Table of Contents
The Atkins plan allows you to eat foods that many dieters have only dreamed about. There are only a few restrictions and none of them is about the amount of food you eat but instead severely restricts the kinds of food allowed on your plate: no refined sugar, milk, white rice, or white flour.
On the other hand, food traditionally considered as rich in calories and fattening such as meat, eggs and cheese are allowed.
A person following this diet can consume almost everything that is based on pure proteins and fat, such as red meat, fish (including shellfish), fowl, and regular cheese. Everything can be cooked with butter, have mayonnaise, olive oil and other ingredients.
However, carbs are forbidden. They are restricted in the first two weeks, which translates to three cups of loosely packed salad or two cups of salad with two-thirds cup of certain cooked vegetables each day. Later, the carb allowance is increased in the form of fiber-rich foods, but you do not return to eating refined sugar, milk, white rice, white bread, white potatoes or pasta made of the dreaded white flour. Those remain on a lifelong list of forbidden pleasures. Exercise in all phases as part of a healthy lifestyle is now emphasized more than when the diet was first introduced.
Phases of the Atkins diet
Atkins diet has four main phases, during which the body’s metabolism is slowly adjusting to the new eating habits.
Induction
The Induction phase is the first, the most important and the most restrictive phase of the Atkins Nutritional Approach. Its role is to lead the body to the state of ketosis as quickly as possible. Carbohydrate intake is limited to 20 net grams per day. This could be very difficult to obtain, although the allowed foods include a liberal amount of most meats, a good bit of cheese and cream, two cups of salad, and one cup of other vegetables. Caffeine and alcoholic beverages are also not allowed. Most of the users report losses of up to 3 or 4 kg per week.
Ongoing weight loss
The Ongoing Weight Loss phase of Atkins is the part in which there is an increase in carbohydrate intake, but the goal is to remain at levels where weight loss occurs. The target daily carbohydrate intake increases each week by 5 grams. The Ongoing weight loss phase lasts until weight is within 4.5 kg of the target weight and then we move to the pre-maintenance phase.
Pre-maintenance
Carbohydrate intake is increased again, and the key goal in this phase is to find that critical carbohydrate level which represents the maximum number of carbohydrates a person can eat each day without gaining weight.
Lifetime maintenance
The last and the longest phase. This phase is intended to carry on the habits acquired in the previous phases, and avoid the common habits that people usually return to.
What do the experts say?
Critics say that Atkins meat-heavy, high-protein eating patterns could be linked to osteoporosis, heart disease, colon cancer, and renal disease. According to the great majority of experts and nutritionists, the Atkins theories remain unproven. They are concerned that a high-protein, high-fat diet can cause a host of problems, particularly for the large segment of the population that is at risk for heart disease. In addition, the plan doesn't include a high intake of fruits and vegetables, recommended by most nutrition experts because of the numerous documented health benefits from these foods. Two studies published in May 2003 in the New England Journal of Medicine showed that carbohydrate-restricted diet produced weight loss and improved lipid profiles compared to typical dieters who followed calorie-restricted, low-fat diets. The "good" cholesterol increased and triglycerides were lowered. The fact is that a diet high in fat is not healthy for your heart. Atkins food choices definitely do not reflect American Heart Association guidelines, which calls for a reduction of fat to 30 percent of total calories a day, mostly coming from the unsaturated fats. Another problem is that high protein diets stress the kidneys.