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The Mysterious Atkins Diet
The Atkins Diet is also known as the “low carb diet.” The reason for this title is simple. Dr. Atkins revolutionized dieting as we know it. When he developed the Atkins diet, he turned the diet world upside down by proving that high fat and low carbohydrate intake makes for a very successful weight loss program.
Dr. Atkins’ Theory of Diet
Previous to Dr. Atkins’ theory all diets were about eating the least amount of fat as possible, while maintaining minimal intake of just about everything else. This was the era of “low fat.” Of course low fat meant more sugar. Most all products for dieting were either low in fat and high in sugar content or low in sugar and high in fat content.
The theories at the time were that if you took in lots of fat in your food, you’d just start storing what you didn’t “burn off” and that was why you accumulated all the fat on your body. It sounded logical at the time.
Dr. Atkins came along and with some even more logical research discovered that it is not the fats in food that are causing the build up of fat in the body but rather the carbohydrates.
This did not make a lot of sense to the more traditional scholars and without actually studying his theories, they just lambasted and ridiculed him incessantly. However, Dr. Atkins knew that his theory was sound and he stuck by his guns.
Here’s the gist of the Dr. Atkins diet theory: there are two main hormones that the body uses to control the amount of the accumulation of fat. Those two hormones are insulin and glucagon.
When fat is consumed, it is not immediately stored away as was the previous theory. It is actually turned into a carbohydrate and then is either burned off by the body in the metabolic process and if not burned off it is stored for use at another time. The hormone that causes this storing process to take place is insulin.
Where Does Insulin Figure In the Atkins Diet?
We all know about insulin or lack of insulin in diabetes, however, insulin has several uses in the body. One of those uses is to cause unused molecules of carbohydrates to be stored away in the body to be used at another time. Insulin is very good at this process and readily stores carbs away. The problem is that continued consumption of carbohydrate products causes the body to be saturated in insulin. This is known as “hyperinsulinemia” (hi-pur-in-suh-lin-ee-mi-uh). When this occurs, the body is constantly storing fat away all over the place. Thus, your body looks and feels fat. The more carbs you eat, the more fat is stored away.
However, there is another hormone that works in the opposite way. The hormone glucagon (gloo-ka-gawn), when released, causes the body to actually “break down” excess fat into carbohydrates so that they are either used up or excreted as waste. The less carbs you consume, the more glucagon is released and the more fat is burned up or excreted. Nice, huh?
Glucagon In Action
Now that you know about the two hormones and how they work let’s further explain Dr. Atkins and his diet.
Bringing All Those Low Carbohydrates Together
You see Dr. Atkins discovered that if one takes the sugars or carbohydrates out of the picture, the body is actually forced to convert the fat into carbohydrates for energy because there are none coming in to replace the ones already burnt. When there are no carbohydrates coming in to be burned for energy the ones that are already stored as fat are broken down so that the body has a source for energy. The body must have energy to work. Some of that broken down stored fat is actually excreted in urine and feces.
So, if you are not eating excessive amounts of carbohydrates the body actually has no reason to store the fat that you’re eating. Therefore, it uses the nutrients from the fat, passes the fat on through to excretion and breaks down the stored fat for energy. When the stored fat in your body is used up over and over, you start losing weight and best of all, inches.
So, Dr. Atkins and his diet have proven to be highly effective as a diet. The nice thing is, the diet is fairly rapid and the lust for food is actually significantly diminished.
So, in summary, if the body burns all of the consumed carbohydrates for energy and there are very few of them, it turns to the stored fat and begins to use it for energy thus breaking down all that fat around your gut, your butt and your thighs.
The thing about the Atkins diet is this: you have to severely limit any carbohydrate intake. If you continue to eat sugars and carbohydrates, the process cannot work so you must have a certain amount of discipline in order to have success with this diet. You also must drink large amounts of water regularly in order to keep the kidneys from stopping up with all the fat they are trying to excrete.
As Dr. Atkins himself said, (paraphrashed)”this is not just a diet, it’s a lifestyle change.” And that is the truth. You do lose significant amounts of weight and inches but if you start eating sweets and carbs again, you’ll gain it all back very quickly.
The distinct advantages of the Atkins diet are that you can eat as much fat and protein as you want. Where you have been told for years not to eat high fat foods, with the Atkins diet you can eat plenty. You can eat lots of meat, eggs and cheese. You can’t eat cookies, candy, cake, bread or potato chips. Some people cannot tolerate life without some of those carbs. If this is you, don’t even attempt to use the Atkins diet or you are just setting yourself up for failure.