The Atkins Diet
The common name for the 'Atkins Nutritional Approach' is the 'Atkins Diet', which was the invention of Doctor Robert Atkins. Dr. Atkins had put on a lot of surplus weight while he was studying in medical school and after coming across a new diet in the medical journal, he made up his mind to improve on it and publish it as his own.
Atkins, in his Atkins Diet book, wrote that he believed that the prevailing theories about putting on weight were completely wrong. First, he dismissed the idea that saturated fats were bad; instead he said it was it was carbohydrates that caused the weight problems Americans have these days. Atkins held that our obsession with avoiding fat actually aggravated the problem. He pointed out that the low-fat foods that were high in carbohydrates were not helping the nation, which probably meant that people on a diet often ate foods that were worse for them than what they had normally eaten.
The Atkins diet shifts the focus. Atkins said that by cutting out carbohydrates, people would consume their stored body fats. And, of course, if you lose the fat, you lose the weight. He said it was not only a matter of eating less. Atkins held that a diet could actually help you burn calories and that The Atkins Diet supposedly burned more calories than were being consumed everyday. But the claims were disputed.
Dr. Atkins also touted the positive influence that his diet should have on people with Type 2 diabetes. Type 1 diabetes is a disease you usually get early in life, but Type 2 is more often closely associated with diet and excess body weight. Therefore, it should follow that any diet that helps decrease weight, will help people with Type 2 diabetes. The Atkins diet is low in carbohydrates, which ought to be avoided by those with Type 2 diabetes regardless of the caloric intake, which the Atkins diet does, so Atkins claimed that those who suffer Type 2 diabetes would no longer need medication such as insulin. Doctors do not agree with Atkins on this point, although they do agree, that a lower carbohydrate intake helps control Type 2 diabetes, but there is no proof that carbohydrates cause diabetes.
What are the steps one has to take to follow the Atkins diet? It is followed in four phases - Induction; On-Going Weight loss, Pre-maintenance and Lifetime Maintenance. Here is an overview of the most important phase - The Induction Phase.
The Induction phase is probably the most difficult of the phases in the Atkins diet. Atkins is rather flexible about how long it should last " but recommends two weeks. During this time, carbohydrate consumption should be severely limited " up to 20 grammes per day. The goal is to enter a fat burning metabolic process called 'ketosis' which is when the body, being starved of glucose, begins to convert previously stored fat into the fatty acids needed to run the body. Weight loss during this period is often extreme " some Atkins dieters report losses of 5-10 lbs. a week or more.
Learning the ideal carbohydrate levels for weight loss and for day to day intake after the weight loss ends, are the purposes of the three final phases in the Atkins diet. Millions of people are still losing the weight they want to on this diet " but beware the dangers of taking in too much fat.
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