Q. Hi I have been on the Atkins diet for 2 weeks now, and I haven't lost any weight yet. I am actually a healthy BMI and I was just checking to see when I will start seeing results. Please let me know and here is my meal plan for today does it seem like I'm doing it right?
Breakfast: 2 eggs 1 slice of bacon and 2 tiny turkey sausages fried in butter
Lunch: Mahi Mahi in butter with homemade tartar sauce (dill pickle, mayonnaise, spices) and small salad with hearts of palm and lettuce with 1 table spoon blue cheese dressing and vinegar
Dinner: Hamburger patty with cheddar cheese or chicken?
A. you don't count fat in the Atkins diet. It's carbohydrates that you need to keep low. Eggs and bacon, fine. Turkey sausages may contain rusk - which is carbohydrate. Don't know what tartar sauce contains but dill pickle MAY have carbohydrate. Mayonnaise with full fat is fine but NOT low or lite versions. Blue cheese dressing MAY contain carbs.
Keep cheese low, some of it can contain carbs.
Any fish, meat, chicken, eggs, fine. Avoid processed meat if possible (that includes bacon and sausages).
Any salad or leafy green veg is fine, Avoid peas, carrots, etc, as they are starchy veg (carbs).
Butter, oil, fat, etc is fine.
My breakfast on Atkins would often be fried eggs, or scrambled eggs or hard boiled eggs, or cold meat from previous day or tuna, or salad or a mixture of these.
Lunch might be similar. Dinner would be some kind of protein with plenty of green veg.
I have provided a link to the Atkins site because they have plenty of info on there.
Make sure you eat PLENTY of fibre and drink PLENTY of water.
A helpful audio book is "The butt stops here: low carb version" by Pam Young. I have provided a link to her free videos that cover low carb
Is the atkins diet good for building muscle?
Q. I'm 5'10" 170 pounds, I'm in good physical shape I'd just like to get more ripped but still keep my weight relatively low (180 pounds at the most) but look much more ripped than I am now. Would the atkins diet be good for this?
A. The Atkins diet is a disaster for someone with your intentions of building lean muscle. It can sap your strength big time and cut into any gains in size that you are trying to make right now. Try to avoid cutting carbs very much when you are trying to build muscle.
What are the effects you experience when you leave the atkins diet and start eating healthily again?
Q. Eating healthy fats,complex carbs,counting your calories and weightliifting regularily again. What happens to your body when you leave atkins?
A. There is no better way to bring the body to the state of optimal health than with a low carb way of eating. Low carb doesn't cause high blood pressure, high blood sugar or high cholesterol, it cures it. It is actually dangerous to take meds that lower these levels and do low carb at the same time because the levels will become dangerously low. Simple carbohydrates trigger insulin. High insulin levels unbalance other hormones. Anything less that 9 grams of carbs per hour controls insulin and is considered low carb (up to 144 grams per day).
U.S. government guidelines were changed 35 years ago to suggest we lower our fat intake & increase our carb intake. American society followed these recommendations & lowered their fat intake by 11% & increased their carb consumption. In this same time frame obesity, diabetes, heart disease are all at epidemic levels. Through their direct effects on insulin & blood sugar, refined carbohydrates are the dietary cause of coronary heart disease & diabetes.
A low carbohydrate diet is a high fat diet. The protein should only be a little higher than adequate. Although it is completely possible to live on a fat/protein only diet for long term (as proven by research done in a hospital setting) it becomes boring fairly quickly. Luckily many vegetables & some fruits, nuts & seeds are low in carbs and greatly expand the diet. Most long term low carbers eat as many, if not more non starchy vegetables than vegetarians.
Glucose is the bodies preferred fuel (if you want to get technical, it actually burns alcohol most efficiently, but that doesn't make it any healthier for the body than carbs), the body can convert 100% of carbs, 58% of protein & 10% of dietary fat into glucose. The body can also be fueled by fat (dietary fat & fat cells) but only in the absence of carbs. Your brain actually prefers* to be fueled by ketones (part of the fat burning process), it does require glucose also, but glucose can be easily converted from excess protein if needed or dietary fat.
Plaque build up in the arteries is more attributable to carb consumption than dietary fats, which seems to be the conclusion of the following study. Carb consumption raises triglycerides & VLDL (bad cholesterol). Fats raise the HDL (good cholesterol). High triglyceride levels (>100) & low HDL levels (<60) are an indicator of plaque & glycation - the precursors to a heart attack & heart disease.
http://heartscanblog.blogspot.com/2009/11/after-eating-effects-carbohydrates-vs.html
study from the Oxford group examining the postprandial (after-eating) effects of a low-fat vs. low-carbohydrate diet. (Roberts R et al, 2008)
Postprandial lipoproteins, you'd think, would be plentiful after ingesting a large quantity of fat, since fat must be absorbed via chylomicrons into the bloodstream. But it's carbohydrates that figure most prominently in determining the pattern and magnitude of postprandial triglycerides and lipoproteins. Much of this effect develops by way of de novo lipogenesis, the generation of new lipoproteins like VLDL after carbohydrate ingestion.
Gary Taubes who wrote "Good Calories, Bad Calories" spent 7 years going through all the studies over the last century & dividing up the real science from the faulty science & concluded that low carb was the best way to control insulin levels which balances out other hormones & allows the body to function properly.
His main points are:
1. Dietary fat, whether saturated or not, is not a cause of obesity, heart disease or any other chronic disease.
2. The problem is refined carbs in diet, their effect on insulin secretion & the hormonal regulation of homeostasis.
3. Sugars - sucrose, high-fructose corn syrup specifically - are particularly harmful, the combination of fructose & glucose simultaneously elevates insulin levels & overload liver with carbs.
4. Through their direct effects on insulin and blood sugar, refined carbs, starches, sugars are the dietary cause of coronary heart disease & diabetes. They are likely dietary causes of cancer, Alzheimer's & other diseases.
5. Obesity is a disorder of excess fat accumulation, not overeating.
6. Consuming excess calories does not cause us to grow fatter.
7. Fattening & obesity are caused by an imbalance in the hormonal regulation of adipose tissue & fat metabolism.
8. Insulin is the primary regulator of fat storage. When insulin levels fall, we release fat from fat tissue.
9. By stimulating insulin secretion, carbs make us fat.
10. By driving fat accumulation, carbs also increase hunger & decrease the amount of energy we expend in metabolism & physical activity.
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