Atkins / South Beach / no carbs /low carbs

commuterised

Is anyone actively following any one of these plans?

There are a lot of people in my workplace following Atkins and a few others doing the rest. I've heard good and bad reports about the level of cholesterol you take in etc and was just wondering what other peoples opinions were.

casper-

I like South Beach ... a bunch of my friends and I did it and everyone lost weight from week one. The kickstart (basically Atkins for the first two weeks) gives you enough encouragement, and the slow re-introduction of other foods doesn't make you feel like you're dieting as much as other plans. Not to mention that for the most part, the logic behind the diet is sound.

tunney

God you people infuriate me. EAT HEALTH, EAT LITTLE, EAT OFTEN AND EXERCISE! Fairly bloody simple.

commuterised

chill out tunney, if you don't like it, then don't bother replying to threads where other people might want to have a discussion about it.
Thanks for the reply jedidjab79.

Big al

I have lost nearly a stone in 3 weeks with atkins so its not that bad

tunney

I was joining in the discussion.

Losing 3 stone is great and all but eating a high fat diet is a recipe for disaster(sorry couldn't resist).

Eating healthy and exercising in the long term is the only guaranteed way not to be a tubby bast^%d and to have a healthy heart. Personally I don't care if ye all do these made diets and ending up dying of heart attacks at 40.

commuterised

you are extremely welcome to join in the discussion but when you start off by telling us we infuriate you just because we are interested in talking about the atkins diet you are bound to get some backs up.
I agree with you that eating healthy, and excersizing are the key ways to loose weight but that doesn't stop me being interested in the alternatives that are out there for short term measures.

tunney

So what happens to an ex-fatty who lost 5 stone on atkins? Does he stay on atkins?(And die of a heart attack) Or does he come off it and back onto his old diet?(And put all the weight back on, and having caused damage by doing the diet) Or does he come off the diet and onto a healthy eating diet and exercising regularly?(Too much like hard work eh?)

Big al

My idea is that i lose 2-3 stone so that i can get down to a weight that i can excerise at!!!

unkel

tunney,

I fully agree with your view on diets, esp. Atkins. I think and hope I will never use a diet. However diets can be useful for some people as long as they know what they are at

If you are obese because of bad diet / no exercise over a long period of time, it might be unwise / unsafe to start rigorous exercising. And to loose the excess weight just by diet would take a very long time. This can be de-motivating as well. Catch 22 situation. If you are obese it might be medically advisable to do any kind of crash diet over a very short period, no matter how unhealthy (Atkins) the diet might be. The idea then is that this should bring the motivation to follow a healthier lifestyle.

tunney

If you are obese chances are its because YOU EAT TOO MUCH. A crash diet need not be an extreme thing such as atkins, jsut eat a normal persons diet. Jesus its all just a subsititute for will-power. (Speaking as an ex-fatty)

marct

I started on a normal healthy diet and regular exercise (mostly cardio) at the start of the year. Since then I have lost 2 stone 3 and visibly put on muscle. Thing is that I had reached a plateau while I was still 1 stone 3 away from my ideal weight. I went on the Atkins for 3 weeks and lost 7 pounds. 'Great' I thought and I do look better but, it was mostly muscle. My point is that you should go into this diet with your eyes wide open:
1. It should be only be viewed as a short term thing.
2. Though you are eating more protein you may lose muscle. When your body stops creating insulin a process called ketosis is initiated which makes your body create energy from other sources besides carbs. Thus this protein gets used up and your body's usual muscle building process does not function as well.

Yoda

If it was "mostly muscle", MarcT, then you weren't doing Atkins properly.

The principles of the Atkins diet are easily explained, but if you don't get the book and actually read it you miss out on a lot of information.

marct

Originally posted by Yoda
If it was "mostly muscle", MarcT, then you weren't doing Atkins properly.

The principles of the Atkins diet are easily explained, but if you don't get the book and actually read it you miss out on a lot of information.

I did get the book and completely understand the principals of the diet. This is what happened in a practical situation with 3 cardio sessions and one anaerobic a week. I knew exactly what I was doing right down to the measurement of the amount of ketosis happening in my body through the use of ketosis strips. BTW This is merely my experience of it and I dont appreciate your insinuation that I was'nt doing it properly.

Yoda

No need to be so tetchy. Muscle loss on the Atkins regimen is unlikely, according to my reading of the book. When in ketosis you should normally be burning only the excess fat, if you are eating according to plan.

tunney

Two years ago I was over 15 stone and a bodyfat% of well over 30%. I changed my eating habits to sensible, healthy normal ones, I changed my inactive lifestyle to a very active one.

I've lost all that weight and bodyfat and since I've gone for a completely lifestyle change I can be fairly sure its not going to come back. And I can I have done untold damage to my system with fad diets.

Wake up, be sensible, change your unhealthy lifestyle to a healthy one, not a more unhealthy one. it will be better for you in the long run.

Yoda

I think the Atkins regimen has been around for some decades. What is so faddish about eating foods that one's body has evolved to eat? Meat, fowl, eggs, fish, veg and fruit in season?

Atkins himself admits that the more extreme levels of the regimen are unbalanced, in order to achieve a particular result; and vitamin supplements are recommended to preserve health during that period.

But our species is 200,000 years old. I'm not saying that the cultivation of wheat is a great evil; indeed without it we would not have civilization. But bread has only been a part of the human diet for 8,000 years or so -- nothing in evolutionary time.

The diet fad most people are living with is the one with the food pyramid saying "eat lots of starch with every meal and very little protein and fat". That, and the litres-of-sugar-water experiment, constitute a fad which has been indulged in for a mere century. And during that century we have seen an unprecedented rise in heart disease and obesity.

tunney

Seeings as this is a discussion about diets and people advocating the Atkins diet, a diet that allows people to lose massive amounts of weight, I am presuming that most of these advocates of Atkins are either (a) ex fatties (b) still fatties and as such wouldn't have the best of experiences with the food pyramind as you say Yoda. And yes there has been an increase in the quantities of water that people are told to drink. But trying to attempt to link the food pyramid and water intake to obseity and heart disease is a bit over the top. If a people does adhere to the food pyramid, and does drink lots of water(but not too much), and DOES EXERCISE they won't require the extremes of Atkins. It is not the food pyramind and waters fault that peoples lifestyles no longer involve exercise - be in the the form of walking to work, sports, or what not, munch constantly on crappy foods and then look to blame someone else, will power is all thats needed not a fad, yes I said fad, diet such as atkins. By all means Yoda if you can't manage your weight via traditional means then do Atkins, but it will always be a subsititute for healthy living. (And don't give me that bull about being the start to a healthy lifestyle)

Yoda

Heh. I'm not a "fattie", actually. I've got about a stone or a bit more of beer-weight accumulated over the past ten years (I'm 40) which I'm now shedding. My lifestyle is more sedentary than it might be, and I'll not try to make excuses for that.

Nevertheless, the "food pyramid" is a modern invention, and it tells people to eat lots of starches and few fats and proteins.

We didn't evolve to eat potatoes, pasta, and bread. Processed wheat products have been available to us for less than eight millennia, and potatoes for only 500 years!

There is a great deal of anecdotal evidence that many fat or obese people have tried, and failed, to lose weight while following the "you are what you eat" theory of metabolism (eating fat makes you fat). Yet these people succeed when they increase fats and decrease carbs.

But I think you make too much of "the extremes" of Atkins. Atkins is "extreme" during the induction phase of the regimen, in order to kick-start ketosis. He's a good deal more balanced otherwise. He bans processed sugar and strongly advises against processed starches of all kinds, particularly where metabolic intolerance or addicition is indicated. But basically he says "eat natural foods". If he inverts the food pyramid, perhaps it's because he discovered that in decades of work with his patients, it's a healthier pyramid than the one you and I were taught about as children.

tunney

Your notions of "you are what you eat" and "not eating fat means not getting fat" are ridiculouos(nearly as bad as my spelling). Of course they don't work, and of course to lose weight you have to reduce the amount of calories you take in. Its common sense that apparently most people do not have.

The food pyramid is a modeern invention, we did not have it centuries ago so lets go back to eating meat only like as ancestors! Yeah thats a GREAT idea, lets all die aged 41!

You say you're not as active as you should be, unles there is a mdeical reason for this inactivity, change it and see how much better you feel (and look).

Yoda

The "you are what you eat" and "if you eat fat, you get fat" isn't my idea. That's what the food-pyramid proponants preach. Atkins demonstrates, convincingly, with reference to metabolic processes and so on, that the pyramid we have been told is healthy is, in fact, not so healthy.

It is, I think, fatuous to suggest that that lower life-expectancy in the past was related to "eating meat only". One should not forget smallpox and other diseases, ignorance of bacteria, and so on.

Anyway, Atkins doesn't suggest that people "eat meat only". He suggests that the epidemic of obesity and heart disease which we have had during the past century is a direct result of the massive increase in sugar intake and in the intake of processed grains and goods made from them, and that a 19th-century diet is healthier than a 20th-century one. Apparently, the classic myocardial infarction wasn't even described in medical literature until a couple of decades after the massive popularity of – believe it or not – Coca Cola had trebled the sugar intake in North America.

The reason I started posting on this forum, by the way, was the thread about the proposed "fat tax" which is, clearly, based on the "you are what you eat" myth.

logic1

Originally posted by tunney
Your notions of "you are what you eat" and "not eating fat means not getting fat" are ridiculouos(nearly as bad as my spelling). Of course they don't work, and of course to lose weight you have to reduce the amount of calories you take in. Its common sense that apparently most people do not have.

You're missing the point and making yourself look like an idiot.

Yoda has stated that many have tried and *failed* to loose weight following the theories of "you are what you eat".

He then goes on to state that people have succeeded in *increasing* efa's and healthy fats and have reduced carb intake essentially going against all the rules of the food pyramid and have lost weight.

He's 100% correct here. You're agreeing with him, you just don't realise it.

Take a deep breath and re-read his posts.

.logic.

tunney

Okay okay, perhaps in a roundable way we are saying the same thing. But I still think that carbs are a necessary part of a diet and that too much fat is bad for you, maybe not fattening but still bad.

For clarity, the food pyramid says eat lots of carbs, and little fat yeah? Surely if this "lots" is a moderate amount and they are unrefined foods then this is the best approach to a healhty lifestyle no?

Yoda

Of course carbs are a necessary part of one's diet. The question is the quantity and quality of the carbs. (That is a different thing from the "unbalanced" reduction of carbs Atkins uses to effect ketogenic weight-loss; but then the weight-gain was probably caused by an "unbalanced" overabundance of carbs in the diet to begin with.)

The traditional food pyramid, though is not based on metabolic reality, and, since a great many people have gained weight while trying to follow it, it needs serious revision.

Here is a link to the USDA Food Guide Pyramid, which is very traditional, and which appears to be, actually, bad for you. And no, Tunney, the "lots" isn't a moderate amount.

On the other hand, Scientific American's New Food Pyramid does try to address the issues. It is probably a better guide for people who are maintaining their ideal weight than the traditional food pyramid, though I would disagree with its "use red meat and butter sparingly" admonishment.

Atkins' regimen or other low-carb regimens, however, remains a superb and proven tool for weight reduction.

tunney

Well then ti seems I was placing too much faith and not enough fact in my understanding of the food pyramind. The best diet advice I read was in Nancy Clarkes book on sports nutrition. "moderation, variety, wholesomeness". Eat in moderation, vary what yuo eat so you don't get bored and binge on bad stuff, and eat unrefined foods wherever possible.

That being said I'm having Eddie Rockets for lunch!!!
(And I can justify it as I'm losing too much weight )

logic1

Originally posted by tunney
Well then ti seems I was placing too much faith and not enough fact in my understanding of the food pyramind. The best diet advice I read was in Nancy Clarkes book on sports nutrition. "moderation, variety, wholesomeness". Eat in moderation, vary what yuo eat so you don't get bored and binge on bad stuff, and eat unrefined foods wherever possible.

It really depends on your goals. For instance I do a bit of weight training and as such my current diet involves eating around 600grms of protein per day.

Now I thought this was a hell of alot until I went to a friends house last week, his brother cooked dinner for the three of us, both of them are powerlifters.

The amount they eat is incredible and both are in great shape.

Basically you can't set down a strict set of guidelines as a "diet" and expect people to follow it and all have the same results.

Certain foods are going to remain bad for you. Processed foods, white bread, white flour, white rice, white pasta etc...

These will all put weight on. But if you're an ectomorph then this foods should form a good part of your diet. If you're an endomorph or insulin sensitive, addictive stay well away.

You really have to formulate something that works well for you, I go moderate EFA's, high protein low carb for the most part.

Atkins does work and I have ran strict atkins for several months but I wouldn't do it again.

For me it gave constant lethargy, weakness in lifts, some confusion, light headedness. My blood work, BP and heart rate were monitored through out and none were anomalous.

I much prefer running a CKD while cutting.

.logic.

Benbaz

Originally posted by Yoda
"you are what you eat"

I eat nuts!!!