Atkins Diets

Unless people have been living under a rock for the last 10 years then they would have heard of The Atkins Diet. Probably the most promoted diet in the world the Atkins Diet has been used by millions of people across the globe and this is no exaggeration, it was estimated that over 3 million people used the Atkins Diet in the UK alone during the peak of its hype around 2003.

The fundamental idea behind the Atkins Diet is very significantly cutting down on the amount of carbohydrates, however, allows foods high in fat and protein. One of the good things that Atkins Diet had going for it was it allowed people to eat steaks, cheeses and eggs all the time. No wonder that for this reason it was so popular. The downside however is the fact that people get no breads or salad with that steak. This necessarily includes almost all vegetables; apparently there are too many carbohydrates in vegetables.

The basic theory is that supplying the body with zero carbohydrate makes the body turn to its fat stores to burn energy that people need through out the day. So Atkins diet means no bread, pasta, potatoes, pastries, milk, rice, vegetables, fruit and of course no junk food or sodas, in fact there area couple people can eat. On the other hand people can eat cream, mayonnaise, butter, eggs, red meat, chicken, fish and cheese. These are going to be the foods for the first phase of The Atkins Diet, the induction phase which goes for two weeks.

After people have completed the two weeks they will begin what is known as Ongoing Weight Loss in the second phase. During this phase people are allowed to increase their intake of carbohydrates by 5 grams per day, starting at the 20 grams people were allowed during phase 1. The Atkins dieter must monitor there weight loss to discover exactly how many carbohydrates they can consume do the body loses 1- pounds per week. This carbohydrate level is known as the critical carbohydrate level for losing weight. It is at this level that people must stop increasing their carbohydrate intake.

Of course people still have pounds to shed so they know enter into the third phase of the diet known as the pre-maintenance phase. In this phase carbohydrate intake is again increased by 10 grams per day which will slow the body weight loss process. The final phase is called lifetime maintenance where people will have to consume less than 100g or less of carbohydrates for the rest of their life of course quite a challenge for many people. Of course like many other diets the Atkins Diet has some fairly serious side effects. Some of the people were known to get severe infections in their kidneys from the extremely high protein content of this diet and even heart problems from the high levels of unhealthy fat they consumed. Weakness, dizziness, and bad breath can be experienced as the body enters starvation mode when denied all carbohydrates including vegetables. Also as without eating fiber content foods such as fruit and vegetables people can also quickly realize that constipation will become a bit of a problem too.

• John Palsson
• 06/01/2009, 8:59 AM
• 0 Comments