How Does The Atkins Diet Work?

The short name for the Atkins nutritional approach is the Atkins diet. It was the brainchild of the doctor named Robert Atkins. He put on a lot of pounds while he attended medical school. A medical Journal had an article about a diet. He perfected it and released it to the public.

Dr. Atkins came up with new ideas, his Atkins diet, about the nature of weight gain. 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. 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.

The Atkins diet shifts the focus. By cutting out carbohydrates people would burn stored body fats. Lose the fat lose the weight. Atkins flipped the equation from lowering caloric intake. Now it was all about what your diet can help you burn. In fact Atkins cited a study that claimed the body would burn an extra 950 calories on his diet. But later reviews of his studies found that his claims were false.

Dr. Atkins also touted the positive influence this Atkins diet could have on people with type 2 diabetes. Type 2 diabetes is most often associated with obesity. Weight loss associated with the Atkins diet, as with any diet, would therefore help people manage 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. The jury is still out in the medical world as to the causes of type 2 diabetes. So while science agrees with Atkins that lowering intake of Carbohydrates will help with the disease, it would disagree that the step alone would remove the necessity for medicine.

What steps does one take to follow the Atkins diet? It follows four phases - induction, ongoing weight loss, pre-maintenance and lifetime maintenance. Here is an overview of the most important phase - Induction.

The first phase of the Atkins diet, Induction, is like the boot camp for the 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 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.

Learning the ideal carbohydrate levels for weight losing and for day to day intake after the weight loss ends are the purposes of the final three phases in the Atkins diet. Dr. Atkins himself died of complications of increased fat intake in his diet, which is something to keep in mind when choosing this diet.