Anyone Else on the Atkin's Diet???????

[tkdcanada]

While I agree that you are technically right, we also need to remember that certain foods are burned off by the body more quickly and readily. Because carbohydrates are burned more slowly, it makes sense that a reduced carbohydrate diet would help you lose weight. You're right, there is no magic solution - just common sense. I consider myself somewhat of a carbohydrate junkie - they are my favourite foods, therefore I would never consider cutting them out completely - but I can live with limiting my portions of them. In the end, each person needs to find what's right for them. Adding exercise to the whole thing just compounds the benefits. And we can't forget water. Ensuring that your water intake is adequate in itself will help you lose weight since a dehydrated body will not work as efficiently and the metabolism will slow without enough water.

 

[TallAdam85]

this has realy nothing to do with the diet but I have been drinking V-8 splash and it is real goot it has Vitamisn A C E

 

[A.R.K.]

For health I would recommend hacres.com.

:asian:

 

[Kirk]

I was waiting to see if anyone else would post this, because I
can't remember which show it was on. But it was 20/20, 60
minutes or some similar show. Johns Hopkins was putting kids
on pretty much the Atkin's diet, when they had chronic epilepsy.
After being on the diet for ONE DAY ... the kids no longer needed
anti seizure medication. One child was on it, and at age 17 has
moved over to eating whatever he wants, and still doesn't have
seizures. I think it says a lot.

 

[Nightingale]

As a sidenote:

DOCTOR ATKINS HAD A HEART ATTACK A LITTLE OVER A YEAR AGO.


I tried his diet (by the book, exactly how he wrote it) about two years ago.

It made me feel sick.
I had no energy and felt terrible.

Called my doctor and asked her about it, and we did some math. What we discovered:

The Atkins diet is NOT MEANT for athletes. It is meant for the average person trying to lose weight without much exercise. The diet simply did not meet my caloric requirements, which explains the lack of energy. At the time, I was either in the gym or in the dojo six days a week for several hours a day. Calories are not bad things, they are what your body needs to continue to function.


What I did instead:

She told me that a somewhat simple (and by no means foolproof...this is a guide only) way to determine whether what you're eating is good for you is to look at it in the grocery store and ask "Aside from cutting, slicing, or picking, does it grow like this?"

There's no such thing as a bread three. No such thing as a chocolate chip cookie tree. No such thing as an Ice Cream tree... Don't eat it. Tin Can trees don't exist. Don't eat canned stuff.

If you avoid things that are processed, you avoid a lot of the carbs that atkins advises that you remove, along with a lot of processed fat and sugar.

Good stuff to eat:

Milk (looks pretty much like it does when it comes out of the cow)
Fruits and veggies (fresh only, not canned or frozen)
Nuts and Berries (fresh only, not roasted or salted)
Meat (the stuff from the butcher, not the stuff in a can)
Fish (see above...tuna in water is ok too, but not in oil)
Cheeses are ok too, but only if its real cheese, not a "processed cheese food"

Another good rule of thumb... read the ingredients... if there's something there the average person would have trouble pronouncing or identifying, don't eat it.

Since I do have a sweet tooth, I give myself one day per week to eat whatever I please, diet be damned. Everyone can be good sometimes, nobody can be good all the time. It makes it easier to turn down sweets when I can say "I'll eat them on Sunday" so I have five cookies on sunday instead of three every single day.



Talk to your doctor and figure out the weight loss plan that's right for you. Ask for a referral to a nutritionist. They really do help.

Best of luck!

-N-

 

[Kirk]

Dr Atkin's heart attack was genetically related, not as a result of
his own personal health.

I agree with your picking/slicing thing .. there's a book called "The
Caveman Diet" that follows that way of thinking.

I also agree that it's not for an active person athletic person, but
in the book I read, Dr Atkins covered that (you DO eat carbs
before a workout, it's controlled, and much more detailed than
my simple statement.

 

[deadhand31]

I've done alot of reading into the high-carb/low carb debate, and I've found a few things out. First off, we are carb-burners. Our body is designed to use carbs first before anything else. Second, there are good carbs and bad carbs. The carbs we want to stay away from are refined carbs. These are found in sugar, white flour, white rice. Complex carbohydrates are alot better for you. Your body works a little bit harder to process them, which means you're given alot more time to burn them off before they're stored as fat. Refined carbs will go right into fat if you don't hurry up and burn them off, since they've already been broken down a bit and your body is able to quickly sponge them up. I've found that the best way to lose weight is to not eat anything white (with the exception of milk, fish and yogurt). Finally, as with carbs, there are good fats, and bad fats. The good fats can be found in olive and flax seed oils. Most animal products contain the fats that are bad for you.

Basically, what it boils down to, is use your brain. Cut down on the McDonald's and Taco Bell, and you won't have to lose weight in the first place.

 

[angrywhitepajamas]

It wasn't atkins that was used origionally for epilepsy. I believe that it was called the kitagenic diet, and consisted of high fat content foods rather than high protien.

 

[TonyM.]

Bingo! High fat, not high protien. Preferably high quality dietary fats such as essential fatty acids. Been doing a maintenance version of the adkins for over nine years. Dr. Adkins originally prescribed his diet for hyperactive children to stabilize the mood swings. The human body reconizes two fuels, carbs and fat. It will always burn the lighter fuel (carbs) first if they are present. I liken it to priming an oil stove with kerosene. Changed my eating schedule to resemble the warrior diet and have been maintaining the same weight for eight years.
P.S. Doesn't work if you cheat.

 

[KenpoDave]

Just make sure you do the whole Atkin's Diet. The "all fat" part of the diet is only for the first two weeks to get rid of the carb addiction most people have. After that, some carbs are added slowly until balance is reached. Also, the diet suggests using leaner meats such as chicken and turkey later in the diet. That first two weeks is what everyone thinks they know, but it is only the beginning.

 

[vincefuess]

It's common sense, really. What kind of teeth do you have? Molars for grinding vegetative, fibrous matter or serrated blades like a shark?

As one who suffers from gout and HAS to limit my protein intake to avoid excessive uric acid levels in my blood (due directly to protein synthesis) or risk horrifically painful joint inflammation and breakdown, I can tell you firsthand that the Atkins diet will harm you more than a few extra pounds will. Funny how all the "fiber-fiber-get more fiber" diet wonks have followed the shepherd named Atkins all of a sudden. I guess Metamucil is loving it, since it has to come from somewhere.

 

[7starmantis]

I'm on my own diet, that my partner (nutritionalist) and myself created, but it is much like the atkins diet. I'm doing it simply to cut down on body fat percentage. I'm not over weight at all, but I do want to drop % so we created this diet. The atkins diet is not so bad, it is a little too low carb for an extremely active person however. We modified it and I have droped quite a bit of body fat % and feel great.
You do have to go through a stage of feeling a little low power, but that is only for a few weeks. I do however keep an extremely watchful eye on my ketone levels and such, so it is something that needs to be watched.

7sm

 

[hardheadjarhead]

High fat foods do in fact contribute to obesity...if combined with carbohydrate.

Atkins pointed out before he died that the high fat diet studies also had significant amounts of carbs. When the carbs are eliminated, blood lipid profiles become favorable, insulin levels drop.

I know a cardiologist and an anethesiologist who are both on it, and swear by it and promote it as safe. Of course, one can find another two doctors who will malign it.

Somebody here mentioned that if it couldn't be safe for a person to eat twenty pounds of bacon a day. I don't think Atkins would have advocated that kind of salt intake. I don't know too many people who could eat that amount of ANY kind of food.

Something else...Atkins did in fact advocate carb intake...in the form of vegetables. I heard him say that twice on Larry King. He called for an elimination of bread and starches like potatos. Given that, it isn't too different from The Zone diet or the Paleolithic diet or what have you.

Some people (like the person here with gout) won't do well with it. Some won't do well with a high vegetable/fiber low protein diet that includes whole grains. What's wrong with experimenting to find out what works the best? AND in conjunction with that, having blood tests to find out how your insulin, urea levels and lipids respond to the diet...



Regards,


Steve

 

[edhead2000]

For those of you who have PERSONALLY used the Atkin's diet, I have a few questions for you.

1. How long have you been doing Atkin's and how much weight have you lost?

2. If you're still on Atkin's, what phase are you in and how are you maintaining your weight loss?

3. If you're not still on Atkin's, why did you quit, and have you kept the weight off?

Thanks!

 

[TonyM.]

I think Steve has caught the correct. As did Kempo12 earlier.
Edhead2000. I started the Adkins diet nearly ten years ago when I broke my back in two places and the Chiropractor told me to lose twenty pounds. My exercise regiment at the time was 30-45 mins. a day. I increased this to 2-3 hours and lost 10lbs. in a year. The last ten lbs. went in three and a half weeks on the adkins diet. I followed it verbatim through all the phases until I hit maintenance. Went about eight pounds too far in weight loss, (in retrospect I should have shortened the phases as I have a fast metablism), gained that back in muscle weight. Now my exercise training regiment is 3-5 hrs a day (mostly still static stance training) and my diet is something like the maintenance phase of Atkins with some modifications. The biggest modification was identifying my Dosha in Ayurvedic Medicine and mostly sticking with the food products recommended for my body type(Dosha). Next was modifying my eating schedule to something like the Warrior diets.

 

[Raewyn]

I tried the Atkins dies for 1 month. The first two weeks was hard as you were not aloud any carb intake or as low as possible. I lost 4 kg over that two week period. I slowly added slightly more carbs after that two weeks, but I gave up in the end as I found the diet boring and I like my sugar fixes and being a martial artist I keep the weight off any way. I just though I would try it to see if it would work. My energy was fine.

 

[TigerWoman]

No, because I didn't think all that meat would be so good...too much fat and too much cholesterol. So I went on the South Beach Diet. Chicken breast, fish, low fat steak, shrimp-- in portions. Breakfasts are eggs w/mushrooms low fat cheese or veggies, low carb cereal, low carb pancakes. No juice but fruit is added in after the first two weeks. Lunch is salads or low carb sandwiches, soup. Dinners are usually meat and lots of vegetables like squash, asparagus, onion & red peppers, baked tomatoes, stir fry. No potatoes, rice, pasta. But coucous, pilaf sometimes or bulgar wheat. After the first two weeks it works pretty good for energy.

When in the second week, the bottom drops out and you have to take it easy on the exercise. I didn't get dizzy doing TKD but definitely something was not right - low on energy. But I lost about 8 lbs. the first two weeks. In my opinion, its a much better and lifelong "diet" to go by. It allows desserts too and if you are bad like vacations -there are fall back positions. I like the new cookbook too - it makes it alot more varied. I lost 30 lbs. and have kept in off for nearly a year now. TW

 

[Firona]

I am not sure if anyone has said anything about this yet because i didn't have time to read all the posts on this topic but research shows that cutting carbs from the diet can lead to memory loss and slower nerve reactions. Personally I wouldn't want my reaction time or my ability to remember things to be messed with as a martial artist, however slight I believe these things to be. In any case it's the discision of the person, if it truly works for you go for it but if after a month you don't see good results I would say steer clear of this one.

 

[TigerWoman]

Firona,
I hadn't heard anything about that. Can you post a reference to that factoid? (My brain cells are intact) My diet is not no carb but better carbs and sufficient carbs. TW

 

[Feisty Mouse]

I have not been on Atkins. I already know about my own system that I put on weight the more fat I take in in my diet. If I am on a low-fat diet, I do much better.

Of all the people I have met who have been on the Atkin's diet, the people who it seems to have worked best for are men in their middle age region - men who are 40, 50, 60. The women around my age (mid to late 20's, early 30's) who have tried it have had nil to limited success with it. Anecdotal evidence, but there nonetheless.
I am not crazy about the idea behind the diet. But that is, in part, due to my own metabolism and physiology.