Debunking the Atkins Diet
Losing it all with Carbohydrates.
Been really busy for a while, but now I’m back in action with some articles, and what better way to make a come-back than an article on the worst diet known to man – the Atkins Diet. Too bad Dr. Atkins is dead, because if he wasn’t, I’m sure there are plenty of athletes that would wanna lay a smack-down on his head. Why the hell is this country obsessed with the Atkins diet? I knew about this diet long before it became mainstream in America, and always asked myself who would be stupid enough to utilize a diet that makes you lose 80% water as a final result? I don’t even know what to say, because this is supposed to be professional writing, so I can’t write truly how I feel about these peeps that are all about the Atkins diet crap. That said, on with the facts.
We all know how the people at Better Body Journal feel about “diets,” so you can only imagine how strongly we are against the Atkins diet. For most people, the goal of the common diet is permanent weight loss, and our good doctor failed to take this important desire into consideration when he was seeing dollar signs in front of his eyes while designing the epidemic diet. It is true that for the extremely obese people, Atkins will reduce weight considerably in a short period of time because all of the water under your skin melts away due to the ketogenic state that your body is in. Lose all the weight you want fatty, but after your dieting time is done, you know as well as I do you’re going back to your previous lifestyle and your putting the weight back on double time. So not only are you still overweight, you just took a step backward by utilizing the Atkins diet.
Gaining It All Back, and More!
Studies all over the country have showed substantial weight loss during the diet followed by even greater significant weight gain once the diet was discontinued. This is very easily explained. Atkins, like any fad diet will work great wonders in the first few weeks or even months, but after results stop coming due to the lack of nutrition in the body. The body starts to repel the “diet” state your body is in, and results begin to plummet. The average person will take this as the diet doesn’t work and it is impossible for them to lose weight if this great diet doesn’t work so they might as well stop dieting.
In a nutshell, the Atkins diet puts your body in a state of ketogenesis (lack of carbohydrate nutrients) and all the weight you lose is caused from the ketones (bad acids) that are voided in your urine. Basically, every time you pee or take a crap, you lose about 50 or 100 calories, depending on your metabolism. How the hell is this considered a diet when all the weight lost is by going to the bathroom.
What if someone has bladder problems or digestive problems? Does that mean they don’t lose weight? EXACTLY! And even if they do lose weight, it’s still 80% water weight that your body puts on immediately after you go back to eating carbs. Not only that, but since you were off the carbs for so long, your body will kick into metabolic overdrive and you will absolutely binge on as many carbs as you can get your hands on to satiate those desires in the brain. Mind over matter people; mind over matter. Use self control, and better yet, don’t use Atkins. Anyhow, some more proof as to why every human should despise this pointless and disgusting diet.
Take about 15 minutes and search the net for Atkins and you’ll find hundreds and thousands of pages of information. Of course the bulk of the info is the shit that tells you how to do the diet and how it works. Fine! Fine if you’re using the diet for short term weight loss for competition and what have you. Delve further into the information and you will find scientific facts that either the results are preliminary, meaning that the base foundation of the diet is what makes you lose the weight (water weight), or that basically the diet needs further study, because every idiot that has tried this diet has either failed to lose the desired amount of weight or put on more weight after going back to carbs than before. I mean after all, you can’t go without carbs forever.
Atkins promises 4 pounds a week or 15 pounds in the first 2 weeks or some crazy claims like that. While these claims may sound true because some 300 pound lady loses 15 pounds in 2 weeks, it is more effective because people want to hear this kind of thing. I said it before and I’ll say it again “WATER WEIGHT!” Carbs are what fill your muscles with energy and life, and your body is 70% water, so what’s the first to go when you do any diet? Water. What’s the first to go when you deprive carbs? What the hell do you think? Most, if not all, low carb diets won’t keep the weight off for more than a year, but the average person will fall of the wagon LONG before that.
Another flaw of the diet is that the doctor states that calorie counting doesn’t matter and you can eat what you want that’s on the list of appropriate foods. (A list of foods you’re allowed and not allowed to eat? That’s the beginnings of a great diet people!) When you are eating a lot of meat you are eating a lot of fat, and fat makes you feel more full. As you continue along the diet, your metabolism and you will adapt to the calories and you will start to get hungrier, and with the thinking you can eat as many calories as you want! You will quickly find that you are losing energy, and gaining fat, not weight, just straight fat. That means you will maintain weight while losing muscle and gaining fat. That’s real attractive isn’t it?
Why You Need Carbohydrates
Carbohydrates. To those of us who know our shit, carbs are our bestest of friends. Who the hell came up with the idea that carbs make us fat? Sure when you eat spaghetti and waffles and bread and other carbs and sit on your ass all day, you’re gonna get fat. Don’t blame the carbs, blame your lazy ass. Because people are lazy, people like Dr. Atkins capitalize.
Since 95% of Americans believe carbs make you fat, this diet was a huge success. But you have to understand that if you eat anything at all and remain sedentary you’re going to get fat. It’s not very complicated to understand the logic. Your body needs all the macronutrients to be a naturally body weight with little fat. Depriving yourself of any of the macronutrients will only hurt you in the long run. Now, think for a minute. How do you get the pump and energy for your workouts? CARBS! Yay!
Workouts and general overall performance will be greatly affected when there is a deprivation of carbs and the body is in ketosis. Your body will take amino acids and convert them to glucose to provide your muscles and your brain with the proper things they need to function, and then your protein building cycles will be affected. Atkins will diminish muscle mass if used for more than 2 or 3 weeks.
So what do we have here? We have an article that proves that the only acceptable reason to use the Atkins diet is if you need to shed some weight 2 or 3 weeks prior to competition. If you’re fat and want to lose weight that stays off without affecting your performance or you body chemistry, stay away from the Atkins diet, or any other fad diet that resembles it.
March 12th, 2007 at 11:33 am
Professional writing? Try again, professor.
June 28th, 2007 at 7:20 am
I’d like to comment on the statement, “Your body will take amino acids and convert them to glucose to provide your muscles and your brain with the proper things they need to function…”.
It’s simply not true, and shows you do not understand how the body’s metabolism, on a low-sugar diet, switches into ketosis, or ‘fat-burning mode’, which is to say that your muscles (and especially the cardiac muscle) begin to PREFER fatty-acids as fuel. There are a couple places in the body where glucose is required and can’t make the switch - enter gluconeogenesis. You’re liver has no trouble producing enough glucose (from protein and fat) to sustain your bodily needs, without eating a single carbohydrate. Did you know a person with normal blood sugar, say 100mg/dl, has a total of ONE TEASPOON of serum glucose?
One of the biggest misnomers of the Atkins diet is that it’s “LowCarb” because it’s not. Fiber is super important to any human, and is NOT restricted (it’s encouraged) on the Atkins diet, however if you read a nutrition label it lumps the fiber count into the carbohydrate count. So people on Atkins are eating a lot of carbs, what they’re really doing is cutting out the sugar (i.e. the empty calories).
One final closing thought: Of the 3 major food categories - fat, protein, and carbohydrates - there is only 1 that is we can completely remove from our diet and not die. Can you guess which one?
August 22nd, 2007 at 9:42 pm
@ Fatty Beaubatty:
this site is meant to be laid back and straight to the point. i apologize if my “rough around the edges” writing offended you. i hope that doesnt deter you from the site.
@David:
thank you for your insight, but if i make a recommendation…. do some more research about the human body and how it works with certain diets. not saying your in the total wrong here, but you’re not in the total right, but thanks for your feedback.
August 22nd, 2007 at 9:44 pm
i should also add, all the articles i write for this site are intended for major athletes, so unfortunately, some things will be a little bit “different” in terms of info for the casual exerciser, or the major athlete who lives in the gym. i am not saying i know EVERYTHING about everything, but i write based on experiences of being an athlete. there’s my rant…
August 29th, 2007 at 7:08 pm
Francesco Oneal
it seems to me that alot of people on here are mis-informed. to lose weight, protien should be the staple of your diet. A proper macronutrient breakdown for your calories is the correct way to go about losing weight. basically, you want about 1-1.5gms …
September 20th, 2007 at 2:40 pm
I WILL say it - David is entirely wrong. To read a better synopsis that I can give, please visit AtkinsExposed.org
Basically, the body CAN use dietary protein for fuel, but it’s inefficient. It will cannibalize it’s own muscle as a quicker solution to produce the glucose absolutely required by your nervous system through the process known as gluconeogenesis before it will start the energy inefficient process of using dietary protein as fuel.
To say the body begins to “prefer ketosis” is like saying a formula 1 race car, if fueled with it long enough, will prefer 87% octain free gasoline from the Mini Mart pump to the specialty mix used in race cars. It simply isn’t true.
Protein catabolism and fat catabolism results in some very toxic waste products, like acetone and other ketone bodies. These by products are extremely toxic to your metabolism and will slow it down, not to mention what it does to your blood chemistry.
In order to excrete ketones through the urine, your body must first connect it with a substance that will neutralize it’s negative charge. In science speak - ketones are anionic and they must be paired with a cation or they will cause problems - like making your urin very acidic and causing kidney and bladder damage.
In order to do this, your body uses magnesium, potassium and calcium. It has to use a lot of these to neutralize what you are excreting. In doing this, your blood ph begins to go out of whack and get more acidic. As your blood pH falls, you begin to get in a danger zone where your cardiac function is in danger. If your blood pH falls TOO low, your heart stops.
Ketosis is NOT a good thing. It never has been and it is a situation to be avoided.
Frankly, Atkins was a hukster and charlatan who wrote a book that would ensure devotees would buy at least SOME of his coctail of 65 suppliments.
Stay far, far away from the low carb craze.
God Bless,
mik
December 27th, 2007 at 5:31 am
Hello, This is Mary
I am 36 years old with 2 toddlers. My youngest just started day care last week- which still feels a little strange. I haven’t had this much time to myself in years. First thing I want to do is lose the extra pounds I put on during the last pregnancy. One of the girls next door has suggested I join her walking group two days a week. After my first pregnancy I lost around 35 pounds using the Herbalife products, but when I called the man that sold them to me three years ago he told me this week he doesn’t sell them anymore. He told me to look on the internet. It’s disappointing because he was really nice and he called me regularly to make sure I was using their products correctly. It was nice to have someone checking in with me every week to see how I was and it kept me motivated.
I searched on the internet for someone that sells Herbalife in New Jersey. I found many websites but I don’t want
just to buy the products, I want to find someone trustworthy that sells the products so I can also meet them and get started again.
Could anybody here recommend someone in New Brunswick?
.
Thanks, Mary
February 6th, 2008 at 11:39 pm
I’ve been on the Atkins diet for almost 8 years, and I’ve lost slightly over 90 pounds. Do you really believe that I’ve lost 72 pounds of water??
If you reread your attack objectively, you should be able to see some of the flaws in it. I won’t address them all because it’s obvious that you don’t let your beliefs be interefered with by the facts.
Here are some facts. You can’t dispute them because they are my truth. They are what happened to me:
1) This is the easiest diet that I have ever been on. Do you think you can dispute that? Can you name a diet that I’ve ever been on that was easier? Prior to going on Atkins I tried numerous diets. I lost weight but always regained it. On other diets, I was always hungry and eventually couldn’t stand the hunger and started eating more and more until I regained all the weight that I had lost plus more. I even went through medically supervised diets, but I had the same results. I’ve never been hungry on the Atkins diet.
2) By any marker of health that you care to use, I’m the healthiest that I’ve ever been. When I was 21 years old (I’m 52 years old now) and only slightly overweight, my doctor was concerned about my cholesterol (230) and a few years later he became concerned about my blood pressure (140/90). When I was in my early 40s I was diagnosed as a diabetic. My initial HGbA1c was 12.7 and the best I could do, even taking medication was about 7.6. Now, thanks to the Atkins diet, my blood pressure is 105/65, my total cholesterol is 160 and my HGbA1c is 4.5. Do you know how good 4.5 is? It’s better than the average non-diabetic! It’s probably better than you!
3) I feel the best I have felt since I was in my early 20s. And I don’t feel like a prisoner of food. You can’t imagine what a relief that is.
One problem with your page about the diet is that it’s based on half-truths and totally out of context statements.
As an example of the bias in your writing, you mentioned that after stopping the Atkins diet, the lost weight would be regained. Well Hello! Have you heard of gravity? Please list for me the diets that you can stop and not regain the weight and some more to go along with it. I know right now that if I stopped the Atkins diet that I would regain this weight and probably some more as well. The difference is that I can stick to this diet for the rest of my life. I could never even stick to any other diet for a year. For those in the know, Atkins is considered truly a WOE or WOL (way of eating or way of life). You can stick to it.
Of course the Atkins diet is not for everyone, but for lots of people it works extremely well. Think of it like eyeglasses. Some people are farsighted, some people are nearsighted and some people need reading glasses. That’s the way it is with diets. Some people can stick to some types of diets better than others. The Atkins diet is extremely easy to stick to as long as you don’t feel a sense of entilement to your carbs. The Atkins diet is totally intolerant of cheating. If you cheat it won’t work, and you can’t stick with it. It usually takes just a week or two to overcome your carb craving. Some people have such a strong psychological attraction to carbs that they never stop thinking about them and they eventually start cheating on the diet and fail.
Another problem with your page is that words can cause real harm. Oh, I’m sure it’s fun to just go all out on a topic, but there are real people who might make a decision based on what they have read on your page. I’m sure that you feel that you’re right, but what if you’re not.
A person might have a heart attack, stroke, kidney failure, etc years earlier because they followed your advice. When you dispense health advice you have an obligation to fully understand the advice you give because it can have such a profound impact on people’s lives. I think the advice you give here about the Atkins diet is wrong, but right or wrong, it’s unbalanced. If you think about most things in the world, they have advantages and disadvantages. Did you really try to present this information in a balanced way? You should when you present health information. Any other approach is unethical. Which is what I think you are.
I have a friend who writes a computer blog and the info on it is very biased, but so what. That doesn’t affect people in a life and death way. I suggest that if you want to continue writing in such a lame way that you stick to topics that can’t cause so much harm to people.
February 17th, 2008 at 3:26 am
In reply to this body builder dork and his anti-’Atkins’ diet. Well fool, are you a cow?
Do you eat grains every day? Have you got 4 stomachs? Do you graze on cane sugar on top of it?
It’s not the ‘Atkins’ diet, it just a return to a proper diet. Humans aren’t meant to digest 90% of the ‘carbs’ they do. All Atkins did was point this out, publish it and spread the word.
Why don’t you go bench press until you tear a pec.
March 12th, 2008 at 9:21 am
nodoubt that diet systems have some benefits and also have some hurts;but what of them is greater than the other;benefits or hurts ;who can decide;is this need a questionnaire;and can we trust the results.
we are inneed to someone have the authority to avoid us the confusing of misleading information .
finally,i still doubt about diet systems and i advice my friends to keep away from it .
May 19th, 2008 at 4:09 pm
Wow so much confusion! I agree that Protein should be the staple in ones diet if they are trying to loose weight. Of course we need carbs but people eat way too many bad carbs and wonder why they are fat! I’m not a fan of diets but think South Beach Comes closest to what is proper eating. Its difficult to just change your eating habits but if your serious and want results..Just Do it.