Does the Atkins Diet Work for Weight Loss and Overall Health (Jared D Bannister)

The atkins diet was released some years back by dr Robert Atkins, and since then many people have chosen to follow its guidance in the hope of losing weight and improving their health. In fact many notable celebrities joined the bandwagon and claimed to shed great amounts of weight as a result of the low carbohydrate approach.

But what is this diet really all about and does it actually help people lose weight, and if so is it safe or does it increase the risk of heart disease and other health issues as many sceptics claim.

Conventional wisdom states that if you wish to lose weight then you need to control the number of calories you eat. That is, that if the number of calories you eat is less than the number of calories you burn in any given day then you should lose weight. In other words eat less and move more and you will lose weight. Conventional wisdom also states that in order to protect your body from cardiovascular disease which may lead to heart attack or stroke that you should also adhere to a low fat diet which includes lots of complex carbohydrates such as grains.

After a scientific review on metabolism dr Atkins proposed that this wisdom was actually fundamentally flawed. He developed a diet where calorie counting was completely removed from the process and that instead the dieter should count their daily intake of carbohydrates and restrict this to a minimal level. By restricting intake of carbohydrates the person's body will have insufficient simple sugars entering their blood stream through their diet and their body would be forced to convert its energy supply for the most part to lipolysis (or fat burning). Also by restricting carbohydrate intake your body will also release less insulin after every meal.

High levels on insulin release have been proposed to lead to NIDDM (non insulin dependent diabetes mellitus) or glucose intolerance which is often associated with obesity and heart disease. Dr Atkins essentially proposed that even if your diet is high in protein and fats (but low in carbohydrates) that if you eat sufficiently few carbohydrates to push your metabolism into lipolysis that you will lose weight and even improve your blood lipid profile and risk of cardiovascular disease. This goes against all conventional wisdom but if the diet is actually followed properly with the right information the results do seem to speak for themselves.

For people considering the atkins diet they should ensure they have a proper plan provided by a nutritional expert and should see their dr first ( as with any new diet plan) for baseline blood tests and proper review.

Jared Bannister writes about dieting issues with a particular focus on the paleo diet. To learn more about the atkins diet please visit us at DietingRevisited.com

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The Four Phases of the Atkins Diet (Jared D Bannister)

Some years ago Dr Robert Atkins released a brand new diet known as the atkins diet. The atkins diet plan went against all of the commonly accepted information about weight loss and healthy eating by promoting a low carbohydrate, high protein, high fat diet. In addition to this dramatic shift followers of the diet were also told to stop counting calories and start counting daily carbohydrate intake. To everyone's surprise the diet really seemed to work with many people experiencing dramatic weight loss and improved health. What is the Atkins diet and does it still have a role for weight loss today.

The atkins diet plan is essentially broken up into 4 distinct phases which all involve different levels of carbohydrate restriction.

Induction: The induction phase of the atkins diet is the most extreme stage and generally only lasts for about 2 weeks. During this phase carbohydrate intake is restricted to 20 grams per day. The aim of this phase is to push your body into lipolysis (fat burning) as its main metabolic process by dramatically depriving it of glucose. Significant weight loss is generally seen during this phase but due to the extreme of carbohydrate restriction side effects such as constipation and ketone breath may occur. Supplements are recommended in particular during this phase to make up for lost nutrients from less intake of fruits and vegetables.

Ongoing weight loss: This phase is much less dramatic and you are encouraged to increase daily carbohydrate intake by 5 grams each week until you stop losing weight. This allows you to know your critical carbohydrate level for losing weight (CCLL) which is a valuable tool for maintaining your ideal weight.

Pre-Maintenance: This phase of the atkins diet is all about stabilising your metabolism after ongoing weight loss and increasing your body's carbohydrate tolerance. You should increase your carbohydrate intake by no more than 10 grams each week and also at the same time experiement with lots of different foods in a controlled manner to see which foods are best for you as an individual. You should reduce your carbohydrate intake gain weight but the ultimate goal of this phase is to discover your critical carbohydrate level for maintenance (CCLM)
Lifetime Maintenance: This phase is all about sticking to the pre-determined maintenance carbohydrate intake that you learned going through the last 3 phases. The main aim of this phase is to learn strategies to avoid temptation in order to stay at your ideal body weight.

That is a brief run down of the four phases of the atkins diet. Though an effective diet for weight loss, its important that you know what you're doing before embarking on the atkins diet plan, and I would highly recommend reading into the topic further before starting. As with any new diet you should also visit your doctor first for advice and for baseline blood tests to ensure that the diet is working for the benefit of your health as well as your waistline.

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Does Calorie Counting Work for Weight Loss? (Jared D Bannister)

Does calorie counting work for weight loss? When you think of dieting and weight loss, one of the first thoughts that comes to mind is often calorie counting. That is the generally accepted idea that if you eat less and move more (exercise) that you will lose weight. Or if your intake of calories from your diet is less than the number of calories that you burn in your daily activities then you will lose weight.

While this concept is actually fundamentally correct, it fails to cover for some fairly basic biological and psychological concepts. For a start to say that all calories are created equal is somewhat of a myth. If you are accurately measuring the energy released to your body from a unit of food you might say that an apple and a doughnut of equal calorific value will provide your body with the same amount of energy. However as we all know you feel very different after eating an apple than you do after eating a doughnut. This is because an apple will cause a much smaller surge of sugars into your bloodstream which will in turn mean there will be a much smaller release of insulin after eating an apple compared to eating a doughnut.

Following eating the doughnut, excessive insulin release will result in a lowering of blood sugars and also a formation of fat to store the excess energy provided by the large amounts of refined sugar in the doughnut. This has the overall effect of making you feel tired due to the sudden drop ?in blood sugars, in addition you will feel hungry and crave more sugar due to the same reason, and your body will preferentially store more fat.

So while 2 completely different foods may contain the same number of calories, as they will affect your body in very different ways, you can be sure that the overall result will be more likely for weight gain if you eat foods high in sugar compared to natural foods such as fruits, vegetables, lean meats and fish.

What we eat has so much more bearing over whether we will lose weight (and keep it off) than simple calorie counting. If we change what we eat, then we can break food addictions, reduce cravings brought on by excessive sugar intake, switch off our body's tendency to store fat and feel much more satisfied by the food we are eating. By focusing on what we eat rather than how much you will naturally reach a healthy weight without feeling hungry all the time and without the risk of gaining all the weight back after the diet is over.

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