roadiem's Full Review: Robert C. Atkins M.D. - Dr. Atkins New Diet Revolu...
DON'T TRY THIS DIET AT HOME: Plus a slight disclaimer.
Let me first say that the heading on this epinion may be somewhat misleading since I have never dieted, but friends and family who have used this diet have. And as an athlete amd someone with a better than average understanding of how the human body works I can safely say from my research and from experience with friends and family whom have tried this and other low carb high protein diets that entry into this area can be very dangerous.
First off when most people bite the bullet and decide to lose some extra pounds, the first thing most individuals want to see is some miracle cure to shed weight quickly. Something with low or no effort and something easy. While this is an admirable undertaking, getting healthy, how long did it take to put the weight on ? Probably years, so reasonably speaking it should take a while to safely lose what it took so long to put on.
Anything you read from dietitians and other medically trained personnel will tell you to eat balanced meals and get exercise every day. If you are confining yourself to only certain types of foods and eliminating, or at least drastically reducing other types you are creating an imbalance in your system, one that can cause any number of medical problems or difficulties especially in the long run. Really, just ponder the reasonableness of this. Eliminating certain foods and over eating some others just does not even sound right.
When you are looking into any type of diet and you come across this Atkins diet or the Zone diet or any type of imbalanced diet the first thing many people say is "this just doesn't sound right". And they are right. Though rapid initial weight loss is evident, it is not from the right places.
So why is the Atkins diet so popular? It's followers defend it vehemently, largely because they find the rapid weight loss irresistible. Like most low carbohydrate diets, however, a great deal of the weight loss is dehydration. Ordinarily, three grams of water are stored with every gram of carbohydrates in the form of glycogen in the liver and skeletal muscles. When this is sharply limited, the desperate dieters think they are losing up to a pound of fat a day. It's also low in calories (about 1,700), causing the unhealthy depletion of lean body mass along with the minimal fat loss.
I'm no scientist, and as such don't have the resources to compile this data, but do understand its repercussions. So here's some technical data garnered from the web*:
Without careful monitoring, this type of diet may lead to "ketosis" (an unnatural form of acidosis), which often causes some degree of anorexia and even euphoria. Sears, ( the author of the Zone diet) denies that this happens with the amount of carbohydrates he allows. However, Dr. Atkins, considers ketosis to be a useful and necessary state. If ketosis sounds familiar, it's also the result when insulin-dependent diabetics can't metabolize carbohydrates without their insulin injections, a state leading up to diabetic coma. These are referred to as "the make yourself sick diets," because they simulate metabolic changes that take place during illness, ketosis is a natural state that occurs when people are sick, a time when they shouldn't be gathering and preparing food, but rather recuperating.
Protein is metabolized by the liver and excreted by the kidneys into the urine. A high protein load causes damage to these organs. By the eighth decade of life people in affluent societies commonly lose about 30 percent of their kidney function (J Gerentol 31:155, 1976). This loss is believed to be secondary to overwork of the kidneys caused by the amount of protein typically consumed on the American diet, 12% to 15% protein (N Engl J Med 307:652, 1982). The Atkins diet recommends 30% protein, and even more protein is found in other high-protein diets. Low protein diets (4% to 8%) are used routinely to treat patients with liver and kidney failure.
High protein diets cause serious metabolic changes that lead to bone loss and kidney stones. Red meat, poultry, fish, shellfish, and eggs are acidic in make up. Vegetable foods are alkaline by nature. The body guards its acid-base balance (pH) carefully so that all of the pH-dependent biochemical reactions take place normally. The dietary-derived acid load from high-protein animal foods must be buffered. The primary buffering system of the body is the bones which dissolve for that purpose into phosphates and calcium. The alkaline phosphate then buffers the animal-food derived acid. This is the first step in bone loss that leads to osteoporosis. The second step leading to osteoporosis consists of changes in kidney physiology caused by the acid, the sulfa containing amino acids (plentiful in meat), and the increased solute load, all resulting in a loss of large amounts of bone material, including calcium, into the urine. The presence of this bone material in the kidney system also lays the foundation for calcium-based kidney stones."
Now some more personal info:
There is also much more info you can find in your public library or even on the internet on the wrongs this type of diet can do to your body physically. Liver damage is another major factor involved in this high protein type diet, so be very careful my friends of any kind of diet where it promises rapid weight loss in a low or no effort manner. Our parents always told us anything worth having is worth working hard for. This is no different, un-doing what has taken years to do will take some hard work, but the rewards will be far better physically and mentally if we earn it the hard and proper way.
I have seen firsthand some of the things mentioned here as far as bad results go and it should never happen to you. One other thing is the fact that every body I have talked to just can not stay on these type of diets very long. All that red meat and protein makes them just sick of eating this way, and their bodies also start to rebel telling them they need proper nutrition. Oh don't get me wrong, initially the weight comes off, but in the long run your metabolism will change and when the time comes to eat correctly once again it will be a shock to your system, and the weight will return if not monitored correctly.
Do some deep research on this subject, hopefully this is where you start. I would never want to see any body harm themself for the sake of losing weight to look good for that wedding you're going to, or for a better impression at the beach. There will be other weddings, and there will always be next year for the beach, make a goal and stick to it. In the long run is where the payoff is.
My advice to you is a completely healthy diet with balanced amounts of the right kinds of foods, eaten in moderation with plenty of exercise as your topping. Not only will your body get all the proper nutrition it needs and deserves, but your mental health will be pampered as well. It will take longer to lose that weight, but it will be gone for good, and your new body will be in concert with your new lifestyle, with the total being more valuable than the sum of all it's parts.
P.S. don't mind the cat calls from the crew standing on the sidewalk, it's just a benefit of all that hard work.
P.S to the P.S. Dr. Atkins and Dr. Sears are both overweight, if they are the experts why don't they look the part ?
*Technical information *borrowed" from "The McDougall Newsletter" with full permission from the author, and can be viewed at http://www.kua.net/~haselden/page51b.html
Personal info my own, my wifes, and friends and family.
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