Posted on 11/18/2002 5:32:27 PM PST by Paradox
Nov. 18 — Multitudes swear by the high-fat, low-carbohydrate Atkins diet, and now a carefully controlled study backs them up: Low-carb may actually take off more weight than low-fat and may be surprisingly better for cholesterol, too.
...
Westman studied 120 overweight volunteers, who were randomly assigned to the Atkins diet or the heart association’s Step 1 diet, a widely used low-fat approach. On the Atkins diet, people limited their carbs to less than 20 grams a day, and 60 percent of their calories came from fat. “It was high fat, off the scale,” he said.
After six months, the people on the Atkins diet had lost 31 pounds, compared with 20 pounds on the AHA diet, and more people stuck with the Atkins regimen.
Utter BS
Dr. Atkins is alive and 71 years old.
I wonder how many people confuse Dr. Atkins with Nathan Pritikin? Polar opposite approaches to diet yet both fabulously famous in turns.
While today's accepted government-approved diet mirrors Pritikin's advice, it is wise to note that Pritikin suffered from end-stage leukemia and took his own life before attaining his "Three-score and ten," while indeed Atkins still lives.
Moreover, Pritikin was not a medical doctor nor was he a college graduate (for whatever that is worth).
Only in America are people obsessed with what they will eat rather than whether they will eat.
In 1987 Consumers Report did a study on breakfast cereals using lab rats; only the rats fed lab food and Cheerios prospered, the rest either died prematurely or failed to reproduce normally; oats and water did the trick for rodents, in California condors are fed half-rotten meat and do quite nicely unless they get too close to rain gauges.
My experience with a low-carb diet left me hungry and I lost weight.
Still not quite true. In my case I had several weeks where I would lose 6-8 pounds in 7 days (OTOH, I had several weeks where I would not lose an once - da&n plateaus!). If a pound of fat contains 3,500 calories, and I consumed ~1600 cal/day, then in those weeks I "burned" about 5,100 cal/day. That's not possible. What I was really doing was excreting unmetabolized ketone fragments without oxidizing them first (Atkins can be hard on your kidneys. Drink ALOT of water on it to keep them flushed). Your body is not a simple calorimeter. The calorie myth (in must equal out as energy equivilents) is one of the most pervasive nonsequitors out there about dieting.
There are a lot of benefits to adjusting your diet to include predominately vegetarian foods. It does help in weight management. It also helps with digestion, intestinal flora, vitamin/mineral balance, etc., etc.
I try to eat a good variety of foods, both meats and vegetables.
Atkins died from a cardiac viral inflammation, not a myocarial infarction. Find another doctor.
Spoken like a true ignoramous.
Last I heard, Atkins survived the viral attack and he is still alive and living in New York.
But you can definately be a FAT vegiterian, if you're not careful...
Anyone ever wonder why ALL the largest creatures that ever lived on earth are all 100% vegiterians? Brachiosarous, elphants, hippos, cape buffalo, giraffes, horses, bison, etc...
T-Rex was a big guy, but the plant-eating dinosaurs that were his contemporaries were MUCH larger...
Also notice that the closer a land-animal is to being 100% carnivore, that they are actually quite thin & sleek? Cats are about about the closest to a 100% meat eater, yet I've never seen a wild cat of any species that was anything but lean & mean...
Hemorroids happen to some people NOT on the Atkins Diet....
There is one thing you are overlooking. That is that most fat comes as a by-product of the Krebs cycle which requires INSULIN. The amount of insulin your body secretes is determined by the amount of carbohydrates you injest! Basically, carbohydrates are converted by insulin in the Krebs cycle to glycogen to power the cells... but excess glycogen that is NOT used is then converted to FAT... human fat. When dietary fat is used instead of dietary carbs to power the body in Ketosis, insulin is not produced in quantity. Without the carbohydrates, the body does not produce anywhere near the amount of insulin and the excess dietary FAT is excreted instead of converted to human fat.
This means that if you injest 3000 calories of carbohydrates, you better be prepared to burn 3000 calories or the excess will be turned to fat. However, if you injest 3000 calories of dietary fat, it is not necessarily required to burn 3000 calories to avoid converting it to human fat... because the Krebs cycle is missing or minimal.
If you've read the Atkins book, you know that he does not leave these out. He absolutely recommends supplements of this type and many others. I bought his EFA supplement and the multivitamin.
Mostly it was her hair and skin which looked bad.
The amount of EFAs that Dr. Atkins recommends is woefully inadequate for our bodies needs, and the products he sells uses oils that have been processed, completely negating any benefits that you could have gotten from them.
His EFA products, just like most oil supplements on the market, are in capsule/softgel form and are measured in milligrams. Our bodies need approximately 30-45 GRAMS per day of unrefined/unprocessed EFAs.
The oils in capsule/softgel form (especially if they contain fish oils, as Atkins' products do) are usually deodorized and/or processed. This means the product has already become rancid/damaged before leaving the manufacturer and as such is no longer useful for a health supplement. By altering the oils further, as the refining processes do, the oils become detrimental to your health. Luckily, softgel/capsule oil supplements are in such small quantities, it's harmful effects are minimal.
The beneficial EFA oil supplements are those that are pressed under protection from heat, light, and oxygen; packaged in tightly sealed brown glass bottles; placed in a light-excluding box; and stored in refridgeration. If you truly want the benefits of EFAs, you absolutely must consume them in sufficient quantities necessary for our bodies. The necessary amount per day is approximately 15 Grams for every 50 lbs of bodyweight. Therefore, a 150 lb person would need to take 3 Tbsp of EFAs per day (at a ratio of 2:1 of Omega 3 to Omega 6).
That's not true. Once you get past phase 1, you gradually bring back the carbs that you miss the most. GRADUALLY, like 5 grams a day for a week. After a while you can bring back your beer. I know, because I did it.
I got to the point that I could have 12 beers a night if I wanted to. (I kept my beer drinking to just the weekends when going out with my friends). I would have a steak before going out with my friends. I would still lose on average about 3 pounds per weekend.
In total, I lost 60 pounds in 3 months, and 105 pounds in less than a year, and kept it off for 12 years.
That is what is nice about the Atkins diet, you can taylor it to your own food wants. But you have to be aware that alcohol, sugars and starches will slow down the process.
But, it does work!
You got it! 1.2 grams of carbs per bottle/can.
you will gain weight back after going off any diet if you return to a junk food diet, full of starches and sugars.
Might surprise you but, I worked with body builders that used the Atkins diet, the only time they ate pasta/starch was JUST before a contest. To puff up the muscles. Afterwards, they went right back to the Atkins diet.
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