High protein and fat, almost no carb intitially.
I can’t read that article without registering on the website. Do you have link to a copy that can be read by people who aren’t registered on nytimes.com?
Please state the daily caloric intake for folks in the “Atkins Diet” group, and for folks in the “AHA Step 1” group, in the study you’ve cited. Please back up these caloric-intake figures with cites to the study or the AP article.
I think you’re confusing milligrams or micrograms or something, cause you can get several times the FDA RDA from a small tablet.
Er… lettuce contains almost no content that you can get energy from, and is extremely low in carbs. You don’t really have carbs that aren’t starches or sugars.
Low carb is perfectly accurately, because food is measured exclusively by it’s carb counts.
There’s “diet” in the sense of “a sudden change in eating habits designed to lose weight” and “diet” in the sense of “eating habits.” I’ve never been on a diet. From what I hear they don’t work. A boyfriend turned me on to eating high-protein low-carb foods. I don’t know about losing weight, but I have more energy and have a better relationship with food. The reason why you stick to it is that you’re eating what your body was craving, so you feel satisfied with less. It’s more like a “diet” in the second sense.
I’m not sure what you’re thinking. Endurance excercise exhausts all of the glycogen (if that’s the right term) in your muscles in a while, and then you switch over to burning fat for energy anyway.
With Atkins, there’s no “switch over”, and you just start burning fat from the beginning. It also MAJORLY takes away feelings of soreness - both because your body is getting the right fuel, and because one of the chemical byproducts of the process by which muscles burn glyocgen releases something that stimulates the feeling of being sore.
That was a long sentence.
In my experience, I have extremely improved endurance during excercises - I did really high intensity workouts that would’ve killed me on a high carb diet - doing a set with heavy weights, then immeadiately hopping on a treadmill for 5 minutes, then another set with another muscle group, hopping on the stairmaster for 5 minutes, and basically running at 100% for over an hour.
This is called Ketosis, and is a natural part of fat metabolism. There’s an argument that all the ketones in the blood strain the kidneys, but I’ve read that generally speaking, it’s only a worry with people that already have kidney problems. As far as the actual PH change, I haven’t heard anything negative about it, and I’ve read a decent bit.
Wouldn’t that mean, though, doing without a lot of grains like breads and pastas, oatmeal, rice, things like that?
They didn’t track the calories, or if they did, they didn’t say what they were. However, they did say that the diet of the Atkins group was extremely high in fat, and since fat is more than double the calories of protein or carb, diets high in fat tend to be high in calories.
There are many Atkins dieters reporting weight loss with calories as high as 4,000 per day. That doesn’t really work for me, but the fact that it does for anyone says something about the biochemistry of the diet and why it works.
I know that for myself, I don’t lose an ounce cutting fat and calories until I cut them to a painful and intolerable 1200-1300 or less. But I lose easily on extremely restricted carbs eating as much as 2800 a day (usually 2000 to 2200), and I’m very satisfied, so it is easy to stick with.
And that is the crucial component of any weight loss plan. It HAS to be sustainable, and in order to be sustainable, it has to be satisfying and pleasing. Steak, roasted chicken with skin, cheese, eggs and bacon, real cream, salad with real dressing, butter, nuts, tuna with mayo, are all extremely satisfying and pleasing to the palate. Rice cakes, fat free dressing, naked potatoes and meatless, fatless pasta dishes simply are not for most people and have proven to be unsustainable over the long haul for most people.
I have to laugh when people who do not have significant problems maintaining a healthy weight turn to the morbidly obese and tell them they just have to learn to live with hunger and unsatisfying food for the rest of their lives. Oh is THAT all? Hey! No sweat! Who cares about food?
:rolleyes:
Oh, and the article was pulled straight off the AP and widely reported, so I’m sure you can google it, or try NBC, CNN, etc.
Bull!
soreness is caused by anaerobic respiration. thats when you work out and you don’t get enough oxygen to the muscles. At this point glucose is broken down and instead of entering the kreb cycle and from there the electron transport chain in the mitochondria it gets turned into lactic acid. Lactic acid is the stuff that makes your muscles sore.
a fat metabolism breaks down fats into a glucose derivative which then goes through the entire process of glycolysis–>Kreb cycle --> electron transport chain.
Diet shouldn’t make any difference whatsoever when working out.
I ask, do you stretch after you work out? Stretching is supposed to do something that lets lactic acid leak out of your cells and into the blood stream where the kidney/liver will filter then out of the blood. That will reduce your soreness alot.
People aren’t drying in droves. you’re probably right.
You are correct he didn’t quite have it right.
Unfortunately fat metabolism is not as quick as carbs. If you read the atkins materials they DO NOT reccommend strenuous exercise. You Blood sugar levels will fall like a stone and you could pass out. If you are very active/athletic you probably do not need atkins. It was originally designed for recovering heart patients and or serious diabetics who may not be able to exercise due to other health problems.
As far as ketone levels go grab a pack of Ketostix ketostix My RN wife has no problem with me being on atkins as long as my ketones to not exceed 13 on the little chart on the bottle. Apparently that is the top end of okey dokey ketone levels for blood work. I have problems staying above 5 so no problems. If you see a 15-20 it might be a good thing to have a bit of bread with dinner or something.
You obviously have better general biochemistry knowledge than me, so I’ll yield to your judgement on this. However, I can tell you that from my experience, I did things that would make me incredibly sore the next day had I been following a normal diet that had almost no effect on me when I was low carbing.
It could just have to do with the body performing much better on the fuel it wants, I guess. But I know it was very clear in my experience that the soreness was drastically reduced.
And I generally stretch before workouts, not after.
Btw, I didn’t take the “muscles running on fat” thing from Atkins’ book or anything like that. I’m piecing it together from some very basic biology that I learned a while back - so the error was mine completely.
I was talking about multiple hour runs and bike rides. The type of things they sell Gu to get you through. Now seeing the second page, it looks like drachillix answered my question.
Actually, having read drachillix’s post there still might be a biochemical reason for why you get less sore. the breakdown of fat into a gluclose derivative is obviously going to be slower from straight-carb(glucose) to glucose derivative. The slower reaction rate would mean you have more time to replenish Oxygen and therefore create less lactic acid. The flip side being of course that it would be metabolicly impossible to sustain strenuous exercise.
Anybody got a metabolic chart and hold an advanced degree in biochemistry? =)
I’m pretty sure it’s best to do both before and after, just don’t overstretch.
just thought of something… It might just because you’ve been working out for a while and got a better cardiovascular system. =)
However drachillix is right. Should fat metabolism be slower then carb metabolism, I can easily see how one could pass out from strenuous exercise.
Uh… Then what’s this “3%” it lists per pill on my bottle of potassium supplements?
OK, I’m with Scylla on this one.
Background: My sister was modestly successful on Atkins–13lbs lost in 2 weeks, 7 more over several months, none gained back after a year. I tried it, and lost 1 lb in 2 weeks and was miserable. Also, since my thyroid went poof, I have had trouble that I can’t believe I am mentioning on a public message board, and I found the diet intolerably constipating. Laugh, but it’s awful.
Here’s why I think so many people are having success with Atkins:
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Most mindless snacking is carb-based. Pretzels, potato chips, and popcorn are all gone with the diet. Most people don’t sit and munch huge quantities of bologna or cheese, so the snack calories go down.
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When my sister goes to a restaurant, she orders whatever she likes, and leaves the bread and half of the potatoes. She used to eat everything on her plate. Those who eat out often (say, lunch every business day) may find that they are eating much less (weekly) than they used to, because they are now leaving on the plate food that they used to eat.
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Protein makes you full. I myself find it easier to overeat candy and cookies than anything else. Could be because I like those things, but I like steak too and I can’t imagine plowing through a pound of it in one sitting. But a box of unguarded cookies during one work shift? Easy!
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Treats brought into work, even (especially?) Krispy Kremes, are verboten. I don’t know anyone who is nice enough to bring shrimp in for the staff.
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Many pre-packaged foods are verboten. Most Atkin successes I know started cooking more of their own food, thereby controlling portions, quality, and ingredients. Better all around.
…bottom line…I think Scylla is right, and I’m surprised that Dr. Atkins doesn’t emphasize this in his book. The metabolic basis for weight loss may be what he says it is (although it didn’t do anything for me, or a couple of my pals) but I suspect that the biggest reason for Atkins success is simply that most people on it are eating a lot less food than they used to. I was having a great time with the bacon, I don’t eat out often, I snacked on Atkins-approved chocolates, and I cook my own food anyway, so I didn’t lose any weight.
I do think that it is great for a lot of people, but it’s really not for everyone. (I’m proof.)
Random RDA chart I pulled from google.
Says 2g is the RDA - and I went to check my pills just a minute ago - 99mg each in a very small tablet. It would seem unlikely that your pills have 6 mg of potassium each.