Primal-Lioness

Every single one of you are WRONG, WRONG AND VERY INCORRECT.

There is nothing unhealthy about the 4 Phases of Atkins. It is not a NO carb diet. It is a controlled carb way of life.

The way Atkins was orginally intended (before Dr Atkins passed away) was with the consumption of WHOLE and ORGANIC foods. Pick up the 2002 edition of the book and read it. You will find how much you are all wrong with the myths and lies you are spouting here.

Phase 1 - Takes out all carbs, except for a long list of Vegetables and Protein. You eat 20 grams of carbs in the form of Vegetables. This is done to rid your body of cravings for sugars and starches.

Phase 2 - This is where you start adding in more veggies higher in carbs and start adding in fruits, grains, beans, legumes, dairy and alcohol according to the Carb ladder (which is based on the glycemic index). You add in 1 category of foods at a time to check to see if you have any food intolerances.

Phase 3 - Pre-maintenance. You find the MAXIMUM carb count your body can handle and weight loss slows down so you can start learning to maintain.

Phase 4 - Lifetime Maintenance.............


Before you come on a public weight loss forum with the myths and lies about any eating plan. DO THE RESEARCH - READ THE BOOK FOR YOURSELF.

I can't stand media tail gaters.

Pixie5477

Wow... I should probably keep my mouth shut, but I think everyone is being a little harsh on littlegreenone... First of all, I was on the carb diet for 9 months and it affected my memory and learning processes for a long time after I quit. I'm not saying that would happen to everyone, but it happened to me.

Secondly, I believe that each person has different nutrition and diet needs. There is not one single way to do this correctly. We have to follow our instincts, see what works best with our OWN body.

Third... This is simply a forum. Ideas are shared and each and every individual has the responsibility to interpret what they read and reasearch the facts. Never believe everything you read. That's ridiculous. Especially when it comes to your own body. Everyone is different.

Personally, I have enjoyed hearing different viewpoints and suggestions. I do my research ane experiment to see what works for me. In the end, my diet / lifestyle is a mix and match of many different suggestions and ideas.

davej323

I see a couple of people have already straightened out the fact from fiction so I will spare you the repetition and chastising, but I encourage you to do a google search for "inuit diet." These artic natives have been living for hundreds of years on a diet built exclusively on fat and protein. Also be aware of the fact that ketogenic diets are used to treat childhood epilepsy, and these children stay on such a diet for long periods of time with no ill side effects. Finally, Dr. Atkins did not die from a heart attack. He died from complications related to a head injury after a fall that put him in a coma. There is evidence that he had heart complications at one point in his life, but that was reportedly a heart infection that had nothing to do with his diet. Critics of his diet like to point out that he was 258 pounds at the time of death, but much of this weight came from organ failure and bloating during his coma. He was 195 pounds when he was first admitted to the hospital after his fall. If you do the research, you will also find that much of the negative publicity about the Atkins diet comes from an organization called "Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine," a group backed and funded by PETA. Some of the other doubt comes from the dietician community, who typically use USDA recommendations as the basis for their dietary advice. The USDA is the government organization that was created to give government representation to farmers. Wheat, corn, rice, and soy are the biggest crops in the US, so it's no surprise that they have a problem with a diet that advocates carb restriction. It's unfortunate but true that political influences have given a negative connotation to this otherwise healthy diet.

I would also like to add that, while there are plenty of Atkins brand products available, the book does not suggest or even recommend that they be purchased. They are designed as convenience products meant to be used infrequently in a diet made largely from fresh, whole, natural foods. In one version of the book, Dr. Atkins even gives the ingredients of his multivitamin so that readers can get the ingredients of that vitamin from other sources (I found that GNC Men's Mega was very close in most of the ingredients and much cheaper). I don't use any of the Atkins brand products and the diet is working wonderfully for me.

Dave
__________________________________________________
stats, inspired by Ron

Male, 6'0" tall, 37 y/o

Starting weight, 4/19/10 (started Atkins) = 287
6/16/10 (finished Atkins book & joined Fitday) = 261
latest weight 7/21/10 = 248.5
mini goal (wedding) 9/4/10 = 235
ultimate goal for lifetime maintenance by 4/19/11 (one year mark, 100 pounds loss) = 187
This will be my lightest weight since high school!

135for35

Humans are omnivore., We're designed to basically be able to eat whatever food is available to us and survive off it. If from this point on all we could ever eat was meat we would live fine off it. The same goes for grain foods or just fruits and vegetables If that's all we had available to us to eat we would live fine off it as well.


now as for atkins when you're beyond the first two weeks of induction it's the same as just about any other diet out there. It's a balance of natural and healthy whole foods with minimal refined sugars and processed foods.

SailorDoom

I agree with Pixie, specifically on point #3. I'm not really into some of the negative and emotionally-charged comments I've seen on the forums in general lately. Getting upset and informing someone of their "complete lack of ignorance" [sic] is not progressing the conversation, nor is it informative for those of us stumbling upon a particular thread for the first time. A single person's experience does not translate to all those who utilize these forums and voicing an opinion respectfully and calmly certainly does no one harm. There are many ways to lose weight, get healthy, and -- most importantly! -- feel good.

Incidentally, I happen to be an archaeologist specializing in paleolithic arctic cultures and from that bias/perspective I would advise skepticism toward the so-called Paleo Diet/Primal Blueprint as it is "packaged". Before you jump all over me, all I mean by this is that these diets, as products, are not what they claim to be -- Grok (i.e. paleolithic humans) gained nourishment, sometimes incomplete, from an unbelievably wide variety of food sources and many of the macronutrient percentages given in the variations of this diet are not always what a "standard" (if there were such a thing) hunter-gatherer would consume. If I had to generalize, most paleolithic peoples partook in a seasonal round, a "migration" of sometimes extraordinary scale, in order to exploit resources available at different times of the year. This is especially true of arctic peoples, as seasonal resource availability so pronounced. The misconception that arctic peoples subsisted almost solely on animal fat and protein is partially based on the archaeological record, which is biased toward preservation of faunal (animal) remains rather than floral (plant-based). Historic accounts, while amazingly detailed, are also biased – simply put, Jesuit missionaries and intrepid explorers were looking for differences rather than similarities to their own cultures. Consumption of seal oil and five year old fermented fish heads would certainly turn up on their radar while marine grasses and berries would not! In any case, the Inuit are an extreme example. As a general rule, "primitive" diets become more carbohydrate rich and nutritionally varied the closer you get to the equator. Paleo diet gurus (who often are hawking books and supplements in addition to the diet itself) would like us to believe there are some foods we can't or shouldn't eat, however paleolithic humankind in all its variation is proof positive that we are nothing if not adaptable. Furthermore, these diets, though they claim to be based on current research, are riddled with what I would consider "old school" anthropological thought (optimal foraging theory, for example). Anyway, just some "food" for thought (haha! I'll be here all night!). As 135 touched on, I'm certainly not saying that the Primal/Paleo type diet will not help you feel better, lose weight, or even become healthier (any diet can do that -- just ask a vegan), but the anthropologist in me feels compelled to point out that there's no "one way" we're supposed to eat, feel, or live.

Humans Rejoice!

almeeker

Well put Sailordoom!!! While I'm not an archeologist, I do love a good documentary or book on Paleolithic theory. Whenever I come across a theory on eating "like they did 500 or 5,000 years ago", I think to myself that it may sound plausible on the surface but what to we really know about what they ate? We know about some of the animal bones and/or shells found in trash dump sites and we might find seeds of some sort, but I would bet we can't even begin to fathom many of the foods they ate or the processes by which they prepared them. It's also quite possible they ate things we would be repulsed by like insects, larvae, maybe even dung or toenails. Even in reading accounts of North American settlers, it's very clear they ate seasonally, and rarely consumed enough fruits and vegetables by today's standards.

So like you, I remain somewhat skeptical over the absolute validity of those diets, although I suspect there are good points to all of them. I practice something very simple for choosing the foods we eat, basically if I can grow it, raise it and/or shoot it, there's a good chance it will turn up on our table. However, anything full of sugar, chemicals or ingredients I can't pronounce is out of the question.

midwestj

Amen,

I never bought into any one diet being right or wrong, different strokes for different folks. Keep it simple stupid and restrict your calories!

Lizzycritter

Asking what's the best diet is like asking what's the best religion. You're going to get a lot of passionate responses that will often directly conflict with one another, and no one answer is right or wrong. At the heart of the matter there are some basic truths (on the food side: cook it yourself, avoid chemicals and prepackaged foods, know what you're eating) but in the end it's about individual choice and what works best for you personally.

stamatiaa

...and we know that modern day arctic eat all organ meats…nothing of the seal is left that can be eaten. Moreover, if people couldn’t sustain themselves on the local (seasonal) foods, I can only guess, that they were forced to migrate…again, to the extent possible. As any survivor story can tell, people can subsist on (at best) sub-optimal food for quite some time.

Melfawn

Glad to see there are some people here who actually know the truth about Atkins. Atkins is not the fat soaked, eat a pound of bacon and a dozen eggs for breakfast, diet that the misinformed and media have promoted in the past. Lioness gave a very good overview of Atkins. Our diets are not carb deficient. We're just choosy about which carbs we eat.


I've tried just about every diet out there and was unsuccessful at all of them. I was constantly hungry, headachy, tired and just plain miserable. I also had madly fluctuating blood sugar levels. About 8 years ago I lost 70 pounds on Atkins...and have kept it off. My cholesterol levels went down to normal. My blood sugar levels went from over 400 to about 100...within one month. Once my body rid itself of the carb overload, I had more energy than I knew what to do with and the foggy, constantly fatigued mental state declined.

There is no one right diet for everyone. We each of our own unique needs and it's up to us to find the right diet that works for us and that we can live with for the rest of our lives.

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