The Atkins diet is really called the Atkins nutritional approach.  It’s a low-carb diet created by Robert Atkins.  He had gained a great deal of weight while he attended medical school.  He read about this diet in the medical journal.  He built on that diet and eventually made it popular.

Dr. Atkins had rather radical theories about the nature of weight gain as expressed in the Atkins diet.  He held that saturated fats weren’t as bad as people claim.  Instead it was carbohydrates that led to the weight problems Americans have.  In Atkins theory eating too little fat make things even worse.  Many low-fat foods are packed with carbohydrates.  Dieters were being tricked into eating foods that would cause them to gain more weight. 

The Atkins diet shifts the focus.  He shifts dieters’ metabolism to burn body fats by cutting out carbohydrates from their diets.  Lose the fat lose the weight.  It’s not just a matter of eating less.  Now it was all about what your diet can help you burn.  In fact Atkins cited a study that claimed the body would burn an extra 950 calories on his diet.  But the claims were not true.

Dr. Atkins also touted the positive influence this Atkins diet could have on people with type 2 diabetes.  Being overweight is generally considered the major cause for type 2 diabetes.  Therefore, by means of losing weight a person on the Atkins diet would be addressing their type 2 diabetes.  Dr. Atkins also said that his Atkins diet would remove the need for medications such as insulin, because it severely cut down on carbohydrates which Atkins claimed were the major cause of type 2 diabetes.  But that’s counter to the prevailing medical theories regarding type 2 diabetes which, although recommending that lowered intake of carbohydrates and weight loss help manage diabetes, ascribe no causal relationship between carbohydrates and type 2 diabetes.

So just how does this Atkins diet work?  It follows four phases – induction, ongoing weight loss, pre-maintenance and lifetime maintenance.  Here are more details of Induction which is the most crucial of the phases.

As the first phase, Induction is the most crucial and most restrictive portion of the Atkins diet.  This phase should be followed for a period of two weeks.  During induction the dieter can consume only about 20 grams of carbohydrates on a day to day basis.  The lack of carbohydrates will prompt the body to convert fat into fatty acids for fuel – a process known as ketosis.  Weight loss during this phase can be extreme – some Atkins followers reported losses of 5-10 pounds a week.

The next three phases of the Atkins diet help establish the levels of carbs people can consume in order to lose weight and to maintain a desired weight.  Millions of people are still losing weight on this diet – but beware the dangers of taking in too much fat.

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