CARDS

The interest on store cards is generally between 25 and 30 per cent. The Competition Commission is investigating their excessive profits, which they make from you.

The interest on many credit cards is around 15 per cent, but this still means that however much you pay off each month, the amount you owe goes down very slowly.

Many banks are offering to let you transfer your debt to a card with nought per cent interest. Nationwide offers six months interest free, Egg until September 1, Virgin nine months interest free.

The trick here is to transfer your other card debts to an interest free card. And then CUT UP THE CARD.

This means you're not tempted to put any more on it and can concentrate on clearing the existing debt, while having a breathing space.

If you transfer £1,500 from a card charging 16 per cent interest to one charging nought per cent interest, in a year, you can save yourself £240 - which is a chunk worth having.

TAKE OUT A LOAN

First of all, be very wary of taking out a consolidation loan as heavily advertised on daytime TV. These sound like a good idea because, as the ads tell you, you roll all your debts into one and can pay a manageable amount each month.

What the ads cleverly forget to mention is that, for many of them, you'll be paying that small monthly amount for a very long time - next Christmas, the Christmas after, the one after that... And you'll end up paying a tremendous amount of interest.

For most people there are better options.

Although interest rates are creeping up, it's still possible to get loans at under seven per cent - and if you pay them off within a year, it's not going to cost you much.

DON'T be tempted to use credit card cheques - they attract interest from the day you use them, often have a higher interest rate and sometimes have a handling fee as well. Bad move. Also, they don't carry the same consumer protection as a credit card.

DON'T go overdrawn without asking the bank nicely. They can charge you a lot.

DON'T miss your credit card payments or be late making them. They'll probably add another £20 or so to the bill. And that won't do nicely.

DON'T just pay the minimum payment - it can make the debt drag on for years and cost you a lot more in the end.

But if you pay as much as you can - as soon as you can - you might be clear to start all over again next Christmas...

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