Atkins Diet Revisited

Mr_Knight wrote: »

crisb2 wrote: »

@AlanaTedmon wrote: »

After trying out the Atkins for about half a month... I discovered it's not a realistic diet choice for someone who is very active. I feel like protein is awesome in how it keeps you full and it's a necessary component of a healthy diet but unfortunately your body can't really pull immediate energy from meats when you do a ton of cardio.

Can't avoid carbs.

On Atkins your body is supposed to run on FAT, not on protein. FYI.

Your body burns fat regardless of whether or not you're on Atkins.

Yup. All that's needed to burn fat is a calorie deficit. The entire reason your body stores fat in the first place is to provide you energy to sustain your life in times of lower caloric intake.

The advantage of a keto diet is that for many people, it acts as a hunger suppressant. That's good, however for myself I didn't overeat because I was hungry. I was bored, stressed, sad, lazy, or more simply, I just enjoyed eating delicious food. It was more of a habit than a hunger thing but I tricked myself into thinking it was about hunger.

Change your habits and you change your life. That's what did it for me. Get out from behind the computer/TV/iPhone and live your life more actively. Find hobbies and activities that keep you moving about. Incorporate exercise into your life. Have goals and make plans to meet them and then get to work actually meeting them. Be that person who doesn't like sitting still. Instead of lounging around munching on low cal/carb snacks and counting the hours until your next real meal, go on a walk, rake some leaves, clean your gutters, fix the door on the shed, patch that hole in the wall, play with your kids, volunteer at an animal shelter. Taking a glance at the clock should make you say "Whoa! I better go eat something now" vs. "Damn, it's still 3 hours til dinner." Personally, I find that being active is a far far better "hunger" suppressant than any kind of diet, and I particularly don't care for diets that are all about big lists of "no" foods.

peter56765 wrote: »

The advantage of a keto diet is that for many people, it acts as a hunger suppressant.

For many others, it acts as an appetite accelerant. Low-carb world is full of horror stories of people who couldn't stop at a couple of slices of bacon and started to pack on even more pounds because they were eating above maintenance calories.

There is no One True Path to a caloric deficit.

The biggest problem is that most people confuse the Atkins diet with the Induction part of the Atkins diet The diet itself is sustainable - my opinion.

Dave198lbs wrote: »

Some people want to do a bit more than just lose weight. Some ALSO want to improve their health from a nutrition path.

True, but the lion's share of the health benefits come from the loss of weight (fat to be specific)...

Supplements during the instruction phase?

I don't recall that - but I did the induction phase well over 10 years ago. The first 3 days sucked, but it got better.

I had a rather funny experience in college while on the maintenance phase of the plan. My nutrition course happened and the professor was very anti Atkins. She felt very strongly that the plan in any phase deprived the body of key nutrients. Obviously I didn't agree, as it was my eating lifestyle that my whole family did, but she was a nutrition expert, so I did listen and respect her opinion.

The course went on and we had a project in which we had to track everything we ate in a data base and see how our eating styles rated to the nutritional requirements for our age, height, weight, etc. It was a month long project, I expected to see that my diet had detriments as she had firmly and repeatedly indicated how awful the Atkins plan was and how unhealthy it was.

At the end of the project, my macro nutrient intake was fine, I hit all the vitamins and minerals that the program said my body needed with no dangerous excesses noted. I hit the sugars and fat types within good ranges. My protein was higher than the necessary range, my fiber was consistently higher than the recommended range, and my overall carbohydrates were about 100 grams too low on a daily basis. My overall calorie intake was on target for maintenance.

The professor couldn't really believe it. She was still skeptical and didn't like the lifestyle, but could at least accept that it could be nutritionally valid if followed as designed.

So yes, it isn't for everyone, but some people don't like brussel sprouts, but it can be a healthy lifestyle if followed correctly. I read the books, the studies, and followed it methodically. I had never used a food scale or really looked at portion sizes until incorporating the plan into my life. Dr. Atkins strongly promoted proper portion size and recording everything.