One person who is definitely not following Japan’s high-carb nutritional guidelines is Kim Kardashian, who recently celebrated her post-baby weight loss on social media.

In fact, Kardashian is taking precisely the opposite approach to the thinnest country on the planet, following the low-carb, high-protein “New Atkins” weight-loss plan, even adding a hashtagged plug for the diet as part of her celebrations.

“Yaaaassssss!!!! #Atkins,” she captioned the Snapchat image that announced her new weight of 135.8 pounds (61.6kg) to the world.

The New Atkins diet was released a couple of years back and is a rather more relaxed affair than the original, with wholegrain bread, brown rice, pasta and fruit among the once-reviled foodstuffs now given the tick of approval.

After experiencing a boom in popularity in the early 2000s, particularly among celebrities, demand for the diet and Atkins products waned, leading Atkins Nutritionals, the company behind it, to file for bankruptcy and rebrand itself.

That rebranding seems to have worked: the diet has since found proponents among the glitterati once more, with Kardashian and Sharon Osbourne among those who have returned to the fold.

Kardashian eats between 1500 to 1800 calories per day.

“Consuming adequate protein from fish, poultry, lean meat; healthy fats from avocado, olive oil, nuts; and high-fiber carbohydrates from lots of vegetables and low-glycemic fruits such as berries; as well as some dairy from Greek yogurt and cheese; meets all of her nutritional needs for recovery, as well as breastfeeding,” Kardashian’s nutritionist – and Atkins Nutritionals employee – Colette Heimowitz said.

Kardashian has also been exercise, which may have more to do with her recent weight-loss than any particular diet regime.

According to a recent study by researchers at Tokyo’s National Center for Global Health and Medicine, carbohydrates have less to do with one’s overall health than fat intake and exercise. Japan’s official nutritional guidelines are illustrated by a spinning top, on top of which a stick figure can be seen running around a glass of water.

“New mums should walk before they run when trying to lose the baby weight,” one of Kardashian’s trainers, Harley Pasternak, said. “I have them use a FitBit and limit their steps at first, then gradually add more until they get to 10,000 a day.”

“Then when they get medical clearance, usually a month later, we get back to some resistance exercise.”

As always with this sort of thing, in other words, it’s really about eating well – even Atkins isn’t militantly anti-carb anymore – and being physically active. There’s no miracle cure here, no magical diet. There’s just portion size, moderation, a bit of willpower and a lot of hard work.

Kardashian only has 12 pounds (5.4kg) left to lose before she weighs what she did in 2010, before she was pregnant with her first child, the only person to have ever been named after one of the lesser points on the compass, North West.

We look forward to her marking that milestone with an emoji.

Check out a sneak peek into the kitchens of the Kardashians here.