Atkins Diet
Some time ago I was working in Aberdeen, Scotland, and was sharing a flat. My flatmate, Bob, decided that he was going to go on a diet, and picked the Atkins Diet, which he followed pretty strictly!
The basis of the Atkins is a reduction of the carbohydrate intake to a bare minimum, less that 20g per day, which believe me, isn’t very much at all!
So how does the Atkins Diet work?
When we eat foods high in carbohydrates (bread, potatos, rice, pasta etc) the body converts the carbs that it needs into energy that it burns off. The remaining carbs are converted to fat and stored for use later. Of course, if the carb intake continues as before, it’s unlikely that we’ll burn up all the carbs as energy, and so the fat piles on.
Our Online Shop
By reducing the carbohydrate intake to practically zero, he body reaches a state called ‘ketosis’, where instead of using the carbs (that are in very short supply), it starts burning off the fat store as the primary source of energy. The result is that youfat store is reduced and you lose weight. The Atkins website reckons you can lose 15lb in weight in the first 2 weeks!
Sounds easy doesn’t it?
It means that as long as you stay away from high carbohydrate foods, you’ll burn off the stored fat. This leaves high protein foods and vegetables, as well as ‘good’ carbohydrate foods, such as high fibre cereals, nuts and whole grains.
This can seem so very wrong at times. For instance, how can a grilled pork chop, covered in cheese and mayonnaise, be better for you that a baked potato? From an Atkins low-carb point of view this is fine. Bob stuck with the diet and lost a whole load of weight, even if it meant drinking vodka and diet coke instead of a pint of beer or lager!
I’ll admit that I found it vry hard to stay away from bread and potatoes (and NO, you can’t have toast and chips instead), and how can you have a curry without rice?
Evenually with the Atkins, you reach a point of equilibrium (if you get that far) where you start to feed a few carbs back in again and neither gain nor lose weight. This then defines your diet to maintain a healthy weight.
I didn’t get this far but developed my own version of the Low Carbohydrate diet..
Atkins Diet and any other types of diet that is based on Low Carbohydrate intake is always good for health. research shows that Caloric restriction increases the life span of humans, this is due to the fact that lesser amounts of free radicals are produced inside the body.
The often neglected part for a balanced diet is the fibre intake. We see the hype about importance of vitamins, proteins and other nutrients but fibre is often less talked about. The truth is that our body needs a good proportion of fibre in our diets for optimum functioning and leading a healthy life.
Atkins Diet helped me to tone down my body fats. now i am very lean and skinny.