Is it just me, or is any one else tired of hearing all this Atkins Diet, and low carb bull-shit? From what I have learned, the key to good health is a BALANCED diet, rather than one that simply leaves out carbohydrates.
i am tired of hearing about....but i know alot of people who have lost a lot of weight becasue of it....these people are not athletes though....carbs are neccesary but you have to know when to eat them and how much.....
It's what's hot, so get used to hearing about it. At least it works for some people. Definately agree with you on the balanced diet thing.
Anything that makes the world in better shape is fine by me.
Both my parents have lost over 30lbs each using the Atkins diet. So to answer your question, no I'm not tired of hearing about it.
My father lost 40lbs on a low carb type diet. Only difference was he ate alot more fish than meat. Loads of veggies. He is 55 and looks great.
my father in law lost a lot of weight on it, I think mostly from simply paying attention to what he eats.
2/3 of adults are overweight. Many people believe that the overabundance of carbohydrates in the diet and a mistaken belief that fats are 'evil' are the cause of this obesity epidemic.
Some individuals are VERY carbohydrate sensitive--i.e., their body doesn't use carbs for energy very efficiently. When carbohydrates are eaten, they induce a powerful hormonal response that results in fat deposition. This is the problem with many people today.
The Atkins diet works for some. I don't believe it to be a good diet for athletes, but it is effective for weight loss. I think that more vegetables should be consumed than prescribed in the Atkins plan, and I also feel that some carbs should be cycled into the diet at key times to maintain certain hormone levels for optimum health. This is my version of a 'balanced' diet.
What do you consider balanced? The RDA recommendation of 60-70% of calories from carbs? If you can stay athletic and slim at this level, you are either young or you have a gifted metabolism (or both). I believe that even the Zone diet at 40% carbohydrate may be too much carbohydrate for some individuals.
Homo sapiens did not evolve eating hundreds upon hundreds of grams of bread, corn, and potatoes every day. Our ancient ancestors ate mainly meat, supplemented by whatever vegetation was available. Cooking was minimal, which would eliminate many carbohydrate foods right off the bat, had they even existed at the time. It may surprise you that most staple crops eaten today are hybrids and did not even exist before the dawn of civilization--and refined, processed sugars are only a couple hundred years old.
If you are able to maintain lean muscle mass, cardio, and strength following whatever your version of a balanced diet is, consider yourself lucky. Most people struggle to do this. Don't be upset with the current low-carb philosophy...it works for many, and it's here to stay.
Exc. point, I also think that the kind of carbs we eat, processed and without fiber, makes it much worse
Polishfighter has tapped the correct in record time. I have been following the Natural Hormonal Enhancement (NHE) diet which is a form of cyclical ketogenic diet (CKD) and it has been very effective. Minimal loss of lean mass combined with lots of fat loss. I was a fat arse before, admitedly, at 22+% bodyfat, but I've dropped that to around 18% in just over 2 weeks while not losing but .2% of my lean mass. I feel great and my lifts have not suffered a bit. There is a 9 day keto period at the start where you minimize carb intake but once you get over that and start with the twice a week carb ups the diet becomes much more manageable. I know it has really forced me to watch what I eat.
Well, I stand corrected. From my own expierences, when I cut back on carbs, I am restless, hyperactive, and it seems like when I eat I cant get full. I understand that everybody's body works differently, but I thought that in general, that cutting carbs out of your diet would lead to complications further down the road.
I just read today that the coroners office in NYC leaked their notes on Atkins after his fatal fall. As many people suspected, the diet can not be proven as beneficial or IMO sensible, in the long-term.
Typically Atkins devotees have maintained that before hedied after a slip on a patch of ice, Dr. Atkins was an example of a healthy person who had been following the diet for an extended period.
Not so it seems, the notes leaked state that Atkins was Clinically Obese with a BMI of 34 and had a whole raft of Heart problems including a history of Myocardial Infarction (Heart Attack)
The Atkins machine is denouncing these leaks as opportunistic and out of context, but wouldn't you if you were making millions out of it...
I'm no Adkins devotee but there are two sides to every story and depending on which news reports you read you can get a very different picture. For example, a story I read today on Adkins death was at the other extreme from what you posted. According to the story, he checked into the hospital near the time of his death at around 195lbs but retained huge amounts of fluids after going into a coma. That is how his weight at death exceeded 255lbs. Furthermore, a diet won't protect you from your genetics or from lack of exercise and I don't think even Adkins devotees argue that it can.
And acutally the notes on his death weren't leaked--they were essentially stolen by a representative of a group of vegetarian-lifestyle-promoting doctors, one of whom called the hospital and represented himself as Adkin's doctor at time of death in order to get his records. Not exactly the picture of innocence there either if you ask me.
I hear that. It may be that the media reports I read were biased to shit. But essentially the picture they gave about the leak was that the notes were passed to the Physician's group 'in error' (right) who then passed them on to the Wall Street Journal.
Re: the fluid retention explanation, I don't buy it personally, but I think to argue about it is pointless as both sides have vested interests and given that there was no post-mortem done it's hard to see either side backing down.
I guess we'll have to wait a couple of years and see if the Atkins devotees keel over or not...
Cilian, the story was released by a 'physicians group' that is actually a front for PETA. their sole agenda is attacking animal-related products. they hate Atkins because it endorses eating meat-just like they attacked Guiliani when he had cancer (they put out a "got cancer" ad with him in it because he had done a "got milk" ad).