What is the Atkins Diet?

Are you overweight? Are you planning to diet? Then you can eat eggs (with the yolk) steak, bacon, food added with cheddar cheese, food cooked in butter, cream soup and off course top up your food with real cream. Can’t believe what you are reading? I know you are surprised. Including rich food in your diet is something no dieter can think of. Well this type of rich food is included in Atkins diet.

Low carbohydrates
The Atkins diet, gives importance on a low carbohydrate diet. This diet promises you weight loss and a better health. According to Dr. Atkins, overweight is due to too much of carbohydrates. Our body burns fat and carbohydrates as fuel. When you consume too much carbohydrates, you body will burn only this carbohydrate. If you reduce carbohydrates, your body will look out for fat stored in the body, thereby helping you to reduce weight. Not only that, when you consume too much carbohydrates, the body will burn only what it requires, and the extra carbohydrate remains in your body and is stored as fat. This will make you gain weight. So when you eat a low carb, more protein diet, the body will seek out the stored fat as energy. This means the body burns its own fat as fuel.

Controls sugar level
Too much carbohydrate also increases your blood sugar level. When you consume too much carbs, the sugar in it enters your body. The insulin in your body stores this sugar in your liver and muscle as glycogen. The extra sugar is converted into fat and stored in your body, making you gain weight. Not only that, when the sugar does not response to insulin, it will cause diabetes. Diabetes makes you hungrier and this means more calorie intake.

Four phases
There are four phases in Atkins diet. The first phase is the induction phase where you are allowed to eat only 20 grams of carbohydrate per day. You food consists of salad and non-starchy vegetables. In the second phase carbohydrate in increased to 25 grams with foods rich in fiber. In this phase each week carbohydrate is increased by 5 grams. This goes on until your body stops losing weight. The third phase changes from weight loss to weight maintenance. You will increase carbohydrates by 10 grams every week, as long as you don’t gain weight. In the fourth phase you can select from a variety of foods, keeping your weight down. The foods you can eat in Atkins diet are low-carbs vegetables, egg, fish, poultry and red meats.

Benefits and drawbacks of Atkins diet
The benefits of Atkins diet are Weight loss, weight maintenance, intake of proteins and fats intake of low calories, and prevention of diabetes. The drawbacks of Atkins diet are consumption of low carbs, high protein and high saturated fats can cause heart diseases, intense restriction and limited choice of food, and side effects like headaches and nausea, drop in the level of good cholesterol.

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