It'll work if you let it
Written: Aug 16 '00
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Will lose weight
Cons: Health? Long term difficulty
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| markpal's Full Review: Atkins Diet |
I have seen first hand the effectiveness of this diet when implemented properly. I have a co-worker who was about 50 pounds overweight. He is a very lazy individual where exercise to get in shape was out of the question. Naturally I was skeptical about him ever getting in shape. Well, 43 pounds later, I decided to find out for myself how it worked for him.
The Atkins diet will work if you do it properly. By work, I mean you will lose unwanted pounds while you are on the diet. Atkins himself says in the book, if you stray from the diet you will regain the weight quickly.
The gist of the program is that you eat all the protein and fat you want with extremely low to zero carbohydrates. How low in carbs? Well, you can't have a bun with your burger and even catsup on the burger can blow the diet. He even says as little as 3 grapes a day can blow it!
I feel this diet isn't too practical. Because you are eating such high fat foods, you must be extremely careful to avoid the carbs. The theory is that eating this way makes the body burn its stored fat as energy. Well, if you accidentally take in a few extra carbs in one day, all that excess fat you eat will be stored somehow, how do you think??
My advice is somewhat of a modified version of this diet. If you are very overweight, my advice is to do a sort of Atkins/The Zone diet. That is, I would limit my carbohydrate intake (maybe even dramatically less than the 40% The Zone dictates) for a while. I would eat high protein and higher fat, but not in the haphazard Atkins way. Instead of gorging on bacon and cheeseburgers, I would eat proteins such as chicken, fish, eggs, lean steak, etc. My fats would come from fats The Zone recommends, i.e. the unsaturated variety such as most nuts, guacamole, olives, etc.
One of my main concerns of the Atkins diet is all those saturated fats. Sure you might lose weight in the short term, but who knows how clogged your arteries might get in the long run.
So, if you have lost some weight on Atkins formula or my modified formula great. Now the hard part, which I don't think Atkins tackles enough, is keeping it off. This is where I would do basically a Zone diet. Some are more sensitive to carbs then others, so I would say the 40% The Zone recommends would be the upper limit. But do try to limit your carbs to sources such as fruit and vegetables for the most part. This way you also get your vitamins and nutrients, instead of having to use mega doses of supplements as Atkins says.
While I do think The Atkins system can work well IN THE SHORT TERM, I feel the Zone type diet is the best for the long run and to make your dietary way of life. I won't go more into that system as this is a review of Atkins way, but if you are interested, check my review of the Zone system also.
Recommended:
No
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Epinions.com ID:
markpal
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Location: Fremont, CA
Reviews written: 14
Trusted by: 0 members
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