Many people have heard of the Atkins diet, the short name for Atkins nutritional approach. Dr. Robert Atkins invented this low-carb diet. He put on a lot of pounds while he attended medical school. He read about this diet in the medical journal. He decided to improve it and release it under his name. Check out our fat loss plans here.
Dr. Atkins came up with new ideas, his Atkins diet, about the nature of weight gain. He held that saturated fats weren’t as bad as people claim. 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. Find out about fat loss recipes.
This all changes in the Atkins diet. 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. That sounded good but it wasn’t true.
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. 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. 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? Induction, ongoing weight loss, pre-maintenance and lifetime maintenance are the four necessary phases of the diet. The details of the induction phase is as follows.
The first phase of the Atkins diet, Induction, is like the boot camp for the diet. It lasts for about two weeks. During induction the dieter can consume only about 20 grams of carbohydrates on a day to day basis. The lack of carbohydrates will prompt the body to convert fat into fatty acids for fuel – a process known as ketosis. Weight loss of 20 pounds over this period isn’t uncommon – that’s a staggering amount.
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. The diet lost popularity after Dr. Atkins died, but it’s still popular. Click here for fat loss diet plan.
