First off, the Atkins diet works. Why then does it need to be debunked?
For the same reason the Beverly Hills Diet needed to be debunked, or the all ice cream diet needs to be debunked.
Unbalanced, fad and crash diets give you weight loss at a cost.
The first cost of the Atkins diet is the dannger of poor nutrition, and lower energy levels. Runner’s World conducted a study in their October issue wherein they placed half of a pool of runner’s on the Atkins diet, and at intervals measured their performance on a treadmill against a control group. The Atkins runners reported a lower energy level, didn’t feel as good, and this was confirmed by a degradation in their ability to run. Conclusion, the Atkins diet saps your energy. More important is the danger nutritionally. A high fat diet can severe health consequences long-term, and the long-term effects of the Atkins diet are not known, but based on what we do know about nutrition, they are surely not good.
The diet is nothing new. Back in the 1800s William Banting published a diet pamphlet documenting a new diet he developed with his physician. He cut out all the bread and vegetables, but ate meat and Sherry.
According to Dr. Liz Applegate, who’s made a study of this and other fad diets, the underlying assumption was that Carbs make you fat. This underlying assumption colored nutritional thinking for the next 100 years or so. If you remember looking at old movies or hearing your grandfather tell you about the cholesterol mess that was commonly consumed as a “healthy diet” up until the 1970s you may remember that we Americans aren’t exactly new to the concept of a high fat diet.
In the 1980s some highly publicized and well-documented studies began to teach people that fat was fattening. Gotta cut fat! People started eating more carbs and less fat. And as people sucked down those bagels and fat-free snacks they wondered why they gain weight.
The pendulum had slid the other way.
Now it’s sliding back, and carbs are taking the blame again.
Dr. Applegate says:
Fat has twice as many calories per gram as carbohydrate. The Atkins diet works in spite of this fact because the fats that we eat tend to be more filling and cloying than the carbs we have gotten used to. Sweets and snacks like pretzels and low fat cookies can actually trigger the hunger response becasue they are absorbed so quickly. That hamburger will likely be sitting in your stomach for a long time.
The answer is that not all carbs (just like not all foods,) are good for weight loss. Fruits vegetables and whole grain breads are high in fiber, are not so quickly absorbed and are going to give you that same lasting full feeling as a hamburger.
Not all carbs are equal. Dr. Applegate cites things like white bread, plain pasta, sugary drinks and fat free treats as examples of bad carbs, and vegetables whole grains, beans and fruits as good carbs.
The same is true with high fat foods. Monounsaturated fats like those found in olive oil and fish are good for you. The saturated and trans fats (dairy products, meats, and vegetable oils) that clog your arteries and give you heart disease.
Then too, the Atkins diet works for another reason. The Ice Cream diet factor. Go on an all ice cream diet, and you will lose weight. This will happen because you get sick of ice cream and don’t want it as much.
You get the exact same effect with the Atkins diet and its high-fat content foods.
Dieting alone is rarely a permanent weight loss solution. As one diets one loses fat and muscle mass. At some point one goes off the diet, and now one has less muscle to support. That means when you’re done dieting your body needs less calories to maintain itself than it did when you started. You gain weight easier. Then, of course you diet again. You lose bone density, muscle mass ligature strength, in short, you lose everything with each swing of the crash diet/weight gain pendulum.
The simple fact has been and always remains that calories are what count. To maintain good health and weight one needs a balanced diet. In reality 50-60% of your daily caloric intake should be carb based to keep you healthy. The remaining 40-50% should be from fats and proteins.
Exercise while you diet, and you will build muscle mass initially, maybe even gain weight. However, it quickly becomes a geometric progression that works for you on the loss side.
The more you exercise the more calories you burn, and the more calories it takes to maintain your muscle mass. The stronger you get the more you can exercise in a given time frame, burning more calories still.
It is a hard thing to get started, to exercise when you’re out of shape. It’s an investment that’s worth making though, as when you do start losing weight, that weight loss will tend to be permanent.
The Atkins diet is just another fad, and maybe a very dangerous one.