Atkins Diet Review

The Atkins Diet is the world famous diet that went from fad to fab over the past twenty-something years.

The Atkins Diet -sometimes mistakenly spelled as Adkins Diet- is a long standing diet that has been around since the 1970’s. It didn’t reach its peak until many years later. Each year this diet has grown in popularity until 2004, when the diet industry became less enthousiastic about it. Just as thousands of new low carb products hit the shelf, and even entire low carb specialty stores, began to franchise across the country, the low carb trend took a serious turn for the worse. It wasn’t because the diet was bad, it was because the merchandising of hundreds of companies trying to get their piece of the billion dollar diet industry.

Atkins has some good low carb products, meant to be used in moderation. As soon they were introduced, thousands of other low carb diet products hit the shelves, and most of them either tasted bad, had gastrointestinal side effects, had too many calories, chemicals or trans-fats. Even with waning popularity, the low carb diet is still very widely used and successful, especially the Atkins Diet. And for those with Type II Diabetes it can be an actual cure for the ailment.

Unfortunately, the Atkins Diet has a tarnished reputation for being a fatty, artery clogging diet. The Atkins Camp is trying to change this reputation. The Atkins Nutritional Approach is their current motto. This certainly sounds more conservative than the Atkins Diet Revolution of the past. There are many myths about this plan, but we’re going to lay it out for you. The biggest misconception of the Atkins Diet is that it is an endless buffet of cheese, steaks and cream. That isn’t so. We’ll start with the first and most misunderstood phase of the diet: Induction.

Induction is a 2-week plan that gets your body into ketosis. Ketosis is a fat burning phase that your body goes through when it is depleted of ample carbohydrates. You’ll check your urine with dipsticks in order to measure ketones. You do need to eat plenty of fat during induction in order to get into ketosis. It is possible to lose a substantial amount of weight during Induction, so it is tempting to stretch this phase out for an extended period of time. You should avoid the temptation to stay on Induction for too long, and move along as the diet instructs. You’ll read more about that below. For now, you need to know that you are allowed 20 net carbs per day. A net carb is a whole carb gram, minus any fiber grams or sugar alcohol grams.

It is true that The Atkins Diet is a high fat plan, particularly during induction, but certain fats are indeed limited. With meat, fats are limited by default. Bacon, hot dogs, deli meat, etc are to be limited if they are cured with sugar (carbs) or nitrites (carcinogen). Cheese is limited to 3-4 ounces a day. There goes the all day bunless bacon cheeseburger myth. Trans fats are to be avoided and The Atkins Diet strongly recommends olive oil, foods containing Omega-3 oils, cold pressed oils, and butter instead of margarine. Fresh/whole meat is virtually unlmited, with the exception of organ meats, oysters and mussels.

The Atkins Diet isn’t all about meat and dairy. You are actually required to eat vegetables on this plan. For starters, it is recommended that you eat 3 cups of salad vegetables per day. This includes lettuce, cucumbers, peppers, celery, etc. This is loosely packed, however, so don’t push it. A cup of chopped cucumber isn’t equal to a packed cup of thinly sliced cucumber. You can also have a cup a day of other vegetables such as broccoli, squash, eggplant, tomatoes, etc. Vegetables should be measured raw. If you really want to be precise, get a digital food scale and weigh your food. You might be eating more or less than you think.

Spices are generally ok, but lemon juice and cream are only allowed in small amounts while in induction. The most important part of induction is reading labels. You have to watch for hidden sugars, and count your carbs very carefully. You will eat very little convenience foods, rather mostly whole foods, while in this phase. We strongly recommend using eDiets to help you with this phase. There will be days that you open the refrigerator and only see cheesesticks and boiled eggs. eDiets will tell you that you have Creamy Scrambled Eggs with Avocado and Turkey. You’ll never have refrigerator block again, and eDiets will do all the carb counting for you!

Ongoing Weight Loss
Once you’ve hit ketosis you can move along to the second phase of the Atkins Diet, called Ongoing Weight Loss (OWL).This basically follows the rules of ketosis, except you will increase your carbs slowly each week, in increments of 5 carbs a day, per week, until your weight loss slows, yet doesn’t stop. Although you are losing weight quickly with Induction, you need to move along and learn to eat carbs again. You can’t just start adding carbs, though. It is recommended that you add one type of food per week, such as vegetables, or berries.

You need to be cautious when adding foods back in so you will know which foods cause cravings, and which ones cause your weight loss to stall. Above all, avoid the naughty carbs like white flour and sugar. Again, eDiets will plan out meals for you and keep your food interesting. eDiets is Atkins approved, so you know you’ll get a correct menu.

Pre-Maintenance
Once you’ve come within 5-10 pounds of your goal then it is time for the third phase of the Atkins Diet, otherwise known as Pre Maintenance. You’ll do the same thing in this phase as you did in Phase 2, except that you will add 10 carbs per day instead of 5 carbs per day. You’ll be losing a goal of less than a pound a week, and this will continue until you slide into goal weight.
Alternatively, you can instead have a couple of treats each week that equal to your increase in carbs per week, rather than spread it out on a daily basis. A glass of wine, a starch, or a piece of fruit, are popular choices. Don’t forget – you are still on a diet, and you must be careful to not overdo it.

Atkins, Sample menu #1

Breakfast:
Turkey sausage
Avocado strips
Tomato slices

Snack:
Atkins breakfast bar

Lunch:
Turkey Burger with mozzarella cheese, avocado and tomato slices.

Dinner:
Salad with roast beef, tomatoes, cucumber and blue cheese dressing

Atkins, Sample menu #2

Breakfast:
Scrambled Eggs
Turkey Bacon

Snack:
Chocolate ready-to-drink shake

Lunch:
Grilled chicken Caesar salad

Dinner:
Sirloin steak with steamed broccoli

Maintenance, the final phase of the Atkins Diet, is basically the same principal, but for life. You need to add just enough carbs to stop losing weight, yet not regain the lost pounds. You’ll know how many carbs you can eat per day and not gain weight. For some people, this will be easy to calculate and maintenance will be easy. Many people will need to count their carbs for the rest of their life.

Stick with the basics, and Atkins Diet is a solid, easy to follow plan. The plan is low carb, and if one spends the entire diet looking for low carb substitutes, the outcome just won’t be the same. Low carb substitutes add calories, money, and sometimes cravings for the authentic foods that the diet counts as taboo. If you’re willing, this program can really melt the fat off quickly.

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