Fat Loss 4 Idiots Review

How Long Should You Stay On The Atkins Diet

The short name for the Atkins nutritional approach is the Atkins diet.  It’s a low-carb diet created by Robert Atkins.  He had gained a lot of weight in medical school.  He read about this diet in the medical journal.  He perfected it and released it to the public.

Atkins, in his Atkins Diet, believed prevailing theories about weight gain were all wrong.  First, he dismissed the idea that saturated fats were bad.  Instead it was carbohydrates that led to the weight problems Americans have.  In fact Atkins thought that the focus on fats had made a problem much worse.  He pointed to all the low-fat foods that were high in carbohydrates.  Dieters were being tricked into eating foods that would cause them to gain more weight.

This all changes in the Atkins diet.  By cutting out carbohydrates people would burn stored body fats.  Lose the weight lose the fat.  It’s not just a case of eating less.  The diet would work because it burned excess calories.  In fact Atkins cited a study that claimed the body would burn an extra 950 calories on his diet.  But later research and reviews of his studies found that his claims were false.

Find Out How You Can Lose Weight Quickly And Effectively Lose Weight Now

Dr. Atkins also touted the positive influence this Atkins diet could have on people with type 2 diabetes.  Being overweight is generally considered the major cause for type 2 diabetes.  So in general any diet that helps decrease weight will help address type 2 diabetes.  But the Atkins diet is also low in carbohydrates, which must be avoided with type 2 diabetes regardless of caloric intake, so by means of this aspect of the diet Atkins claimed those who suffer type 2 diabetes would no longer need medication such as insulin.

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.

So just how does this Atkins diet work?  It follows four phases - induction, ongoing weight loss, pre-maintenance and lifetime maintenance.  Here are more details of Induction which is the most crucial of the phases.

The Induction phase is the most difficult phase of the Atkins diet.  Atkins is flexible as to the time period but recommends two weeks.  Carbohydrates are nearly removed entirely from the diet, only 15-20 grams can be consumed each day.  The lack of carbohydrates will prompt the body to convert fat into fatty acids for fuel a process known as ketosis.  Weight loss during this phase can be extreme some Atkins followers reported losses of 5-10 pounds a week.

The other Atkins diet phases are generally used for determining the levels of carbohydrates ideal for losing weight and for maintaining a standard weight not gaining weight.  Dr. Atkins himself died of complications of increased fat intake in his diet, which is something to keep in mind when choosing this diet.

 Mail this post

Popularity: 24% [?]

Technorati Tags: how to lose fat on the face, the best way to burn butt fat, the most amount of fat you can lose in one week

This entry was posted on Saturday, January 3rd, 2009 at 12:26 am and is filed under Atkins Diet. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.