Atkins Diet Review

A review of The Atkins Diet is a mixed bag of emotions and results.    There are many accounts of success stories with The Atkins Diet but there is also controversy that surrounds the actual health wisdom of the plan.  The Atkins diet is a low carbohydrate diet plan that was conceived by the late Dr. Robert Atkins.   Although the diet was the rave of its time during the early part of the 2000’s it has kind of become demonized in the recent past.  The premise of the original diet was to eliminate carbohydrates from your diet in the attempt to lose weight.  Dr. Atkins read about this diet in a Medical Journal and then fashioned it after his own needs to help himself lose weight.  Eventually there was a revision to the book, which remained faithful to the original edition of the ground breaking concept of the Atkins Diet.

It is easy to sit here now and dismiss the Atkins nutritional approach as incorrect but in reality much is owed to the ground breaking approach instituted by Dr. Robert Atkins.   What was presented by Dr. Atkins was a total departure from the prevailing theories of health and weight loss.  Atkins was the first to discuss the connection between obesity and carbohydrates.  He went against the mainstream and argued that saturated fats were being over valued as the cause for obesity.  He was the first to make the public and the science communities re-evaluate the entire theory of weight loss.  He essentially turned the weight loss theories on their head and introduced new concepts that are being fine tuned even today.  Dr. Robert Atkins was a pioneer in modern day weight loss.

Atkins involves the restriction of carbohydrates in order to switch the body's metabolism from burning glucose to burning stored body fat. This process starts when the body enters the state of ketosis as a result of running out of excess carbohydrates to burn.   Dr. Atkins in his book New Diet Revolution claimed that the low-carbohydrate diet produces a "metabolic advantage" where the body burns more calories, overall, than on normal diets, and also expels some unused calories.   
The one thing all dieters love about the Atkins Diet is that you can eat as much as you want of the specified foods.  There was no limit and never being hungry was the major reason Dr. Atkins proclaimed why low fat diets were a failure.  If a person could eat and never feel deprived their chance of success were improved. 

There are a series of books written by Dr. Atkins that are available and actually help round out the quest for knowledge that serious weight loss attempts crave to learn.  If you are seeking knowledge on weight loss be aware that any knowledge that leads you towards that goal should be learned.  He has even published a book (Atkins Diet Revolution) on how to decrease or eliminate drugs when treating diabetes.  He has an assortment of knowledge that revolutionized the medical field and their thinking of weight loss methods.

When you review The Atkins Diet you must discuss the four phases that are involved with the diet.

PHASE 1

The Induction phase is the beginning of The Atkins Diet plan.  It is by far the most restrictive phase of the entire plan.  The main goal for this phase is for the body to enter a state of ketosis.  This is done by consuming no more than 20 net grams of carbohydrates a day.  The list of allowed foods is fairly long yet it is extremely restrictive.  This is the phase that the most significant weight loss occurs and lasts about two weeks.

PHASE 2

Ongoing weight loss is the second phase and during this time you increase you carbohydrate intake.  This phase continues until you are within 10 pounds of your goal weight.  This is where it gets a tad bit tricky and a bit of support from knowledgeable group of people would be a great benefit.  This is when you start to introduce a wider variety of food back into your diet.

PHASE 3

Pre maintenance is the third phase and you begin to increase your carbohydrate intake slightly.  This is where you start to play with your diet a bit to discover how different foods affect your weight loss or weight gain.  This is a discovery period. 

PHASE 4

Lifetime maintenance is to help you carry your successful eating habits over to a lifetime. 

In conclusion let it be known that Dr. Robert Atkins died of a head injury and not of heart disease.  The rumors that he died from obesity complications were vicious and unfounded.  The end result of this diet plan is one that clearly sees the ability to lose weight but the reality of being able to live the plan for life as something difficult to do.  If you are truly interested in this concept the staff at I Choose Thin has two recommendations.  Venture a bit deeper into the knowledge arena and research The South Beach Diet for a more viable alternative.  If you really desire to experience the Atkins Diet our second recommendation is to join eDiets to provide you with the support that you will need.  Whatever your choices are it is better to do something than it is to do nothing.

Is the Atkins diet right for you?  

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