Introduction to Atkins Diet

What is Atkins Diet? (Quoted from Redlass from www.epinions.com)

Most everyone has heard at least something about this extremely popular diet. What is most commonly heard is that you can eat all the meat you want, but no bread or potatoes. That’s an oversimplification, but not far from the truth.

The first two weeks of the diet are called the “induction diet.” It is an extremely important part of the diet and should be followed to the letter. It is during these two weeks that your body will start to break your addiction to complex carbohydrates and in which you will learn more about your body’s metabolism.

During the induction diet, you are allowed no more than 20 carbohydrates per day. None of those carbohydrates can come from sugar. Typically, you’ll have a small salad or a vegetable side dish. You can eat as much meat, cheese, or cream as you like. Indeed, the higher your fat ratio to carbohydrates during this week, the more successful the diet will be. I was never able to bring myself to drink cream as my husband did. I drank skim milk instead. It was one of my ways of “cheating.”

After the first two weeks, you can slowly increase the amount of carbohydrates you consume until you reach the point that you are no longer losing weight or you fall out of ketosis.

If you’re going to go on the diet, DO do these things:

The Atkins diet can be a dangerous diet. It is why so many doctors advise against it. If it is not done correctly, it is very easy to get sick or to cause damage to your body. That is why it is essential to follow certain tenets of the diet, starting with this first one:

1. READ THE ENTIRE BOOK FIRST. Sorry for shouting. This is extremely important, though. Do not decide that you know what the diet is simply from talking to other people who are on it or reading any review here at the site. Read the entire book. Read it again. Keep it on hand as a reference book throughout the diet. Understand how the diet works and the affect it can have on your body. Understand how it interacts with other medicines, diseases, etc.

2. Take vitamins. Dr. Atkins is very clear that this diet is an unbalanced diet. He points out that the reason most of us are overweight is because we’ve been eating an unbalanced diet all along. Suddenly putting it into balance isn’t going to undo the years of damage. Instead, he unbalances it in a different direction for the duration of the diet. However, our body still needs certain nutrients. This is where the vitamins come in. Also, some of the vitamins he recommends will help your metabolism adjust to the diet. At the time we were on this diet, we didn’t have access to the vitamins Atkins produces. So instead, we took the list from his book and went to our local GNP store. We were able to figure out which vitamins we needed and simply kept ourselves well-stocked.

3. Eat a lot. If you let yourself get hungry, you’re going to be more inclined to cheat. Also, your body needs energy while you are on this diet. Keep the food coming, just make sure it is the right food. Also, this keeps you from feeling deprived.

4. Drink a lot. At least, drink a lot of water. For some people there is a danger of liver damage on this diet; drinking water can help mitigate that risk. Of course, drinking a lot of water is important for the health of any person—whether dieting or no.

5. Find foods that match your eating habits. If you like gourmet foods, there are plenty of tempting meat dishes you can make. For me, I needed to find foods that I could eat as finger-food snacks. For six months, I was never without a chicken. Everyday must have chicken.

6. Take the urine tests as directed(to check on your ketosis). It is one way to evaluate whether the diet is still working for you. Indeed, it will often be a better indicator than your scale, as weight can fluctuate during a week.


The lists of DON’Ts

I won’t list the foods that you shouldn’t eat. You need to read the book and I don’t want to give you any excuse not to. Besides, you will have to determine what carbohydrate level you can tolerate. It was certainly different each and every one of us.

I will, however, tell you some things that you definitely shouldn’t do.

1. Don’t cheat on the big things. In order for the diet to be successful, you need to break the carbohydrate habit. Allowing yourself to sneak in chocolate bars or a can of Mountain Dew will only make the diet harder. There are ways that you can “cheat,” indulging yourself to make the diet a little easier. I cheated by drinking diet coke rather than real coke. I would sometimes have sauces that had a little bit of sugar (preferably fructose) or I would have an extra piece of fruit during a week. I also disregarded the admonition to avoid all foods with preservatives. He says in his book that his prohibition against pre-prepared and preservative-laded food is one of general health, not one related to the success of the diet. So we had preservatives. Other people we know kept caffeine in their diet. I wasn’t big caffeine drinkers anyway, so that was an easy one to give up even thou i still have once or twice a week.

2. Don’t be on the diet if you are pregnant or trying to get pregnant. Please.

3. Don’t do the diet alone unless you live alone and always eat alone. It really is easier if you can get everything out of the house that is forbidden and you can prepare meals that are specific to your diet. While I wouldn’t recommend the diet to children, you can still cook for the diet with children in the house. You simply give the children more vegetables and fruits than what you can normally eat. It certainly won’t hurt any child to remove the sugar from the house. You may also still wish to have bread or rolls that you serve to non-dieters. However, do at least have a dieting partner that you can report results to, compare progress, and discuss recipes. For a while, the diet can become an obsession and you’ll want to talk about it a lot.

4. Don’t be shy about what you can eat. Don’t be afraid to tell the restaurant server that you want your hamburger without a bun or your steak without a baked potato. I certainly believe in being gracious when a guest in someone’s home, but often a quiet word about the foods you can eat will be appreciated by your host and help you stay on your diet.

5. Don’t focus on what you can’t have. This is a diet of abundance. Don’t let yourself focus on what you can’t have. Focus on what you can have and what you can eat.

Do the research

The Atkins diet has achieved enormous popularity because it does work. It has also achieved enormous notoriety because of its health risks. Let me repeat what I said above: Read the entire book. But don’t stop there. Read what other people have to say about the Atkins diet. Read reviews at medical sites, talk to your health professionals. Have plenty of information both about the diet and your personal health risks.

If you decide to go on it, congratulations and good luck! Enjoy watching the pounds melt away.