What is the Atkins' diet?

While most people think of the Atkins' diet as eating just meat, it isn’t at all about eating meat, but rather about cutting back on refined carbohydrates, including white bread, pasta, rice, crackers, snacks, sugary desserts, and more. This nutritional approach to weight loss is designed to prevent blood sugar levels from spiking and causing the overproduction of insulin - a hormone that helps convert carbohydrates to body fat. 

The most well known of low-carbohydrate diets is the Atkins diet. Dr. Robert Atkins was a cardiologist who believed that a diet high in carbohydrates negatively affected people's heart health and weight. So Atkins added high protein to the low-carbohydrate diet and gave it his name. He was a vigorous promoter of this way of eating up until his death. While the Atkins diet does give a feeling of fullness, it's a benefit that doesn't even come close to outweighing the destructive effects of the high-protein/high-fat foods it recommends like red and processed meats and cheese. According to studies, weight loss resulting from the Atkins diet lasts only six months to a year. In addition, it doesn't decrease heart disease. In fact, it can increase low-density lipoproteins (LDLs), which is the bad cholesterol.

The Atkins' diet is perhaps the most famous weight loss diet of all time. It is a high-protein, low-carbohydrate diet developed by Robert Atkins, M.D., during the 1960s. In the early 1990s, Dr. Atkins brought his diet back into the nutrition spotlight with the publication of his best-selling book Dr. Atkins' New Diet Revolution. It is estimated that more than 20 million people worldwide have tried the Atkins' diet, which emphasizes the consumption of protein and fat.

Dr. Robert Atkins' low-carbohydrate diet book has more than 16 million copies in print. This doesn't include all the spin-off books, which total another few million!

Atkins' philosophy is that most carbohydrates are "bad" foods that make you fat. The theory is that by avoiding all carbs, the body turns to body fat as a source of energy, thereby losing fat. You eat meat, poultry, fish, eggs, cheese, butter, cream and almost everything from the protein category. In the initial stages you're asked to eliminate virtually all carbohydrates, including most fruits and some vegetables. You can't have sugar, white flour, other refined carbs or any junk food snacks.

There are four phases in the Atkins program.

Phase One: Induction -- Carbs are limited to 20 grams for two weeks. You're allowed only fish, poultry, eggs, beef and other foods high in protein and with "good" fats, such as olive oil.

Phase Two: Ongoing Weight Loss -- Continue with high quality protein and fat, and each week add back complex carbs, such as berries, nuts, legumes and more veggies. You can usually consume between 40 and 60 carbs per day. If you stop losing weight, you go back to Phase One.

Phase Three: Pre-Maintenance -- Add 10 grams of carbs weekly until you get to a point where you stop losing weight. Reduce the carbs if you want to continue to lose.

Phase Four: Lifetime Maintenance -- Include all complex carbs, but try not to exceed 100 grams of carbohydrates per day. (Most traditional food plans allow up to 300 grams of complex carbs per day.)