What is the deal with the Atkins Diet program, is it any good ? The reason why Atkins Diet has become very popular among weight watchers is that it doesn’t promote weight loss by suppressing your hunger or by minimizing your food intake. In fact, it encourages high-protein, high fat, low carbohydrate diets that will teach the body to use the fat it has stored as energy. Although met by some criticisms at first because at that time, starvation was the main method in dieting. Dr. Atkins gained recognition, when successful weight watchers became living testimonials that his methods are indeed effective.
Through Atkins diet, the person who is trying to lose weight will be oriented about the basic facts about carbohydrates. That not all carbohydrate food groups are harmful; it is only a matter of distinguishing which of the carbohydrate food groups will have a negative effect on your body and which carbohydrate food group is considered as “low carb” and therefore helpful in maintaining the proper body weight.
Atkins Diet will require you to meet the two-week induction stage, wherein you are expected to cut down or eliminate the bad carbohydrates from your diet then gradually introduce the good carbs. This will involve counting every carbohydrate taken in and learning how to discern food labels for carbohydrates that contain hidden sugar.
The diet will also include leafy greens, eggs; seafood, cream, all cheese, and all meat, which makes the diet, look all the more promising.
Leafy green vegetables are quite easy to understand if included in this diet, but all meat seems like going against the healthy dieting principles. What could be the rationale behind this?
Meat is a good source of protein and protein can fill you up. This is based on the theory that the less hungry the person is the lesser tendency a person has, to crave for more foods. However, Atkins diet recommends not just any kind of meat. It should be grass-fed beef because it is rich in anti-inflammatory omega-3’s, has less inflammatory omega-6’s, and high in cancer fighting fat called CLA (conjugated linolenic acid). The latter is said to be great for reducing abdominal fat. Overall, Atkins diet and the food it includes are those that are rich in omega-3 fats.
In addition, Atkins diet has nothing against the intake of fats for as long one eats the right kind of fats. Food like eggs and butter has a healthy balance of omega-3’s and omega-6’s.
The most important thing about Atkins diet is to remember what you cannot have. These are caffeine, alcohol, milk, fruit; certain vegetables, bread, pasta and some condiments that contain sugar, e.g. ketchup. Most of these foods belong to the carbohydrate food group that does not promote ideal sugar absorption and distribution.
As in all weight loss programs, the individual must first get a clean bill of health from his physician to ensure that the methods use will not be in anyway detrimental to your health. You may have some health disorder issues and the doctor will have to evaluate the effects of the food in you.