The Atkins diet

The Atkins diet promises to help you lose weight, not be hungry, and be on the road to a better heart health and memory function along with a lot other wellness benefits.

What’s great about it

The Atkins actually sets very few limits on the amount of food you eat, instead it only severely restricts the food that you put on your plate. This means, strictly no refined sugar, milk, white rice, white flour and the likes. This also translates into being allowed for you to eat foods that are traditionally regarded as "rich" like meat, eggs, cheese, etc and at the same time claims to reduce your appetite while in the process.

The Atkins diet is almost pure protein and fat where you can eat red meat, fish, fowl, and cheese, butter, mayo, tuna, and olive oil. In a nutshell, the Atkins Diet is For eating fat and protein, steady and sometimes rapid weight loss, reduced appetite, a Life-time approach to dieting, a reduced intake of sugars and processed grains and a ‘never be hungry again’ approach. However, Atkins is against vegetarians or vegans as it is a really meat-heavy diet, fibers and persons with osteoporosis, heart disease, colon cancer and renal disease. Sometimes it has below the recommended daily values for several vitamins and minerals like calcium, potassium and magnesium.

The Carb Scare

The diet is based on the theory that too many carbohydrates lead too unwanted weight. Since our bodies burn both fat and carbohydrates for energy it is the carbs that are used first. Thus, drastically reducing carbs will let us naturally lose weight by burning the stored body fat efficiently. In this diet then, carbs are restricted to only about 20 grams per day in the first two weeks. This tantamount to around three cups of loosely packed salad with two-thirds cup of cooked vegetables each day.

In this diet, the first two weeks must be a rigid low-carb consumption week that is no fruits and only a few leafy green vegetables. This regimen is supposed to jump-start the weight-loss biochemistry of the diet. What makes this diet so convenient is that you need not count calories because you may be eating more calories than you actually were taking before. After the first week or so, the carb allowance is increased to include fiber-rich foods. You’re still kept away from refined sugar, milk, white rice, white potatoes, white bread or pasta for the rest of your life.

The Atkins Theory

The diet is centered on the theory that by restricting carbohydrates drastically, the body then goes into a state of ketosis to burn down its own fat for fuel. A person in ketosis is getting energy from little carbon fragments that are created by the breakdown of fat. In the state of ketosis you will tend to feel less hungry. However it also has a variety of unpleasant side effects like an unusual breath odor and constipation to some people. Because the body changes from carbohydrate-burning to fat-burning your body will now consume energy from your fat stores like the hips, belly, and thighs.

In details, a high-carbohydrate meal results to blood sugar rising high. To address this, the body then secretes insulin which allows extra sugar to be stored in the liver and muscle. However, these storage areas are rapidly filled thus the insulin has to convert any of the extra sugar into fat. According to Atkins, if the body keeps on making insulin to deal with the sugar it may become less responsive to insulin. The Atkins theory also states that the blood sugar level rises and then drops quickly in this situation. However, ketosis can burn up excess fat in time so that the body can return to normal metabolic functions, according to the Atkins theory. The carb consumption must be less than 40 grams a day for this kind of biochemical mechanism. You can also add up to this some sort of physical activity for ketosis, as well as a supplement with vitamins since you won’t be eating in as much vegetables and fruits

More Than Just Weight Loss

Other than the weight-loss claims and success stories, the Center for Complementary Medicine in New York claims that people who follow the Atkins diet also do so for weight maintenance, good health, and disease prevention.

At the later part of the diet, fruits, vegetables, and whole-grain foods after the two-week induction period, are allowed. Along with this, the transition from weight loss to weight maintenance is marked by a gradually increasing intake of carbs as long as the gradual weight loss is maintained.

What Others Say

However, there has been a lot of negative feedback especially from known authorities about this diet, despite the high number of people who can attest for it.

Robert H. Eckel, MD, director of the general clinical research center at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center in Denver agrees says: "Our worries over the Atkins diet go way past the question of whether it is effective for losing weight or even for keeping weight off. We worry that the diet promotes heart disease. ... We have concerns over whether this is a healthy diet for preventing heart disease, stroke, and cancer. There is also potential loss of bone, and the potential for people with liver and kidney problems to have trouble with the high amounts of protein in these diets."

Gail Frank, PhD, spokeswoman for The American Dietetic Association and professor of nutrition at California State University in Long Beach, says: "The body needs a minimum of carbohydrates for efficient and healthy functioning -- about 150 grams daily. Below that, normal metabolic activity is disrupted.”

Volumetrics author Barbara Rolls, PhD, who holds the Guthrie Chair in Nutrition at Penn State University, says: "No one has shown, in any studies, that anything magical is going on with Atkins other than calorie restriction. The diet is very prescriptive, very restrictive, and limits half of the foods we normally eat," she says. "In the end it's not fat, it's not protein, and it’s not carbs, its calories. You can lose weight on anything that helps you to eat less, but that doesn't mean it's good for you."