Is Atkins Diet As Effective As People Think?
The Atkins diet is really called the Atkins nutritional approach. Dr. Robert Atkins invented this low-carb diet. He had gained a lot of weight in medical school. Atkins read about a low-carb diet in one of his medical journals. He perfected it and released it to the public.
Atkins Grapefruit Diet
Atkins, in his Atkins Diet, believed prevailing theories about weight gain were all wrong. He disagreed that saturated fats were the problem. Carbohydrates, found in potatoes, and breads, were the real problem. In Atkins theory eating too little fat make things even worse. Carbohydrates are used to make up for the lack of fat in low fat foods. Dieters were being tricked into eating foods that would cause them to gain more weight.
This all changes in the Atkins diet. He shifts dieters’ metabolism to burn body fats by cutting out carbohydrates from their diets. That’s the goal of weight loss. Atkins flipped the equation from lowering caloric intake. Now it was all about what your diet can help you burn. The Atkins diet supposedly burned an extra 950 calories everyday. But later reviews of his studies found that his claims were false.
Healthcare
Dr. Atkins also touted the positive influence this Atkins diet could have on people with type 2 diabetes. As opposed to type 1 diabetes, type 2 is often closely associated with diet and people who weigh too much. So in general any diet that helps decrease weight will help address type 2 diabetes. Dr. Atkins also said that his Atkins diet would remove the need for medications such as insulin, because it severely cut down on carbohydrates which Atkins claimed were the major cause of type 2 diabetes. But that’s counter to the prevailing medical theories regarding type 2 diabetes which, although recommending that lowered intake of carbohydrates and weight loss help manage diabetes, ascribe no causal relationship between carbohydrates and type 2 diabetes.
What steps does one take to follow the Atkins diet? It consists of four steps or phases which are induction, ongoing weight loss, pre-maintenance and lifetime maintenance. Here are more details of Induction which is the most crucial of the phases.
South Beach Diet Recipes
As the first phase, Induction is the most crucial and most restrictive portion of the Atkins diet. This phase should be followed for a period of two weeks. During this phase carbohydrates are severely limited – only up to 20 grams per day. The goal is to enter a fat burning metabolic phase called ketosis when the body, starved of glucose, will begin converting stored fat into fatty acids needed to power the body. Weight loss of 20 pounds over this period isn’t uncommon – that’s a staggering amount.
The next three phases of the Atkins diet help establish the levels of carbs people can consume in order to lose weight and to maintain a desired weight. Millions of people are still losing weight on this diet – but beware the dangers of taking in too much fat.
