The Atkins Diet
The Atkins Diet was created by Dr. Robert Atkins. His first book "Diet Revolution” was released in 1972. Dr. Atkins wrote a few more books, and tweaked his diet a little through the years. But more or less he stayed true to his concept to the end. Even though Dr. Atkins passed away in 2003, these days his logo is still highly visible for food products and related merchandise. It is without a doubt--the most popular very-high protein diet in the world, and still has many followers to this day. The main idea behind the Atkins Diet--is that people who have problems with weight, eat too many carbohydrates. By drastically restricting carbohydrates, the body goes into a state of ketosis. This is a state when your organism gets its energy from ketones--little carbon fragments that are created by the breakdown of body fat. So, the main goal of the Atkins Diet is to force your body to burn fat for fuel, through over-consumption of protein!
A Small Explanation About Carbohydrates...All carbohydrates end up as blood sugar in your bloodstream. Your body secrets insulin to keep your blood sugar from rising too high. When you eat too many carbohydrates, especially the simple and refined carbohydrates--there is a rapid rise of blood sugar in your organism. To deal with this sharp rise in blood sugar your body secretes large amounts of insulin to clear the large amounts of the sugar in your blood. This insulin helps the extra blood sugar to be stored in the liver and muscle as glycogen. When these stores are filled to capacity, the surplus of the blood sugar, insulin converts to fat. And this is the opposite of what most people want on a weight loss diet. This is probably the major reason why this diet still has many followers. There is some logic behind the Atkins Diet, the problem is that it it taken to an extreme--like most other diets!
The Atkins Nutrition Strategy...The Atkins Diet for the first two weeks suggests eating mostly pure protein and fat--with serious carbohydrate restrictions. There is no calorie counting, and you can eat many of the foods that are considered--rich (eggs, cheese, meat). You can eat some little leafy green vegetables…but fruit is not allowed at all. The theory behind this nutritional strategy is to kick-start the bio-chemical activity of the diet. After the first weeks the diet allows to add some vegetables, fruit, and whole-grain food, as long as the weight loss is maintained. But a high intake of fruit and vegetables is still restricted, and since these are healthy foods that have been numerously documented to have health benefits--we can’t say anything really positive about this extreme diet program. You are also forbidden to ever consume milk, white rice, white potatoes, refined carbohydrates, white bread, or any other products made from white flour. Currently exercise is encouraged more then it was when the Atkins diet was first introduced. But this is not the major focus for the people who are following this program. Eating high amounts of protein with low amounts of carbohydrates--is what is considered to be most important!
What We Think About This Diet...What can we say about the Atkins Diet? Well, it is definately not a balanced diet, and produces the weight loss mostly due to the thermic effect of protein. This means that your body must use a lot of energy to digest protein, and this is the main reason that this diet produces results. And if you go off this diet and start eating carbohydrates in moderate amounts you will gain a lot of weight immediately. Plus protein is the best nutrient to keep your hunger--at bay! The low consumption of carbohydrates that this diet promotes is unhealthy for most people, and there are many concerns in the medical community that it can promote heart disease. This is only the beginning of the consequences that can follow when you consume too much protein. This diet is especially not recommended for people with liver problems. In our nutrition section we will cover protein, carbohydrates and dietary fat in full detail.
We Will Explain How to Properly use a Low Carb Diet in our Nutrition Strategy Section...Once you read that section you will understand that it is better to stay away from such extreme diets--at all costs. We included this diet in our list only to make the point that protein provides a thermic effect that can help when you use a low carbohydrate diet on a temporary basis. We will describe this in our Nutrition Strategy section in full detail, then you will know how to use low carb dieting--without the negative consequences! But we will say it here, that all low carb diets should be used only as advanced techniques, and only when you have mastered the basics and fundamentals of healthy nutrition. Before we go the the Tips and Secrets area of our site we wanted to give you some Quick Weight Loss Tips, just so that you have an idea which strategies can help you right from the start!
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